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.

[Orlando Salazar]

If the house gets 33BB/100, I think there can only be at most one winner at a 9 handed table.

[HP]

holy jebus in online speak that's like ~6PTBB/100 hands in rake for the 5/10 table

so like, i guess if they are quite bad and you are quite good you could win. However you'll have some serious variance. just don't play there.

[Orlando Salazar]

Lets say the average pot is 35 big blinds. That's 35*30 Hands/hour. So about 1000 in rakeable pots per hour. At 15% that's $150/hour. $150/30 Hand-Hours =~ 450/100 =~ 45BB/100. Not 6BB/100.

[HP]

SALAZARRRRRRRRR,

I thought it would be understood I was talking about rake per person. Anyways, your calculation seems to be correct. However I can't find the discrepancy between yours and mine:

I assume an average of $10 rake per hand. $1000/100 hands. that's 50PTBB/100 hands for the whole table. Or, if it's nine handed, about 6PTBB/100 hands per person

according to your calcs it would be 2.5PTBB/100 per person at a 9-handed table

:/

[HP]

[ QUOTE ]
Lets say the average pot is 35 big blinds. That's 35*30 Hands/hour. So about 1000 big blinds in rakeable pots per hour

[/ QUOTE ]

perhaps that's your mistake?

SALAZARRRRRRRRRRR

[Orlando Salazar]

all i know is if 150 is leaving the table each hour, gl at a decent rate if you are a GREAT player.

[Flatlanman3]

Im from houston could tell u of a few underground games that dont rake ridiculous amounts that are high quality which Ive played in before

[russfloyd01]

Ok I usually just read posts but since I know a little bit about this I will post..I have both run a game in Houston and dealt a game in Houston in the past and I can tell you that the $$ they make is ludicrous....On average the house will make between $125-175 a down(30 minutes) and the dealer will pull between $25-45 a down.... The 1st response would be no way can this game be beat... BUT, and its a large BUT the players that come to these games are horrible and give $$ away routinely...There is 1 guy who i wont mention who comes in with $10k cash and is 0-49 at cashing out a penny...Furthermore, it costs a lot of $$ to run a game in Houston...There is rent($2500 a mo) security, food, beverages(including any alcohol a player wants) Cigarettes for the players, cigars, etc etc etc and the most important thing TABBBBB and thats not the drink that comes in pink can... For those ppl who have never played in an illegal game, tab is slang for Credit... Basically noone brings cash to a game because if vice busts the game they confiscate all the $$ and worse if the game gets robbed then all your $$ is gone...So the house needs to insure that they make enough to cover the tab b/c sometimes it takes days, weeks, or longer before a player pays his debt and in some cases they never do yet find another game to get credit at...Unethical yes, but happens all the time! oh btw u ALWAYS get paid when u win before u leave even tho u dont have to pay up front the night u lose.... So, can the game be beat? maybe...Is it better to drive 5 hrs rd trip to maybe get in a game full of nits at a riverboat casino to only pay $5 rake...i think not...The rake hurts the person who plays (wins) most pots..The $$ that comes off tbl isnt an issue b/c there is a house full of suckers and the game never quits...So play fewer pots stay shorter periods of time and gl...

[MagicNinja]

despite the lack of sentences in russ' comment, my experience is basically everything he said is true.

BTW 5% capped at $25 a hand is standard in perth, in underground games and casinos.

I know a lot of players who beat these games over large samples. At the underground i used to play at, the rake was higher still and i would basically ALWAYS win when I played there.

Honestly you would be surprised at how much variance goes down once you factor in how huge your edge can really be against these players (and also, at underground games it is a lot more unethical to cashout when u win a big pot or whatever; most people are expected to stay at least 4 hours unless they bust..).