Casino & Cardroom Poker 2025 Low Content / Chat thread

When dealing for the button (for example), we use suits in reverse alphabetical order to break ties--spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs.

Occurred to me the other day--I wonder if casinos in non-English speaking places use the same construct, or use the local suit names.

I'd say so. Bridge value suits.

My understanding is the reverse alphabetical order is just a quirk of English. The suits originally represented by class Spades=royalty, Hearts=clergy, Diamonds=merchants and Clubs=peasants. If that is true, the order based on the classes represented then the local spelling should not matter.

Tournament with big blind antes. BB doesn't have enough to cover both. What gets paid first? 200bb 100 ante? Or 100bb 200 ante? I recently played some tourneys after not doing so for some time. The cardroom did it opposite way I thought was correct. So I need a check on my memory.

Tda:
RP-11: Ante Formats and No Ante Reduction
If a single-payer ante is used, the big blind ante format (BBA) with big-blind-first calculation is recommended.

TDA changed the big blind ante rules a few years ago after the players demanded it. The big blind gets paid first, and any leftover money goes to the ante.

The TDA change actually just happened in the last few months. Most rooms are likely switched over, but some might still be using ante first.

I feel like the inconsistency was the worst part before the change. Players would play in a new room and assume it was blind first like their old room and not find out until it was too late.

Imagine ante being posted first and BB having nothing to play with. Let him have that last all-in...

So the change was recent. Not that it matters one way or another, but why? To me it makes sense that the antes are taken first. Isn't that how it was done before big blind antes became popular?

Hot take:

Holdem with antes is dumb.

I'm free from antes as my tournaments are. Studying cash games to a great part. Huge difference.

Meh. It's just a way to drive action, similar to straddles or three blinds.

Adapting is the word.

Hard disagree. Holdem is dead and need new variants to drive action and punish the nits.

It's not dead in my neighborhood. And no nits here.

If the ante goes in first, and the BB wins the hand, they just get their ante chip(s) back and no increase in chips. Makes people sad.

I'm sure someone explained it to me before, but I can't come up with a logic that would exempt the BB from winning the antes in that case.

Big Blind ante is known to me, it's in the bigger tournaments in my casino. BB pays everybody's antes, size one big blind. Quite a different game with the antes, especially starting hands.

Super small stack, not enough for BB and ante:
BB player earlier: all in at UTG, or anted out.
BB player now: all in at BB, saving the ante.

Neither are optimal. Maybe BB potentially donating his whole stack to the big ante feels worst though. Hence probably the change.

They are not exempted from winning the antes, it's all they can win.

e.g. if the BB and BB-Ante are both, say, T1000, and the player in the BB only has T1000 left, then if the rule says they pay the ante first, then their T1000 goes to the ante, and they have paid 0 as the BB, and can win 0 from any other player. If they win the main pot, regardless of how many other players were in at any time, all they win is the T1000 ante back. (This was not an issue before the BB Ante because then they paid say T1000 but so did every other player, so if they won they won T9000 or whatever.)

whereas under the current TDA rules, their T1000 goes to the BB first, and there is 0 put in as an ante. Now if three players call the BB (or any subsequent raises) and the all-in player wins the main pot, they win T4000.

I don’t play much wsop, but this change has not been enforced in vegas consistently.

Then the second place player wins the ante?

After thinking about it, I have come up with a reason to pay the bb first. Simplicity. The whole reason for having the bb ante is to make things easier. We've all played with the idiots that need to be reminded to ante Every Single Time. Having the entire ante paid by the bb makes things simpler and makes managing the idiots easier. When an extreme shorty is in the bb it makes side-pots easier if the bb has 1700 left and both the bb and the ante are 1000. If the bb is paid first, the ante is just 700 - no issues. If the ante is paid first, the main pot is the ante plus 700 from everyone that entered the pot pre-flop. That can be several players and a lot of making change.

This clarifies it for me. I thought OCD was saying that the BB could only win his own ante back if all players contributed an ante. Didn't realize we were talking about a BB ante.

That also makes clear why players prefer the BB-first rule.

almost never play tournies, recall getting down to 4 handed in one and we still did bb ante and the ante was still as if it were a full table

i'd rather no antes than bb ante - felt really stupid to do it, why not just increase the blinds instead? it's essentially the same thing