Cash Game 7 stud ante FL (help!) (1 Viewer)

warma

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A side conversation made me realize I’m not sure how the ante process works in a fixed limit 7-stud game using a 2 chip set for a 2 chip/4 chip game.

For simplicity, let’s say it’s a $1 small bet, $2 big bet using 50¢ and $10 chips.

If the ante is 10% the big bet, that would be 20¢. If I have 8 people playing, that’s $1.60 total. Neither of those options fit with the set. And I’ve ignored the bring-in. (Needed?)

How do folks run the ante for a FL 7 stud game with a 2 chip limit set?

If using an ante button, does the button simply post the small bet to start? Or do you force a blind/small bet at 50¢ and $1?

PS- I’m feeling partial to the button ante concept.
 
Without smaller chips, I think the answer is a rotating table ante of 1.50 and a 0.50 bring in on the low card.

Known ante structures at Canterbury Park (my local room)

Limit - Ante (% of large bet) - Bring-in
2/4 - 0.50 (12%) - 1
3/6 - 0.50 (8%) - 1
4/8 - 0.50 (6%) - 1
6/12 - 1 (8%) - 2
10/20 - 2 (10%) - 5
40/80 - 10 (12%) - 10

So ante of 10% of the large bet is right on the money, and 20-25% for the bring in is good too.

Otherwise get a handful of quarters for each player and use them for ante chips.

Good luck.
 
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Antes: I'd have a dealer ante of $1 (= the small bet, but $1.50 is fine) and a bring-in of $0.50. The procedure is that the dealer/button posts the ante in the center of the table or wherever the pot will be located. The ante is not a live bet. The player with the lowest up-card starts the betting with either the bring-in or the small bet, at the player's discretion. The action proceeds clockwise from that point. On subsequent betting rounds, the highest hand showing starts the betting.

The button goes around the table as usual. The cards are dealt starting with the person to the dealer's left.

In the home and meetup games that I've played in, we've set the dealer ante equal to the small bet regardless of the number of players.
 
Antes: I'd have a dealer ante of $1 (= the small bet, but $1.50 is fine) and a bring-in of $0.50. The procedure is that the dealer/button posts the ante in the center of the table or wherever the pot will be located. The ante is not a live bet. The player with the lowest up-card starts the betting with either the bring-in or the small bet, at the player's discretion. The action proceeds clockwise from that point. On subsequent betting rounds, the highest hand showing starts the betting.

The button goes around the table as usual. The cards are dealt starting with the person to the dealer's left.

In the home and meetup games that I've played in, we've set the dealer ante equal to the small bet regardless of the number of players.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Marsha, but I think we use the Big Bet ante on the button in our meet ups.
 
Antes and bring ins can be a bit all over the place. But in general, the Ante should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-15% of the big bet. Though sometimes you will see it lower. The bring in is usually 25-33% of the small bet. Though it's not uncommon to see it as high as 50%.

How these are set should have a pretty big effect on how 3rd street is played. I'm personally not a fan of 50% bring ins as it becomes almost never correct to fold to a completion. High antes mean you should be willing to raise wider on 3rd, while low antes mean you should play much tighter.

When you don't have the appropriate ante chips, then two methods can be used. Button ante, or bring in ante. Bring in ante can be a bit painful as it takes a long time for that to even out. And short streaks if being the bring in can really suck when you are responsible for the table ante. I prefer button ante myself.

In my .50/1 limit games, I use a varying ante based on player count. 7-8 = .75, 4-6 = .50, 2-3 = .25. With the unfortunate .25 bring in.

At 1/2 I'd use .25 ante and .25 bring in.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, Marsha, but I think we use the Big Bet ante on the button in our meet ups.
It feels like it's been decades since I last played poker, but I remember it as the Small Bet ante. A $3/6 game would have a dealer ante of $3.

I know how to find out for sure: @inca911 @Payback

In general, a larger ante will generate more action in the first betting round because more dead money is in the pot. I wasn't surprised to see that you use a Big Bet dealer ante.
 
It feels like it's been decades since I last played poker, but I remember it as the Small Bet ante. A $3/6 game would have a dealer ante of $3.

I know how to find out for sure: @inca911 @Payback

In general, a larger ante will generate more action in the first betting round because more dead money is in the pot. I wasn't surprised to see that you use a Big Bet dealer ante.
I've seen this too. There really isn't a strict right or wrong on ante size. Just depends on how you want the action to go. Though bring in size tends to be much more standardized. Many higher level stud games tend to try and hit 30-33% of the small bet for the bring in.
 
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One way to generalize it is look at how much you are going to win in a flop game by raising pre flop if everyone folds: 1.5 small bets. You can try and arrange an ante and bring in to approximate that.
 
One way to generalize it is look at how much you are going to win in a flop game by raising pre flop if everyone folds: 1.5 small bets. You can try and arrange an ante and bring in to approximate that.
This is exactly what I was thinking. I now kinda like the idea of button ante equals small bet no how many players and bring in equals a small blind. Orbit cost would be the same when playing mix and switching back and forth from flop games.
 
In a 2-chip/4-chip limit game, we use 1 chip as the bring-in, with a dealer-posted table ante of 4 chips (7+ players), 3 chips (5-6 players), or 2 chips (2-4 players). Fixing it at always 3 chips (regardless of table size) also works fine, imo.
 
I use Button ante equal to the Big Bet, so 4 chips on the button, unless it's a short handed game.
Button ante is 1000x better than keeping track of individual antes. Pretty sure we've used a one full bet button ante at many meetups, with a one chip minimum forced bring-in, with option to complete with a full bet. It feels like we've also done a full bet bring in, and I'm fairly certain both methods are acceptable.
 
