Hustled in home game last night?

Python49 · #1 10-12-2007, 08:02 AM

Now i'm not much of a live game player and am probably too trusting when it comes to poker games ran by people my age since in my experience for games run through friends of friends theres never been anything shady. Last night however I went to a friend of a friend of a friends game and it was shady as hell.

I'm wondering how common this is in home games and if anyone else has had something happen like this because it totally caught me off guard, wasn't expecting it. The game we went to first of all it had this option where anyone involved in any hand all in before the turn could buy insurance to try to cut their losses. Basically for anyone not familiar it's a hustle where for example if you are ahead and your opponent has 2 outs, you are a 22:1 favorite, and the house was offering insurance at 14:1 odds so if you did get 2 outted they paid you back 14x whatever insurance you bought (basically like a bet). And clearly if your 22:1 against it hitting and making a bet that only returns 14:1 on your money you're losing in EV.

But even worse than this, they were raking pots sneakily with no structure or consistency at all. At first for a while I wasn't paying attention until I noticed $6 from my pot was raked and I said something about it. Now i'm damned sure home games should never be raking $6 out of pots when the most i've ever seen online was $5 and that was for high stakes and big pots. I thought by saying something about it, it would basically let him know that i'm aware of whats going on and it would stop. I should/could have just left but I thought these players were bad enough to stay and keep playing so long as I wasn't raked like that anymore.

Was hard to keep track of all the raking because alot of the time when id check my cards or turn my head, when i'd look back over at the dealer he was already turning around putting the rake into the bin. But when I left, my friend and I did deduced that based on the fact only one person won money and it was $250, and there were alot more losers... we basically estimated that about $600 had been lifted off the table in this 7 hour game or so.

Robbed? Hustled? Standard?

UMTerp · #2 10-12-2007, 08:16 AM

Python, where was this game? It sounds like a local game I play in on occasion.

As far as insurance, never take it obv. Hopefully you can handle the swings if you're in the game - no reason to give away money to reduce variance.

sapol · #3 10-12-2007, 08:38 AM

why didn't you ask what the rake structure was?

JacksonTens · #4 10-12-2007, 08:53 AM

Sounds almost as bad as the game I once played in where you had to pay your blinds when you were sitting out...

This was a cash game btw.

[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

JT

Python49 · #5 10-12-2007, 11:25 AM

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Sounds almost as bad as the game I once played in where you had to pay your blinds when you were sitting out...

This was a cash game btw.

[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

JT

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Oh, yeah forgot to mention that. That's how it was in this game too, pay blinds while they fold your cards.

Didn't ask about rake structure because like I said i'm a live game newbie so online and in AC make up mostly all my experience and those already have fixed rake amounts. Home games with friends aren't raked so I kind of just assumed they had a structure they were using.

DavidNB · #6 10-12-2007, 11:29 AM

Insurance- I would stay away from.

Raked pots- I would ask what the structure is.

Myself, I wouldn't go to the game. Home games don't get raked, underground cardrooms do get raked.

Zetack · #7 10-12-2007, 11:42 AM

You should definitely know the rake structure. I'm not sure if your complaint is that they took out six dollars, or that they weren't taking out the same percentage every time. I play in a game that caps the rake at 9 bucks (ridiculous, I know) but is scrupulously honest about raking the right amount.

If its a big rake there's nothing shady about that, it just is what it is, if they cheat on the rake, or rake inconsistently, that's a bad game and I wouldn't play there unless it was ultra-juicy and I felt that otherwise things were on the up and up.

Edit: and insurance is, almost by definition, a bad deal. You expect to get screwed on insurance, nothing odd about that.

Lottery Larry · #8 10-12-2007, 12:30 PM

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Standard?

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Not standard by FAR

MRBAA · #9 10-12-2007, 12:43 PM

Insurance isn't a hustle -- it's a gamble with bad odds. I don't play roulette when I go the casino, but I don't think it's a hustle that they have it available.

As for the rake, yeah, that seems shaky. The private clubs I've played iin all just has a time charge. Every half hour you had to put $4 or $5 on the table, the dealer collected, and that was it (dealers got tipped by players, just like in a casino, of course, but no rake).

That keeps it simple. But you know the rake does add up to ALOT of money, and at really low stakes really does make it hard to win.

psandman · #10 10-12-2007, 01:14 PM

First I don't believe any home game should have a rake, but lets assume this wasn't a home game and it was a money making venture.

I don't know why you think the rake should be comparable to online. The costs of running an online game are significantly smaller and the risks are even smaller. the guys running this game are potentially subject to arrest and robbery. If I was running a poker game there is no way I would settle for online rakes.