Stud/8 Question
 

I have been playing Stud8, $4-8 with a $1 ante, and the casino just raised the rake to $6 per hand. Is it worth playing in this in this game? What Casino's still spread stud8?

Re: Stud/8 Question
 

What was the rake before? Most of the places I like to play, rake + drop maxes at 1sb or less (usually 1sb)

Re: Stud/8 Question
 

$5

Re: Stud/8 Question
 

How many hands has the table been playing/hour? What's your win rate? It's hard to accurately measure the effect of rake on the table at large (i.e. fish go broke faster, you need more to replace them) but you can at least analyze the difference in expectation.

If you pay your fair share of rake, you'll pay $1/8 per hand extra. 30 hands an hour means $30/8 more in rake. That's $3.75 per hour, or a little less than .5bb. If you're currently beating the game for 2bb per hour now you'll beat it for 1.5bb per hour. Obviously you need to adjust up/down for faster/slower games. I would guess stud/8 is pretty slow live.

This is assuming that it doesn't change the dynamic of the game, which it will to some extent. There is $30/hour extra leaving the table, over an 8 hour session that means an extra 30bb just gets up and leaves, and you can't win it. If the seats are always full, that's not a problem.

Re: Stud/8 Question
 

That's pretty similar to the $4/8 game that Canterbury Park used to have. The game had a $.50 ante, a 10% rake capped at $4.50, and a $1 jackpot drop for every pot over $15. I have a friend who claims that he won over $600 a week playing in that game during 2000, which I find pretty plausible even though he's not the strongest player around. I used to play the game some, and if I was playing well and catching cards, there literally wasn't much for anyone to win after the house and I got our shares. People have to play pretty badly for you to fade this kind of rake. Six bucks is going to negate most of your potential edges unless the pots get big. Fortunately, low-limit B&M stud/8 players are about as bad as they come.

Canterbury Park has a $6/12 stud/8 game that goes on Fridays and sometimes on other days. I think that there are occasional games at Foxwoods and in Atlantic City. The LA card-rooms have some $20/40 stud/8 games.

Re: Stud/8 Question
 

Sounds a lot like you're playing at the Garden City in San Jose. Good games, dreadful rake.

I haven't played there in a good long while, not since the drop was $4/hand. $6/hand is highway robbery. The players are bad enough that the game is readily beatable, but I'm not driving a 90-minute round-trip to pay $6/hand when Full Tilt and Poker Stars are just seconds away.

Re: Stud/8 Question
 

I don't think the players on Stars or Tilt are as bad at the 4/8 level as live at GC.

Re: Stud/8 Question
 

I've never played stud/8 live, but in casinos players at limits up to 10/20 seem no better than an awful lot of the 1/2 games I've seen of holdem and omaha/8. The first time I played 4/8 LHE in a casino, I'd previously been playing .25/.5 online. I did not slaugter them that session but I did the next time and nearly every other time. It is not common that I have losing sessions in a casino (limit that is - no limit is another story)

Re: Stud/8 Question
 

The online players are much better than live at low limit stud8. There are people calling obvious wheels and full houses. I have been only playing stud 8 a few months and I am better than most of the players in this game.

Re: Stud/8 Question
 

[ QUOTE ]
The online players are much better than live at low limit stud8.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is true across the board in online poker, of course.

In my first foray into $50-$100 stud/8, at the WSOP some years back, I was delighted to find the game at its toughest to be about like the $2-$4 game at the time on Stars.