Most tournament players are used to the blinds constantly escalating throughout their run on a tournament, with ante introduced later into the tournament. But, what would you do if you played in a tournament where the blinds never increased, but the antes started right off the bat and constantly increased? It sounds like an incredibly strange concept, and it is; but it’s one that PokerStars has taken off on, with the introduction of new “Ante Up!” tournaments on site! Don’t expect these tournaments at your local casino – while you may get casino comps whenever you ask, you won’t be able to convince them to introduce a structure as wacky as this one.

So, how’s do the tournaments work? The blinds will stay constant throughout the tournament; always t5/t5, and the ante begins at level one, at t10. The first thing you should immediately notice is how much shorter you start these tournaments than you would a normal MTT tournament; with t1,500 in a normal t10/t20 blind structure, you start out with an M of 50, a nice, comfortable start. In the Ante Up structure, the pot starts out at t100; even though you start with t2,000 in these tournaments, your M is actually slashed down to just 20 to start; and the ante doubles after the first level! That means that you should be prepared to play fast and aggressively throughout the tournament; and realize that no single position now has more of an investment than the others (you can essentially discount the blinds) meaning stealing in position gains in power; the opponents remaining in the hand have exactly as much invested into the hand as you do, meaning that they have less of a reason to defend or resteal from you than they would if they were the big blind in a blind/ante style tournament, where they have much more of a current investment in the hand.

It also means that, if you have a speculative hand in position, it is NEVER wrong to limp and attempt to see a flop for t5 if you don’t think a raise would work. This line is basically free poker money if your opponents let you get away with it. Late in the tournament, some people forget that they can potentially see a flop for t5 and fold hands like 67h, 22, and other speculative hands that in normal tournament, would be worth a fold. If you think you can see a flop for t5 when the ante is t500, by all means, try it! And if players begin to attack your limps with the speculative hands, start to mix in some monsters; it becomes pretty expensive after the middle stages of the tournament to raise, so you can effectively trap a play for their stack by limp/shoving.

When you do have a hand worth raising, though, how much should you raise? Think about it like this. In a t100/t200/t25 blind structure, you would normally open to t500, almost the entire pot. The same logic is pretty sound in the Ante Up tournament; my open would be for something between 60-90% of the pot, depending on position; this may seem a bit irregular to some players, but it’s the proper way to defend your hand against your opponents in this structure; less makes it too inviting to take flops with the huge amount in the pot preflop, and mroe is a wasteful risk; many times, if you overbet the pot, you’ll only get action via an all-in, as remember; you’re starting out shorter than in a standard tournament.