{"id":17129,"date":"2019-02-12T09:00:49","date_gmt":"2019-02-12T14:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/?p=17129"},"modified":"2019-02-12T09:24:56","modified_gmt":"2019-02-12T14:24:56","slug":"english-phrase-of-the-day-up-the-ante","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/english-phrase-of-the-day-up-the-ante\/","title":{"rendered":"English phrase of the day: Up the ante"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/o7VJt89Cmis?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><br \/>\nHi students! Today\u2019s phrase of the day is a little hard to explain, but I\u2019ll do my best. The expression is <strong>up the ante<\/strong>. Let me tell you how I saw it used on TV. It was on a show where entrepreneurs try to get investors for their small businesses, so they are trying to convince the investors to give them money. One entrepreneur was selling his products successfully in his local city, but he wanted to <strong>up the ante<\/strong> and sell the products all over the country.<\/p>\n<p>If you up the ante, it means you increase the level of intensity of something. Selling products all over the country is much more intense than selling just a few products in your local city. It requires more money, more employees, and more activity. The entrepreneur wanted to up the ante -raise the level of intensity.<\/p>\n<p>This expression originally came from the game of poker, when the players are making bets -promising to pay\/receive money depending on who wins or loses. If you up the ante in a poker game, you increase the amount of money you\u2019re putting in (and possibly risking losing) -thus making the game more intense.<\/p>\n<p>The phrase is often used to refer to increasing the level of risk or increasing an amount of money; however, it is also used more generally to mean intentionally increasing the activity or intensity of a situation.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019ve been learning English from my free videos and you want to up the ante -increase the intensity of your studying -come join one of my courses! They offer you a structured way to make real progress in your English, and I have courses focusing on every skill area of the language. You can click on the link in the video or in the description to sign up. Thanks for watching, and I\u2019ll see you in the next lesson.<\/p>\n<div class=\"alert\">\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Learn phrases and expressions to improve your spoken English!<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/espressoenglish.lpages.co\/everyday-english-speaking-course\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-7558\" src=\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/eesc-1-2.png\" alt=\"Everyday English Speaking Course\" width=\"486\" height=\"344\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\"><a class=\"elementor-button rounded large blue\" style=\"color: #ffffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/espressoenglish.lpages.co\/everyday-english-speaking-course\/\"><strong>Learn more about the Speaking Courses<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi students! Today\u2019s phrase of the day is a little hard to explain, but I\u2019ll do my best. The expression is up the ante. Let me tell you how I saw it used on TV. It was on a show where entrepreneurs try to get investors for their small businesses, so they are trying to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19285,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-speaking"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.1 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>English phrase of the day: Up the ante - Espresso English<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Hi students! Today\u2019s phrase of the day is a little hard to explain, but I\u2019ll do my best. The expression is up the ante. Let me tell you how I saw it used\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/english-phrase-of-the-day-up-the-ante\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"English phrase of the day: Up the ante\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hi students! Today\u2019s phrase of the day is a little hard to explain, but I\u2019ll do my best. The expression is up the ante. Let me tell you how I saw it used\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/english-phrase-of-the-day-up-the-ante\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Espresso English\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-02-12T14:00:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-02-12T14:24:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/eesc-1-2.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"betsy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"betsy\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/english-phrase-of-the-day-up-the-ante\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/english-phrase-of-the-day-up-the-ante\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"betsy\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/#\/schema\/person\/d3d00cdd9aaf11f966a1b546b14544f2\"},\"headline\":\"English phrase of the day: Up the ante\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-02-12T14:00:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-02-12T14:24:56+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/english-phrase-of-the-day-up-the-ante\/\"},\"wordCount\":343,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/english-phrase-of-the-day-up-the-ante\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/eesc-1-2.png\",\"articleSection\":[\"Speaking\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/english-phrase-of-the-day-up-the-ante\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/english-phrase-of-the-day-up-the-ante\/\",\"name\":\"English phrase of the day: Up the ante - Espresso English\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/english-phrase-of-the-day-up-the-ante\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/english-phrase-of-the-day-up-the-ante\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.espressoenglish.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/eesc-1-2.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-02-12T14:00:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-02-12T14:24:56+00:00\",\"description\":\"Hi students! 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