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Old 02-27-2007, 01:46 PM
electrical electrical is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: chicago
Posts: 650
Default Re: This business of adjusting to the ante structure

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Unfortunately King, this whole thread seems do be an issue of "semantics". No rational player would claim that the size of the antes shouldn't change your strategy AT ALL early in hands, but most of the disagreement is on the DEGREE of difference. I like the way you look at the situation, since your pot odds (or more specifically your implied pot odds) always tell you if you're getting the right price or not. The larger the pot, the more correct it is to chase if you think you don't have the best hand, or to raise out possible chasers if you think you may have the best hand.

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The conversation I tried to start with my odds post above is not part of a semantic dispute. Third street simply plays differently in different structures. That's it.

Completing to drive out players behind you (probably the most fundamental Third-street tool) is not necessarily either effective or a good idea if you can't offer them worse odds than they need to continue, and that is the case in one of the games I described. Later in the hand bets and raises will have more of an effect (in the sense that they have the potential to create opponent mistakes), and those streets play very much the same in all common structures.

When the discussion centers exclusively on the couple of chips you have to throw in every round as antes, it misses the principle distinction between the games. Playing a hand (one you shouldn't play) as far as Fifth street in either game is a money cost that outweighs the ante cost of folding a few extra hands an hour, and the idea that one or the other game should be played more loosely than the other on all streets is a mistake.

Each street needs to be played according to the money in the pot and the effect your bets will have on your opponents. The different structures change this effect radically on third street, but after that, you have to count the money and play the man.
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