The Rake in Low Limit Hold 'em

[acesovercole]

There are amazing promos where I play other than an easy JP. Check this out:

(MRA) Morning Rack Attacks

* Every Sunday through Saturday morning from 9:45am to 12:15pm.
* One table will be randomly drawn every half-hour (9:45am, 10:15am, 10:45am, 11:15am, 11:45am, and 12:15pm) to have $100 added to the next pot.

(DJ) Double Jackpots

* Every Monday through Friday from 4:00am to 6:00am and from 1:00pm to 3:00pm.

(LNRA) Late Night Rack Attacks

* Every Monday through Thursday from 11:45pm to 4:45am one table will be randomly drawn every hour (11:45pm, 12:45am, 1:45am, 2:45am, 3:45am, and 4:45am) to have $100 added to the next pot.

NFL Football Promo

* Each time a team scores a three-point field goal, one table will be randomly drawn and a $100 rack attack will be awarded.
* Each time a team scores a touchdown, three tables will be randomly drawn and a $100 Rack Attack will be awarded to each table.
* If a team scores a safety, five tables will be randomly drawn and a $100 rack attack will be awarded to each table.
* If a team returns a punt or kickoff for a touchdown, ALL tables currently going will have a $100 rack attack rewarded.
* From the opening kickoff, until the end of the football game, all jackpots are doubled.


Obviously you are going to have to get lucky, but it's the fact that they offer this and the more you play, the better chances you have of winning. Plus, the games here at 3/6 aren't hard to beat really.

[threeducks]

This topic has been on my mind lately because I found that I could not beat the 6/12 players and I can beat the 3/6 players - so now I play 3/6 where $5 goes out of each pot that I win(drop 3, JP 1 and toke 1).

That makes many hands not playable and you need a loose table to have the pot get big. It helps to get lucky.

I am setting my goal at $9 an hour. I am a recreational player and I play about 10-12 a week.

You have to play very well at 3/6 to overcome the rake. A few mistakes costs you a few BB and that hurts the overall win rate.

I think the 1BB/hr is because the game has huge variances of the no fold'em aspects. You just can not get that many good cards and sometimes the players are better or luckier.

[jordiepop]

I have a question ... how much dif is a game like 6-12 live .. from 3-6 live. More aggression better players?? i played 3-6 in ac as well as 5-10 .. and at both games the players are morons. i would think you would just wanna play 5-10 .... same 4 dollar max rake..

[rakemeplz]

I dont think you can make 50k playing live 3-6. Ed Millers stated you can make 50k plus multitabling online low limit games.

[threeducks]

I have found that the players are a little better and more aggressive at 6/12 vs. 3/6 - because the pots get bigger. They seem to have more gamble.

Same drop which is great but you have to beat the game and I can not.

[Rbower]

These are great replies to my orignal post. I keep great records of every penny I win and lose. I don't write down the session time but using a pretty close average time per session I am making about 1/2 a big bet per hour, which sounds about right after reading these posts. I'm a decent player but I have a lot to learn and setting 1 BB per hour is a good goal. One person commented about the Monte Carlo jackpost etc. I agree with him, because I've won three quad jackpots this year, in about 200 hours of playing time for a total of $1700. I'm up about $1200 from the actual poker games.

[Jiggymike]

[ QUOTE ]
3 reasons why it would be difficult to break out above the 1BB/hr. rate:

1) Over long periods of time you will eventually catch a long cold streak of stinking cards. In no fold em hold em you can't win without some cards.

2) You will ocassionally sit down with other talented players.

3) You will ocassionally sit down with untalented players who get hot.

(I won't even talk about the non-Phil Ivey factor. By that I mean that you play "less than optimally" for a period of time.)

These three (four?)things bring should unfortunately, bring long term win rates back to earth.

I also have 1 year of 2/4 B&M data to back it up. The only real upside is jackpots. With lots of playing time, you should catch a "fair share" of that money. I average about 10/hrs. week, and had 5 table shares and 2 20%'s that I've paid for with my rakes. But at low stakes, the JP makes a big difference in net gains. Commerce has an "easy" JP, any Aces full. For the places with Aces full of T+, the JP will be much larger, but much less frequent. Without the JP, I think the 1BB rule remains close to right for a year's worth of play. If you can do much better than that, time to move up!

