This business of adjusting to the ante structure

[SGspecial]

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Thus, how your opponents play is more important in determining how you should play than the game's structure.

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Confucius say "When going to pond with many fish, size of bait not matter. When only one fish to be found, bring biggest worm."

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Ok, upon rereading this comment I realize I may have been somewhat insensitive to those of Chinese ancestry. If so, please realize that I simply meant to make a concise point and meant no offense. Flame away if you so choose [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[daveT]

I think that in the games that are bieng discussd, we should further break this down to two different kinds of games. Show-down, and no showdown.

Obv, in the higher limits, we are looking at a no showdown game, so it would probably behoove the good player to play in the higher ante, as steeling them becomes more correct.

But to discuss this further, I would like to compare more extremes. Consider Live 1/2 and OL 1/2.

OL has a .25 ante and a .50 brind in. Live has a .50 ante and a .50 bring in comparing 8 hands I am implying one rotation where every thing is equal. You win one hand, you bring in once, and you ante 8 times.

OL equals 2.50 in total antes.
Live equal 4.50 in total antes.

Other features are inherent in a smaller game like this. The main being that you are pretty much forced to showdown the best hand. You going to face more completions. You will have to raise more often. Already, here we are guaranteed a 9-1 odds in the live structure. Thinking that maybe five players to each hand with one completion bieng typical, I am now going to be recieving 9.5-1 odds if the bring-in folds. Incidently, I am recieving better odds. Also note that I am now pretty much obligated to seeing fifth street no matter what comes my way, as I would be getting 14-1 odds.

Incedentally, as the pot gets bigger the high pairs drop dramatically in value. If I raise with my Aces, I am not going to convince many players to fold. Now, if Ithink about this from a TOP stand-point, I am supposed to be glad that they called, but the reality is that I am not. Although I may have the best hand right now, my opponents are definitely going to have better multi-way pot hands such as straight or flushes.

Compare this to the 1/2 OL game where I am recieving a 10-1 immediate odds to call, but the difference may be here that now I am looking a 3 players instead of five, and probably are only raising with the stuff the book says to raise with. So, now with me calling a completion, I am recieving about 3.8-1 to call, a dramatic difference. I this game, I clearly want my opposition to call with good multi-way hands because they are getting priced out, and I am getting the better of them.

So, in all, the more players there are, the better odds you get, the less the worst you get, The above example dictates I sould be more inclined to loosen up at a loose table and play tighter at a tight table, this is implyig showdown, of coarse.

If the OL game had a .10 ante with a .25 ante, then the oddds would dramatically swing to playing tighter still, if you know that there will always be a completion. Now I am getting about 2.1-1 odds on my call of a completion, I think that this reflects the higher stakes games.

What's interesting to note in the three above examples, is that the smaller ante games have less deviation from each other than does the small to highest ante game. I think that most of the critical desisions are pronounced on fourth street, and so on. The trend dictates that the lower the ante, the more severe each mistake becomes on each progressive street. The higher ante dictates less folding on later streets.

[stinkpaw]

Wow, this thread is great for a Stud newbie like me. I have a problem regarding structure and antes that I hope you guys can shed some light on.

In the 3 casinos near me, there is only 1 Stud TABLE. They game is almost always $1-$5 spread limit with a $1 ante.

I have no idea how to adjust for that.

First, the antes seem ridiculously high, so common wisdom says you can play more hands since you have more $$ in the pot.

But, with the antes being high, even you bet out on 3rd and 4th with a good but not great made hand (say Kings) that wants to play heads up, the pot is going to be so big and the limits don’t double on the later streets so villains are going to be correct calling you down all the way and most likely your Kings are going to have problems.

So, do you toss good but not great starting hands that wont play well in multi-way pots? In particular do you toss big pairs and now only play rolled up, 3 straights, and 3 flushes? Tightening up doesn’t seem right with the antes so high. And paying since we are paying $9 for every 8 hands we get dealt, we are going to watch our stack dwindle while we patently wait for a hand we can play.

What am I missing? Thanks in advance for your help!

[PoorLawyer]

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Wow, this thread is great for a Stud newbie like me. I have a problem regarding structure and antes that I hope you guys can shed some light on.

In the 3 casinos near me, there is only 1 Stud TABLE. They game is almost always $1-$5 spread limit with a $1 ante.

I have no idea how to adjust for that.

First, the antes seem ridiculously high, so common wisdom says you can play more hands since you have more $$ in the pot.

But, with the antes being high, even you bet out on 3rd and 4th with a good but not great made hand (say Kings) that wants to play heads up, the pot is going to be so big and the limits don’t double on the later streets so villains are going to be correct calling you down all the way and most likely your Kings are going to have problems.

So, do you toss good but not great starting hands that wont play well in multi-way pots? In particular do you toss big pairs and now only play rolled up, 3 straights, and 3 flushes? Tightening up doesn’t seem right with the antes so high. And paying since we are paying $9 for every 8 hands we get dealt, we are going to watch our stack dwindle while we patently wait for a hand we can play.

What am I missing? Thanks in advance for your help!

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I've played in a similar game at Seneca Niagara. I dont think you can tighten up as you said. The ante is ridiculous and widdles away at your stack quickly and it is tough to keep your head above water in this game. That being said, unlike a normal 1-5 game, I dont think you want to be trapping, you want to take down pots. Of course, that is harder since everyone else needs to play more hands to stay afloat and they are often getting correct odds even when you raise. The ideal situation here is to make people face as large a bet as possible and just take down the pot. Whereas in a normal no ante 1-5 you may just make it $3 or something to get a couple customers, here there is 9 bucks in the pot to start so you want to play your hands fast. Best case, if someone bets in front of you, just jack it up...most people will actually fold if they are facing an 8-10 dollar bet that might play for 5. If you have a modest hand like a hidden pair or mid split pair, you have to get in there and try to hit your trips. You want to do this cheaply if possible...if you can get them by 5th you will usually have a lot of action the rest of the way. Hands like 3 flushes in this game are probably better than a pair of tens because you almost always have the odds to draw and will win a huge pot when you hit...conversely, your tens are going to get run down a majority of the time.

[Andy B]

If you can steal those antes, by all means do so. At this level, I'm guessing that you'll almost never be able to, though. Even if you can't knock people out when you raise with a big pair, there is value in getting more money in with the best hand. Even though it may not seem like it, Aces-up is going to win more than it's fair share of multi-way pots.

A couple of recommendations: never slow-play anything, except maybe quads. This isn't even like a structured limit game where you can collect bigger bets on the later streets. The bets are only going to be $5, so you might as well bet early and often. You should also bet the hell out of big draws--live flush draws, even very live open-ended straight draws.

[Red_Diamond]

Let's assume we are playing a .25-.50-1-2 structure game. I'm curious what would be considereed the acceptable on-line variance per session. I find myself swinging often from 25 to 50 big bets at these LOTTERY fests. While I'm sure this decreases at the higher stakes, I'm curious if my numbers still seem far too out of line here.