Rake v Time Charge
 

Recently my local casino (Crown in Melbourne Australia) changed its structures for the $10/20 Limit games. I'd played the $10/20 Omaha & $10/20 Holdem/Omaha games occasionally (usually play $5/10 Limit Holdem), and on my last venture at Omaha, I'd noticed that they had changed from a rake to a time charge with no rake.
I can see both positives and negatives for it, but I was wondering what other people thought of it.
Previously the rake was 10% with a $15 cap. Now its a flat $25/player/hour with no rake taken at all.
The obvious benefit is for the winning player, or at least a player who wins multiple pots in an hour.
The obvious drawback is for the losing player (who is paying to play, in spite of not winning), as well as the tight player who plays few hands and hence wins few pots per hour (I tend to fall into this category, though I did finish up $250 in a 3 hour session on the one occasion that I played the time charge/no rake structure, but that was as much due to a few players who would call down with very weak hands than anything special with my play).
The casino have guaranteed income - $200+/hour, which increases if multiple people leave/go broke as others join the table & pay full or part time charge, so I can see the benefit from their perspective.

What do people on the forum think?
Is it a better or worse game as a result of the change?

Re: Rake v Time Charge
 

Wow, that time charge is beyond ridiculous if I'm reading it right - $25 an hour? Pretty much unbeatable. In Atlantic City, the time charge on 10-20 is $5 per half hour ($10 an hour). I hope these people are beyond terrible.

Jeff

Re: Rake v Time Charge
 

[ QUOTE ]

The casino have guaranteed income - $200+/hour, which increases if multiple people leave/go broke as others join the table & pay full or part time charge, so I can see the benefit from their perspective.

What do people on the forum think?
Is it a better or worse game as a result of the change?

[/ QUOTE ]

First off, you shoulnd't have to pay time when you sit down part of the way through a down. It's already been paid most likely by another player if the game was full, if not then yes, I can see them charging half a down time charge or whatever. The time charge above is beyond ludicrous.

Re: Rake v Time Charge
 

There are other factors to consider - its the only casino in town & the nearest casino that has a decent poker section(though a much worse game) is over 800kms away.
Yes, there are some bad players. One guy who I had been playing $5/10 hold'em with (he was about even while I was up slightly) moved to the $10/20 Omaha table with me when it opened. He blew through $500 in just over an hour, and lost a pot to me when he thought he had the nut flush with only the king of spades in his hand (board had 4 spades). I had T4s & check-called him to the river & picked up a decent pot. Obviously he's not a regular Omaha player, but there were at least 2 others in the game who obviously hadn't played much Omaha previously and were donating quite a bit. Not sure if its regularly like that as I haven't sat down at the game often enough, but that's just some factors to consider, though obviously its a very high charge. As a comparisson, both the $1/2 & $2/3 No limit tables have a $5 time charge with a 10% rake which is capped - $6 for the $1/2 table & not quite sure for the $2/3 game, but think its $8). $5/10 limit is raked at 10% with a $10 cap, but no time charge.

Re: Rake v Time Charge
 

I can't imagine why anyone would play live poker in this part of Australia when you have to pay that kind of rake.

Re: Rake v Time Charge
 

I thought we had it bad here paying $8/half for $5-10nl. These rakes and time charges are ridiculous and very tough to beat.

Re: Rake v Time Charge
 

TIME CHARGES ARE PATHETIC