You should know better SixForty - I've seen you play 3/6! Hope all is well with you.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't agree with a lot of the points in this post, no offense to the OP. True, you will get streaks of bad cards which will cut into your win rate and there will be virtually no chances to push opponents of off better hands, as in higher limits. However, the range of profitable hands is greater in low limits, even with the rake, because of the crummy players you will be going against. You'll be able to play small pairs and connectors that you couldn't get away with at 10-20, which can yield quite large pots. Second, you will sometimes get caught with other good players at your table, but you will not get too many who are significantly better than you. Basically, they will slow you down, not actually cost you money. And yes, sometimes bad players get hot, but I think this is accounted for in normal long term win rates. I have not kept track of my long term stats in B&M poker and I couldn't even say if they are positive are negative, so I do not have a good personal record to cite from. I do not thnk you could make "good" money playing B&M 3/6 and I wouldn't recommend anyone living off of it but I think you could make at least 1BB/hr profit because the players are just so bad.

[Zero Day]

Heres a little something to think about. Lets just say your playing a 4-8 game, and 9 players sit down at 1:00 pm with $100.00 each (total of $900) on the table. Lets say its a standard rake of 10% with a $5.00 max. Lets say you pay an average of $3.00 of rake per hand, multiply that by about 50 hands an hour. This means that $150 an hour is going to the rake. Assuming no one rebuys, buys food, tips the dealer, or takes any money off the table, there will be $0.00 on the table ny 7:00pm (6 hours after the start).

Buh Bye.

-nick

[Deviance]

[ QUOTE ]
3 reasons why it would be difficult to break out above the 1BB/hr. rate:

1) Over long periods of time you will eventually catch a long cold streak of stinking cards. In no fold em hold em you can't win without some cards.

2) You will ocassionally sit down with other talented players.

3) You will ocassionally sit down with untalented players who get hot.

[/ QUOTE ]

Since you are determining a long term hourly rate, who runs hot or cold in a given period of time is of no importance; on average you will be dealt no better or worse hands than any other player be they talented or not. The cards you are dealt are random independent events. For instance, you will not be dealt aces more or less often than another player in the long haul, though you might on a given night. Thus, since these events cancel, the types of cards you are dealt cannot possibly affect your overall hourly rate.


[ QUOTE ]
Lets say its a standard rake of 10% with a $5.00 max. Lets say you pay an average of $3.00 of rake per hand, multiply that by about 50 hands an hour. This means that $150 an hour is going to the rake.

[/ QUOTE ]

This calculation is incorrect because you will not lose 3 dollars on all 50 of those hands. You are only raked when you win a pot. That calculation would be correct if the player had 3 dollars taken from him even when he folded or lost a showdown. The expectation of folding in a raked or unraked pot is still zero.

On another note, there's another comment I'd like to make pertaining to the subject of rake. Being raked 1 BB in a pot does not necessarily mean you will lose 1 BB in terms of Expected Value.

Compare two situations one with rake and one without in a hand where you stand to win a 15 BB pot 70 percent of the time and lose your river call the rest of the time:

EV (no rake)= (0.70)(15) + (0.30)(-1)= 10.2 BB

EV (rake)= (0.70)[15 + (-1)] + (0.30)(-1)= 9.5 BB

Your actual loss is 0.7 BB. As a corollary, the smaller the pot, the greater the loss in relative EV when the pot is raked; a reason to deter you from playing small pots loosely in small stakes games.

[brick]

Don't forget tips, BBJ drop, and food that you buy with money from the table

3/6 with a $5 rake is going to be really tough to beat for more than 1BB/Hour. If you win 7% of the hands that is 35*.07= 2.45 hands won per hour. 2.45 * $5 = 12 / hour in rake.

So you are paying 2BB per hour. In order to to win 1BB per hour you need to winning 3BB per hour in a rake free in enviornment. This is about 8BB per 100 hands.

This is hard to do even against idiots.


Play 20/40 with a $5 rake and the story is much different.