Button ante is 1000x better than keeping track of individual antes. Pretty sure we've used a one full bet button ante at many meetups, with a one chip minimum forced bring-in, with option to complete with a full bet. It feels like we've also done a full bet bring in, and I'm fairly certain both methods are acceptable.

Yes! 4 chip Button Ante, 1 chip Bring-in, 2 chip Small Bet and 4 chip Big Bet.

Now, if short handed, let's say 4 or 5 players, the Button ante can be 2 chips, equal to the Small Bet.
 
Button ante is 1000x better than keeping track of individual antes. Pretty sure we've used a one full bet button ante at many meetups, with a one chip minimum forced bring-in, with option to complete with a full bet. It feels like we've also done a full bet bring in, and I'm fairly certain both methods are acceptable.

So you're defining a full bet on third street as the small bet? ($3 in a 3/6 game)
 
Antes: I'd have a dealer ante of $1 (= the small bet, but $1.50 is fine) and a bring-in of $0.50. The procedure is that the dealer/button posts the ante in the center of the table or wherever the pot will be located. The ante is not a live bet. The player with the lowest up-card starts the betting with either the bring-in or the small bet, at the player's discretion. The action proceeds clockwise from that point. On subsequent betting rounds, the highest hand showing starts the betting.

The button goes around the table as usual. The cards are dealt starting with the person to the dealer's left.

In the home and meetup games that I've played in, we've set the dealer ante equal to the small bet regardless of the number of players.
^that^
 
The only complexity I found with button ante is what to do about players that are due for the ante but up from the table.

In a tournament, it's obvious what to do. In cash, the right answer is tough to find. When experimenting with this, I think I settled on adopting the tournament rule and everyone posts in turn whether or not they are present once they have been dealt in on the orbit. But we are back to doing individual antes for cash as a player preference.

But I would love to hear other suggestions.
 
Here's a piece of the WSOP 10K Stud tourney structure. If you multiply the ante by 8 (8 players per table) when you only do Button Ante, you'll get to the Big Bet in most of the levels.

Screen Shot 2020-07-02 at 10.44.36 AM.png
 
The only complexity I found with button ante is what to do about players that are due for the ante but up from the table.

In a tournament, it's obvious what to do. In cash, the right answer is tough to find. I think I settled on adopting the tournament rule and everyone posts in turn whether or not they are present once they have been dealt in on the orbit.

But I would love to hear other suggestions.
Skip the absent player until he returns to the table, then have him take the button out of turn and pay the dealer ante. It's stud -- order doesn't affect the game in a meaningful way.
 
So more coming back to me. This came up in my micro game. Previously it was 10 max buy in 0.05-0.10 blinds, 0.05 and 0.10 bring in on stud games.

My custom set doesn't have nickels because I did dime-half (and only my micro players ever see the dimes), so we changed the blinds to 0.10-0.10, with a 0.30 dealer ante and a 0.10 bring in. (My micro players still like to play stud no-limit, brutal, but hey, it's micro stakes)

This was how we handled sit outs, there is a smoker in the group so it matters.

1) Once a player is dealt in during the stud orbit, the player is obliged to post the dealer ante in turn, whether or not they are present for that hand.

2) A player may join a stud orbit late and simply post the ante in turn if the ante hasn't yet passed their seat.

3) A player may join a stud orbit late and immediately post the ante and deal if the deal has already passed that seat. After that hand the deal then resumes with the player due to deal before the new player elected to post immediately.

Now that worked for a while, but eventually we made the choice to raise the stakes of the game to 20 max buy in, 0.10-0.20 blinds and resume individual stud antes of 0.10 with a 0.20 force.
 
Re the dealer ante: Setting it at the small bet or the big bet or any other amount are all "correct." Much has been written about how to play third street with small antes versus large antes, suggesting that anything within that range is common.

The original question was, What do we do. I just confirmed that the Chicago game that I played in at least weekly for >10 years (I think) sets the dealer ante equal to the small bet. In meetups, I've played 3/6 and 4/8 many times and don't recall ever paying a $6 or $8 dealer ante.

Again, there is no single correct answer. Set the dealer ante at a level consistent with the nature of your game, keeping in mind that higher antes make it correct to play more aggressively because there is more dead money.
 
If I recall, back in the day PStars had their ante set at around 15% of the small bet.
 
Treat it like a missed blind. Gotta pay to play

You do have to add something to this or else players can just get dealt in until their deal and decide to get up. I suppose that works okay if it's strictly a stud game, they can't get dealt in at all unless they post on return, but since we usually only have stud as part of a mix game waiting to post the ante until the next stud orbit seems problematic.
 
You do have to add something to this or else players can just get dealt in until their deal and decide to get up. I suppose that works okay if it's strictly a stud game, they can't get dealt in at all unless they post on return, but since we usually only have stud as part of a mix game waiting to post the ante until the next stud orbit seems problematic.
And when they return they pay, same as a missed blind. I see no inequity, no advantage.
Stud in a mixed game is something else entirely
 
Stud in a mixed game is something else entirel

Yes indeed. In an individual ante game, you can always get dealt in stud even if you are "missed blind" from a button game. And the player just makes up the missed blind in the next button game.

I suppose you could do it the same way in stud, Player is missed ante and makes it up in the next stud orbit.

That's a little complicated in my micro game which is dealers choice. But it could vwork both ways.
 
That is a bit complicated, so how about this. When you come back to the game, if you want to play the next hand, you post the missed blind or ante
 

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