Beating the rake

[jfk]

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I was thinking more in terms of building a bankroll, not making alot of cash. Basically, as a stepping stone/learning process on the way to higher limits. If one can't beat a 4-8 game described, good luck in the bigger games. 3-6 is a much tougher game to beat rakewise than 4-8. In some places around here, where they take $2 for the JP drop on top of the $3 in normal rake, I'm not even sure it's beatable.

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...that's just the thing. The degree to which a low limit game may or not be beatable is so thin that many conscientious players who do keep records and find themselves at, say, $3/hour over a period of a year may reasonably conclude that they aren't very good and should show better results before bumping up. That day may never come.

When you add variance and the system shock you get sometimes when some dolt gets rewarded for incredibly stupid play, I think any player aspiring to make money would be better off having a short apprenticeship at 4/8 (or similar) and if they can demonstrate break even play, that's justification to move up.

Unless someone has a great deal of free time on his/her hands, building a bankroll at tiny win rates is going to be a very long term time investment.

[bernie]

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When you add variance and the system shock you get sometimes when some dolt gets rewarded for incredibly stupid play

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You mean like the system shock of some dolt getting rewarded for stupid play at higher costs? If a guy will get system shock on that, he really isn't going to like it when it costs him even more monetarily for the same lesson. Imo, the monetary part would make even more of an impact in discouraging him. This is kind of like saying move up so you don't have to deal with as many bad players.

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Unless someone has a great deal of free time on his/her hands, building a bankroll at tiny win rates is going to be a very long term time investment

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It doesn't take as long as you think. If you're only making $3 an hour in a 4-8 game, you may very well not be good enough to move up. $3 an hour is struggling.

On top of that, there's alot more to be learned at that limit that will benefit one as they go up in limits.

But that said, many 10-20 games play like the 4-8 games did pre WPT. Unless you're going to supplement your roll with money you make from a job, I'd say start lower and learn how to grind. Then once you get an operating roll for the limit, grind up enough for a buyin for a bigger game and take a shot.

b

[jfk]

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If you're only making $3 an hour in a 4-8 game, you may very well not be good enough to move up. $3 an hour is struggling

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If you accept my original numbers of $17.50 an hour of cost for a typical low limit game played by a tight and frugally tipping player then that $3 an hour is actually a gross of 2.5+BB/hour. The rake/tips retard the apperance of his winrate to the point where he may come to the conclusion you did, that he's "struggling".

For a player to net $10+ and hour on your 4/8 table he or she would need to be beating such a game for at least 3.5BB/hour. That's no mean feat.

[bernie]

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For a player to net $10+ and hour on your 4/8 table he or she would need to be beating such a game for at least 3.5BB/hour. That's no mean feat.

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Not against bad players it's not. Most decent players will beat a 4-8 for about a solid big bet an hour with a $3 rake + $1 JP drop + $1 tip on hands over $30. If one is only making less than a small bet, they have some work to do on their game.

I can see your argument more for a 3-6 or 2-4 game.

b

[Rosencrantz1]

I realize this is an old(er) thread, but the topic is of real interest to me and I've been thinking about it a lot.

First off, I think we have to have a slightly loose definition of 'beatable'. For the purposes of this discussion, I think we have to say that if you can get up from the table with more money than you sat down with, and if you can do this over the long term, then the game is 'beatable'. We're not talking about winning enough to pay off the mortgage. Even without a rake, you aren't doing that at 3/6.

An example:

I'm playing 6 hours of 3/6 with a max $4 rake (+ standard $1 toke per pot won), about 35 hands/hour, and I'm running ok. Playing solid poker at a table of poor players and I am clearly up for the session -- I sat down with a rack of whites and I now have that rack + 20 whites and 8 reds. At this point I'm up $60. I've made $10/hour, which is hardly going to put the kids through college, but it is only 3/6 poker. I also happen to know that over that 6 hours, I won exactly 8 pots and played in 12 that I didn't win (about 1/10 played for the session)

Now, here's where it gets weird. 8 of the other 9 players have broken even over this same 6 hours. Exactly even. They each started with 100 white chips and that's what each of them has, exactly.

