The Big Blind/Button Ante is easy to implement
After seeing it first hand, Barry Carter thinks that the new system of posting Antes should be easy for players of all levels to adopt.
Last week the World Series of Poker announced that their High Roller events this year would include a Shot Clock and a Big Blind Ante (Something I predicted at the start of the year, last time I mention that, honest), both in a move to speed up the game. I’ve written at length about the benefits of Shot Clocks before but while I have understood the benefits of a Big Blind Ante, I had not experienced them first hand, until now.
The Big Blind Ante or Button Ante is a live poker system where the Big Blind or Button also posts all the Antes for the table. For simplicities sake it is usually just the same amount as the Big Blind. So if the blinds previously would be 200/400 with a 25 Ante, the new version would be 200/400 and the Big Blind or Button posts another 400. While that sucks in the moment for the person posting, in a standard orbit everyone has posted the same amount as they would have.
Whether it is a Big Blind Ante or a Button Ante is not very important, there are some occasional differences, like in ‘Dead Button’ situations, but 99% of the time the outcome is the same.
Speeding up the game
The reason for this new system is to cut down on work for the dealer and table, so everyone can play more hands. In hindsight it is amazing it took this long to implement because it is actually a lot of work for the dealer to get change from everyone at the table.
It is also equally as time consuming (more so maybe) to have to keep reminding players to post their Antes every hand, especially if they are distracted by their phone. Then you have the annoying situations where an Ante is missing and everyone is retracing their steps trying to work out who forgot.
I’m delighted to see the WSOP implement this system as a lot of poker tours already are, but was surprised it hasn’t been extended beyond the High Rollers. I asked around (Not with the WSOP, but the overall poker community) and the assumption seemed to be that lower stakes recreational players would need to be slowly eased into the new system and may not understand it, at first.
A seamless integration
I probably would have come to such a conclusion myself, had it not been for the fact that my local card room has been doing it for a couple of months without issue. This is the Genting Casino in Sheffield, UK, which is a pretty well organised card room, but by no means special, the regulars there are like the regulars I have encountered all over the world.
I played there last weekend and the implementation of the Button Ante was seamless. In fact if anything it was more ‘automatic’ for players to post the Button Ante than the regular Blinds because they had the Button itself placed in front of them as a prompt.
The impact on the game was tremendous. At the first table I had played at we had completed an orbit in no time at all, I had to look at the clock to make sure I wasn’t imagining it (It was a barely ten minutes at an eight handed table). It turned out that I was at a very fast table and when I was moved to the next one, things slowed down a little, but it was still noticeably faster.
The action was clearly faster and it felt like there were just less instances where the players and dealers had to retrace their steps when something deviated from the norm. There will be teething problems and hopefully we won’t get too bogged down in the debate of ‘Button Ante vs Big Blind Ante’, but if the regulars at my local £50 freezeout can do it, so can all the major tours around the world.
Have you played with a Big Blind or Button Ante? How easy was it to implement? Let us know in the comments:
