[David Sklansky]

I'm not advocating this change. I'm just putting it up here so that if the change is ever made, I might get credit for the idea.

Which is to eliminate the antes. As it is now, preflop expertise, especially preflop aggression, is the most important attribute a tournament player can have. Unless it is early in the tournament or he is playing a big stack against another one.

The reason is mathematical. Assume that the blinds are 200-400 in a ten handed game with no ante. Making it 1200 means you are laying 2-1 and giving the big blind two and a quarter to one odds. Add a fifty dollar ante and you are almost getting even money on the steal. You raise the odds offered the big blind but not by enough to matter much if he has a decent stack yet to be played. In other words frequent small preflop raises are a MAJOR part of the present day tournament pros arsenal.

This is even more true when your stack is low. Suppose in the situations above you have 5K and a hand that you are considering pushing with. Say you think that it will win if called, a third of the time. If there is no ante you need to get away with this move about 70% of the time. With the ante its only a little over half.

There are other reasons as well. In any case, those who are clamoring for no limit to be replaced by pot limit should change their focus to the more doable goal of having at least some no limit tournaments eliminate all antes.