That leaves one guy. The loser for the session. So my question is this: how much is he out? I'm up $60, everyone else is net zero. So this guy is out 60, at least. But, of course, he's also out the rake. And the toke. For every pot. If there were 35 pots per hour, with a max rake on EACH pot + toke, that would be $5/pot * 35 pots per hour * 6 hours, or $1050. This means that this guy rebought 10 times in 6 hours.

Now imagine the exact same scenario, but played during 6 hours where there was no rake and no tipping. I won 8 pots during my session, so I've saved $5 per pot * 8 pots, or made an additional 40 bucks. I've gone from about 1.7BB per hour ($60/6 hours=$10/hour) to about 2.7BB per hour ($100/6=$16.5/hour). A not un-important increase, but hardly crazy.

But what about the loser? In this rake/toke free game, he's now only lost $100 instead of $1000. In other words, the rake + toke cost the loser $900 or so.

Ok, this is an extreme (and pretty phony) example, but I do think it makes the point: it is the losers who are paying the rake, not the winners. The rake isn't making your wins that much smaller, it's making your losses -- and hopefully the losses of the others at the table -- that much worse.

And this is why, at least in theory, I tend to believe that the lower limit games are more beatable than the higher limit games (IF you assume that the play improves at each level, even a little bit. Obviously if you can sit at a 10/20 table full of fish and can afford the BR, you're going to make more money there. This isn't supposed to be a discussion of play quality at different levels.)

Curious if this line of thinking makes sense to anyone, or am I just crazy?

[esch]

You're crazy. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Whose pot does the rake and the tip come out of? The winners. If you never win a pot, a 100% rake or 20% tip makes no difference to a loser.

The losers are in a sense subsidizing it with their bad calls, but if you consider who would benefit from a decreased rake/no tipping, it sort of makes sense that it's the winner who pay.

There might be some arguable exception for someone who wins a lot of "pot min just hit the max rake," that really kills the net loser, but again, that's a weird case of the winner getting screwed more than usual.

[Rosencrantz1]

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You're crazy. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]


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Yeah, I agree. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

But I just don't buy the fact that the rake KEEPS you from being able to make money at low-limit games.

[PokerSlut]

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I also tried Paris's crappy poker area thinking it would be fishy but nothing but weak-tight locals folding to every raise.

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Surprisingly, these games can be profitable because you can often pick up the blinds without seeing a flop, thus avoiding the drop.

[chesspain]

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The biggest opponent any good low limit player faces is the effect of the rake and tips.

In a typical local casino which offers three tiers of LHE, 3/6, 6/12 and 15/30. The rake is a uniform $4 and tips average about $2. The tipping at 15/30 is probably less generous than at 3/6 or 6/12, but for the sake of simplicity we'll call them even.

Assuming 35 hands an hour (which may be generous), $140 is disappering down the hole and another $70 is going to the dealer, for a typical total of $210 per hour of rake/tips.



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Firstly, I don't know any casino in which tips average $2 per hand. Tips probably never average more than $1 per hand, and that's probably for no more than 30 hands per hour (since some hands will be chopped or won preflop with no tip). Consequently, I'ld say $30/hr for tips is probably closer to the mark.

Secondly, at your local casinos, is it really a $4 fixed drop even with no flop? That sounds just brutal.

[theRabbit]

I just saw your your post. You are right.

Simplified, the money from rake/tip contributed is approximated by a non linear and monotonic increasing function of the number of hands played. You can work out the rest of the mathamatics.

In the 3/6 games I play, the frequency of uncontested pots is near zero. Also the drop is taken any time there is action, so blinds should chop. A small blind insisting on raising instead of chopping can win the hand but loose money.