Tournaments: When antes are introduced

Antes are a wonderful thing. This is something that beginning and novice players fail to realize. I like to exploit this. During a tournament most people get used to raises being a certain size compare to the blinds. Often this may be 3x the big blind. When antes are first introduced people are still in this mind set that the standard raise is 3x. When playing with just the blinds, if you raise to 3x the big blind you are basically risking 3 to win 1.5. If you make this same raise when the antes are introduced you are often risking approximately 3 to win 2.5. The great thing about this though is that most players don't realize that you are risking the same amount for a greater reward. Their reaction is the same, meaning they will fold the same amount of times, even though they have much better odds to call.

Of course not all players think this way, but a lot will. In addition to this if you now start raising 4x the big blind, you are still getting better odds than before the antes were introduced (4 to win 2.5 or better), but opponents view you as having a very strong hand as the bigger raise looks like more of a danger. Because of this I like to open up the range of raising hands once the antes are introduced and employ more advanced plays to steal. Generally I have played fairly tight in the beginning of the tourney up to this point, so people have given me a tight table image. When the antes are introduced I switch gears, but opponents may take a while before they realize this, and by this time I have stolen a small, but relatively important amount of their chips.