Issues with the rake

[binions]

In Houston, the underground live games charge a premium rake. The nearest casino poker room is Lake Charles, a 2 hour drive. New Orleans is an hour flight, but with airport parking etc, its a 2 hour trip to get to Harrah's.

So, the standard rake in a 5-10 PLHE game is 5% up to $15, and in bigger games the rake is at least $20, some places higher.

In your opinion, can games be beaten where $300-400 + dealer tips (or more) is coming off the table per hour? If so, under what circumstances?

In addition, would you change your play in a $15-20 rake game versus a $5 rake game? It occurs to me that there is a vast difference between winning 10 $300 pots vs one $3000 pot. Namely, you net $2850 winning the small pots vs. $2985 winning the big pot. So, do you play even tighter in big rake games than small rake games?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.