here's a question ive been pondering for a bit. at what rake level does it take to make live full ring nl no longer profitable (or worthwhile) to play? currently cali games rake pretty insane (commerce 5+1 in the 5-10, tho $10/half hr in 10-20 isn't as bad) so ive been wondering if any of you wizards have done some kind of calculation to see the tipping point on what rake would have to be in order to essentially end live pros at this level.

i don't keep track of the number of pots i win/hr but i would image its between 4-5 (includes limped pots obv) in 5-10 (costing me ~$20-30ish in rake per hr)

if a pro playing 5-10 is making $50-60/hr on average (remember higher hourly's are reserved for only the best players!), an extra $2 in rake (so if they raise the rake to 7+1) basically lowers a pro players hourly by ~$10-15 which is just a ton of money that a pro would be giving up.

thus if rake is raised by just a couple bucks per hand (reasonable for casinos to do this in the next ~5 yrs ) this basically is a 20-25% paycut for a live pro. while making $40-50/hr is thought to be good money however w/ no benefits/retirement/ect that comes along w/ being a pro it seems to me that making this amount wouldn't make playing live poker worthwhile at this level imo.

thoughts?

you don't pay hourly rates for 5/10 in Cali? Damn.. in AC 2/5 is hourly. 5+1 from every pot is tough but at least its not home game levels

depends how bad the players are
cali rake sucks but the players are awful
in the old old days on line pacific had the worst rake but the worst players so it was worth paying the extra rake.
i'd much rather play in a typical 5/10 game at commerce than vegas or ac from a financial standpoint even thought the rake is worse. the players more than make up for it.however, although I like playing short handed unless there is just a guy lighting money on fire at the table i leave when it gets short bc the rake is way too much. they don't take reduced rake and 6 bucks a hand plus tip is insane 5-6 handed and they take 2 dollars (at least last time i was there) pre.

funny thing is 10/20 is timed and when it's short they take 5 bucks per half no jackpot nonsense- awesome. so 5 handed in 10/20 50 bucks an hour comes off the table.in 5/10 it's closer to 250-300.

I never played in Cali.. you really feel the players are that much worse? 6 bucks a pot is a tough tough rake to beat compared to 10 or 12 bucks an hour.. If so i need to get my @ss out there

Well. Here in Argentina the rake is a beast: 5% No CAP for all the levels (5-10, 10-20 and 25-50). I think this is pretty high but still some make profit.

Can only speak for Commerce and the Bike, but the players there are significantly worse when compared to Foxwoods/AC imo.

Mostly just due to a larger player pool, LA is like 20x bigger of a city than CT and AC and recently other new casinos spread those rooms even thinner.

Doesn't answer the question, but I played at bellagio over the weekend.

At 10/20, $7 time rake... But
New players not free for the first bell
And if you're leaving, you can't play all your free hands

Wat?

think he means if ur in the CO when the bell goes off and u tell the dealer ur leaving they wont let you play all ur free hands

yeah and cc is pretty cool about that. maybe since they know they make a fortune off us. 1.5M/yr off of 1 10/20 nl (assuming it's 24/7, which 1 table usually is)

thanks for responses i do agree w/ cali rake being insane. the thing about commerce in the 5-10 is that i think it has to continue to be in the "bottom" section forever in order for the game to be worthwhile to play (and i think management knows this now). they tried moving it over to the top section and it completely killed the game.

therefore due to it being kept in w/ all the other dumb games in the bottom section the rake level increases in the future will go hand in hand w/ whatever they they decide to do w/ the other games in terms of rake increase.

i do think that in 5-10 yrs time nl full ring games below 10/20 (or any non time raked game) in cali isnt going to be worth to play anymore just due to rake increases casinos will be forced to implement (due to "inflation" costs). i always thought that midstakes nl will ultimately reach a breaking point in terms of no longer worthwhile due to this (and not because of games becoming too "tough").

theroretically, as "inflation" costs go up not only will rake increase, but also the stakes that are popular will increase as well. obviously inflation is quite low in america right now, but as the purchasing power of the dollar slowly erodes, nominal incomes increase and nominal stakes increase as well. As long as the real value of rake remains the same, you shouldn't be worried.

