How Much Do the Antes Affect Your Decision Preflop?

[ShannonShorr]

**Disclaimer** This post might be more suitable for P5s.

This probably seems like a very beginner-ish question. It may've been mentioned before, but I'm interested in hearing how some of you young MTTers feel about it. Obviously there are going to be spots where you'd shove into a total nit's BB but wouldn't against a calling-station fish with a big calling range. I think this is a topic that deserves a lot of discussion because people make lots of mistakes by not shoving +EV spots and shoving -EV spots.

I built my bankroll by playing SnGs back in the day at party, so I'm pretty familiar with ICM. My question is this: How much do the antes (making bigger effective big blinds) change your decision in shove spots. I understand that the antes are significantly smaller online than they are live, too. For example: Say we are playing 2500/5000 (400) live 9 handed. Let's say we have 68,000T. If there were no antes and it was unopened to us on the button with K6dd. Shoving 13.6 BBs is definitely spewy. However, with the antes the blinds are effectively playing 3700/7400, right? This seems like a shove spot to me, now, right? What I want to know is if you guys are creating these "effective" big blinds. If not, is there formula (besides Harrington's M) that I'm in the dark about. This is just one example. There are hundreds of interesting spots, especially from the cutoff, hijack, UTG and SB that I'd like to talk about in the future.

SS

[betgo]

The antes make are huge difference, particularly live where there can be 3-3.5xBB in preflop, but even the 2.4xBB you describe. A small online ante where there is 2xBB in preflop is less important. An ante or a large ante means you can be much looser in what you can open push, and you can sometimes overbet push as you suggest.

[betgo]

For example, UTG with 10xBB and no ante, AJo is not a push and generally a fold. In fact, you can push about 7% of your hands. With an ante like 300/600/100, you can push about 25% of your hands UTG with 10xBB.