Beating the rake..

[syncmaster]

I see posts go up every week asking if X rake is beatable. I was wondering if there is some simple way to calculate this myself?

Also how do you include other things like Tips and BBJP into this?

If its not that simple to explain then could you please just tell me if a 3/6 Limit, 10% up to $4 + $1BBJP (plus tips) is beatable?

[7n7]

[ QUOTE ]
I see posts go up every week asking if X rake is beatable. I was wondering if there is some simple way to calculate this myself?

Also how do you include other things like Tips and BBJP into this?

If its not that simple to explain then could you please just tell me if a 3/6 Limit, 10% up to $4 + $1BBJP (plus tips) is beatable?

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's a few articles for you:

Article #1
Article #2
Article #3

As for your specific question, depends on the players. Most live 3/6 games are so loose and bad that they are beatable. Can you make a living from live 3/6? Probably not. But beat it? Yes you can if you practice game selection.

Online is still beatable but the players are better in general. Online advantage: you can multi-table.

[syncmaster]

Thanks for the articles, I skimed through them and will reread when I have more time later. In the third one it says:

"Suppose 10 players sit down at a low stakes $3/$6 Hold'em table and buy in for $100 apiece. That puts $1000 in chips on the table. For the sake of illustration, let's say nobody quits the game for six hours.

Hold'em is a fast game. Even with 10 players, the dealer will crank out about 35 hands per hour. So after six hours of play, how many winners do you think there might be? Answer? There will probably be none!

Why is that? Because $5 per pot x 35 hands per hour x 6 hours is $1050 in rake. If nobody buys more chips and no new blood comes into the game, the house will have raked all the money off the table. Scary, isn't it?"

That is scary... Still peoples stacks will be much more/less and all pots won't reach the full rake. It gives an idea of how much the casino is taking off the table. I am also no pro but the games are so lose I know I can beat my opponents. However, I would have to be crushing these games and never sitting at a tight table to beat the rake it seems. Even then I don't see myself making much but I don't know the first thing about live limit winrates.

[7n7]

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the articles, I skimed through them and will reread when I have more time later. In the third one it says:

"Suppose 10 players sit down at a low stakes $3/$6 Hold'em table and buy in for $100 apiece. That puts $1000 in chips on the table. For the sake of illustration, let's say nobody quits the game for six hours.

Hold'em is a fast game. Even with 10 players, the dealer will crank out about 35 hands per hour. So after six hours of play, how many winners do you think there might be? Answer? There will probably be none!

Why is that? Because $5 per pot x 35 hands per hour x 6 hours is $1050 in rake. If nobody buys more chips and no new blood comes into the game, the house will have raked all the money off the table. Scary, isn't it?"

That is scary... Still peoples stacks will be much more/less and all pots won't reach the full rake. It gives an idea of how much the casino is taking off the table. I am also no pro but the games are so lose I know I can beat my opponents. However, I would have to be crushing these games and never sitting at a tight table to beat the rake it seems. Even then I don't see myself making much but I don't know the first thing about live limit winrates.

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Basically, you want to move up as quickly as possible to a level where the rake is negligible. Of course don't start playing 30/60 tomorrow just b/c the rake proportion is favorable.

As you infer, if you always sit down in a game with the same players who are all at the same skill level, then the rake will win in the long run. But this is never the case, esp. at the low limits. There's always players better, worse, much worse, and much, much worse than you.

If you practice good game selection, you can beat the rake by beating the ones in the latter 3 categories.

[czGLoRy]

or you can get rakeback, which I just did and it helps a ton.
If you have any Qs you can PM me

[syncmaster]

[ QUOTE ]
or you can get rakeback, which I just did and it helps a ton.
If you have any Qs you can PM me

[/ QUOTE ]

This was mainly for live play, I don't think I could beat online 3/6 at the sites that allow me to play...

7n7 , first off thanks again for your replys. What kind of winrate can you expect in a soft live 3/6 game? I just hoped I could get enough to play those games, and it wouldn't be long before I'm at 5/10, then 10/20.

[7n7]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
or you can get rakeback, which I just did and it helps a ton.
If you have any Qs you can PM me

[/ QUOTE ]

This was mainly for live play, I don't think I could beat online 3/6 at the sites that allow me to play...

7n7 , first off thanks again for your replys. What kind of winrate can you expect in a soft live 3/6 game? I just hoped I could get enough to play those games, and it wouldn't be long before I'm at 5/10, then 10/20.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately I don't play much live limit HE anymore. The old standard was 1-2 BB/hour ($6-$12), but I'm not sure if that's changed since the boom.

I'd ask the question in the Small Stakes Limit HE forum. If you read the 2nd sticky from the top, scroll to the bottom and it talks about statistics for online low limit I think.
Not sure if that would help or not.

At any rate, they'd be better equipped to answer the question.

[ottsville]

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Why is that? Because $5 per pot x 35 hands per hour x 6 hours is $1050 in rake. If nobody buys more chips and no new blood comes into the game, the house will have raked all the money off the table. Scary, isn't it?"


[/ QUOTE ]

This is wrong because as the pots get smaller(less money on the table) the rake also gets smaller. Also it is assuming that the players are all just passing the money around the table with the house taking a cut of each pot. In reality, there will be stronger players and weaker players and the money will gravitate towards the stronger players. If they felt the weaker players in few pots, the money will be in front of them and they will not play amongst themselves if they are strong enough to realize that it is not +ev to do so.

Of course the house's situation is always +EV and they will get their cut, you just have to be able to determine if the OTHER factors involved allow you to beat the house's cut.

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What kind of winrate can you expect in a soft live 3/6 game?

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That's going to depend on lots of factors. Also, variance is often high in these games, so you would probably need several hundred hours of play to begin to determine a relatively accurate winrate.