ya see i disagree w/ this. i dont think the 5-10 games that run now will magically morph into 10-20 in 10-20 yrs due to "inflation" (assuming $20 by then is worth the same as $10 today). obv pro players will want this to happen (actually they need this to happen) but the games/stakes set by rec players/casinos aren't going to do this.

for ex casinos aren't going to increase nl games from 5-10 to 6-12/8-16/10-20 over a period of time its either going to be 5-10 or 10-20 imo. if they decide one day to change all these limits b/c of inflation they will kill the games due to ppl's perceived reactions to stakes (ie. they were used to playing 5-10nl for years and now the stakes are doubled and freak out).

i played 5/10 at the bellagio yesterday and it was time rake, $6 per half hour
i tripped out

So what stakes do you think rich recreational players will be playing in 100 years if a dollar then is worth $5 in today's money?

most rec players that play mistakes nl (2-5, 5-10) aren't rich at all (in fact many are broke). i think the big live games will benefit in the future as these games have rec players that actually have money but it doesnt hold the same for the average guy playing live nl.

this is actually great news. the problem in cali is that if the 5-10 was moved to the top section and they time raked it $6 per half hour like they do now at the b i still think the game will die out.

but honestly $6/half hr is amazing i think i might move to vegas after wsop if this is a permanent thing.

edit: imo casinos are going to do as much as possible to keep the stakes the same in all games but slowly increase rake. this is the only way they will continue to increase profits w/o dealing with the potential slaughter of losing games.

bellagio, and most other rooms in vegas, also give $2/hr on your players card to be used for food. best deal rake wise anywhere in the world imo.

Vegas food is really expensive so whatever you save on rake you basically will end up spending on food you order. While at Commerce the drop/time is higher than Vegas but the food is cheaper(tho much ****tier than Vegas quality) but it essentially ends up being similar in out of pocket costs unless you bring your own food every day.

borgata rake is 6/half for 5/10 and parx rake is 7/half for 10/10. there is bbj drop at borgata though @100. foxwoods 5/10 is 7/half iirc

You guys need to be realistic about questions like this. It seems nobody ever wants to math it out. That makes the discussion a lot easier:

If we assume not every hand is max raked due to blind chops and use 5 dollars/hand we are looking at 500/100 hands. That is like having a 50bb/100 winner sitting in the games at all times. Or, if there are 9 seats in the game we have 5 guys winning at 10bb/100. Take a look at the online data for large samples. Yes the games are tougher but the rake is also smaller online and you will see the best players making 5-10bb/100. As a few of you are proving, the live games are still soft enough to beat but there is very little room to increase the rake before it becomes totally unbeatable.

Conclusion: all of you that want to make money at poker should pray for online poker to resume its presence, or find a way to win in bigger games ASAP.

I don't think that's a good comparison. Playing 10 handed with a bunch of droolers in a game that rakes 1bb/hand is not the same as playing with 9 players who average 11bb/100h.

Rake isn't much lower online at full ring, at least at low stakes. Stars stakes about 33bb/100 hands at 200nl.

http://www.pokertableratings.com/poker-rake-analysis/no-limit-hold'em

While it's true that the rake is lower at higher stakes, most live grinders aren't going to make a smooth (or profitable) transition into online mid/high stakes.

i believe bolded is the most important part for a live pro to consider in todays poker economy. while the live games will always remain soft (at least compared to online), just a slight increase in rake (which WILL happen, we can't have a 5+1 rake or $10/half hr forever in cali) basically makes them unbeatable as time goes on.

online poker returning (esp to california) will possibly solve this issue (at least for a short while until the wizards realize just how soft these new online games will be and all come over... the first day online comes back any decent live "pro" in LA/california should be making the switch to online to take adv of the ridiculously soft games that will be running for maybe a few yrs.

i agree w/ u in your conclusion that the toughest part of a live pro today is to realize that live low-midstakes nl will ultimately be unbeatable for a decent amount in the future due to rake and that building a larger br or net worth (either through the coming online return or through something else) is going to be a huge priority in order to play live games that are actually worth it to play in the future (bigger/timed games)

borgata at 6/half is 12/hr. figure 30hands/hr and you are paying roughly $40 per hundred hands. 4bb/100 in rake really isn't that bad. rake on stars at nl200 (which is midstakes for online) is roughly 4bb/100.