A buddy who plays tournaments regularly in A.C. says that he has started seeing what he called “uneven blinds.” By this he meant tournament structures where the small blind is more than half of the big blind.
So, for example, instead of a 200/400 level, you might get a 250/400 level, or (later) 2,500/4,000.
I’ve never encountered this, but it is intriguing. If indeed casinos are experimenting with this, I assume it is because they want to disincentivize folding from the small blind... However, with more money in preflop, that would seem to further incentivize aggression from late position (button/cutoff), since there is more to steal. Not a lot more—about 1/2 a blind—but more. So, it might be a wash.
If a hand goes to the flop, it’s likely there is also going to be more money in the pot than with normal 1x/2x blind structures. And maybe more multiway hands, if the small blind is defending more often. So it also would seem to have the effect of introducing more variance, and “shortening” stacks (i.e., your stack to pot ratios are going to tend to be smaller).
Am I missing something here? Or was my buddy pulling my leg?
So, for example, instead of a 200/400 level, you might get a 250/400 level, or (later) 2,500/4,000.
I’ve never encountered this, but it is intriguing. If indeed casinos are experimenting with this, I assume it is because they want to disincentivize folding from the small blind... However, with more money in preflop, that would seem to further incentivize aggression from late position (button/cutoff), since there is more to steal. Not a lot more—about 1/2 a blind—but more. So, it might be a wash.
If a hand goes to the flop, it’s likely there is also going to be more money in the pot than with normal 1x/2x blind structures. And maybe more multiway hands, if the small blind is defending more often. So it also would seem to have the effect of introducing more variance, and “shortening” stacks (i.e., your stack to pot ratios are going to tend to be smaller).
Am I missing something here? Or was my buddy pulling my leg?