Pretty straight forward question, what's more profitable. The session fee charged is equal to a small and big blind/half hour.

What's the rake?

5% playing 2/5

What's the cap?

Sorry maybe this was a stupid question, I don't have an option to choose between one I was just wondering in general. Fallsview in Niagara charges a small and big every 30 minutes. So you're paying 14$ an hour at 2/5.

Profitable (less expensive) for you or for profitable for the house?

Average Rake/hour/table depends on how many hands dealt/hour and pot sizes, and avg/player/hour on seats filled at table. Rake for you individually will depend on above, plus how you play, also on the game (NL or PL vs. Limit) and whether you're a winner or loser.

more profitable for the player

Max rake $3/hand. Rake > time if you win less than 5 hands/hour
Max rake $20/hand. Time > rake for most players

So without knowing the max rake, it's impossible to tell you what is better.

Fair enough, thanks

Generally a time charge is more profitable for the player at 2/5.

Assume you're playing 2/5 with a 10% rake capped at $5 (which is a pretty low rake). You play about 30 hands/hour, and with people getting up you're probably averaging 8 players/hand. So, you'd expect to win about 3.5 hands every hour, and those are basically almost always going to hit the rake cap. So, you'd pay about $17.50/hour in rake, as compared to $14/hour in time charge. As rake cap goes up, the time charge looks better and better.

$14 an hour isn't bad for 2/5. It's comparable to 10% with $5 max. Majority (obviously not all) casinos in US charge rake for 2/5, and start the time games at higher levels.

Even if you had choice too many variables to give you straight answer.

What is max? As stated above if it's $20 then easy answer. You also have to be aware of jackpot drop in addition to rake.

Does the time game avoid jackpot drop? (such as foxwoods)

Are they doing time because it is a deep buy-in game, in which case it probably plays slower?

And the most important and most subjective: Which game is better?

Okay sounds good, thanks

30 hands an hour is a bit fast

Without rake you will get more hands an hour in though

I highly doubt that. I've never seen an experienced dealer take even a second to pull the rake - they're normally doing it while waiting for players to act - and while I haven't played a lot of time rake games I don't think I've ever seen a collection go without having to remind at least one player to put out his time.

30 an hour at most 2/5 tables would be great .. usually much less. I tend to think that collecting time takes more actual 'time' than raking a pot.

Rake v Time can also be looked at how active you are as a player. I tend to 'win' a lot of pots on the Flop, so I'm getting nickle/dimed on rake. If you don't play a lot of hands then the effect will be less.

Rooms love it when I play 1/2 since there's usually at least $25 in the pot PF and we seldom see a River. I've watched the rake on days when I change my style and I've had dealers tell me that I cost them money when I'm not playing.

In general I think raked tables take more off the table than timed tables and that's why you see less timed tables in the rooms. I think the rooms should reward dealers for high rake but don't want to open the door to over-rake or bad service either. GL

Well they don't offer raked games, they're all session games and do include the jackpot as far as I know. I was just wondering if I have another option id be better off playing there than the 14$ an hour 2/5 but it seems my questions been answered

I'm not sure he was talking about the time it takes to pull the rake. Players, at least in my experience, simply act faster in time games.

The caveat with my experience is that stakes may be a confounding factor - the main time game I play is higher stakes than all the rake games, so people may just act faster because they're more experienced. But with an N = 1, I noticed a 1/2 NL time game moved faster than similar 1/2-1/3s I've played.

I also feel like players start to complain about slow players / tankers way earlier in time raked games, especially at 2/5 where $8/down makes a way bigger difference than $10/down at 5/10. But maybe 5/10 players are just more chilled than 2/5 players.

time is fair pot rake is grossly unfair. there's no reason super nits should pay way less to play than action players.

once a game is short handed time rake is better for everyone.

I see this here all the time. I wish some of you guys would actually sit and count over 10-20 hrs. Ive done it a number of times and get 40/hr at my local poker room. It does have good dealers and shuffle machines.

I played in Jacksonville for the first time ever Tuesday evening. It seemed like everyone was playing fast so I counted and got 110 hands in 2 hrs.

I was saying LESS than 30 hands an hour is the average

This is UK

where dealers do longer shifts and don't keep tips [pooled] but get paid above min wage

in TIME games the games are much quicker, and even collecting time is quicker than rake itself

If dealers are collecting rake during the hand - do watch them, a few dealers I've seen do that - after a long tank river call have re-raked the pot... or drop it and in a split pot not bother getting it back

The worse was one place where either they were told to double rake, or the dealers were very stupid/devious - I caught them 3 times in one session. They collected it on the river decsion... and then recollected it afterwards... I was sure either this was the club, or the dealers trying to grab bigger tips [as it was a established club - but not a legal casino]

But yes TIME is always better value for the table [less money will come off the table]

If you are a super nit, and play only 4% of hands... you could say that rake works out better - except the knock on effect, that people's stacks all get smaller if more money is taken [by the house] out of the game - so your therotical win rate on double ups will be less [in the long run]

It depends so much on how the game is playing, and how you play.

If the game is slow and the pots are big, rake is usually better. Especially for a tight player who doesn't win many pots. I was playing a timed game recently, was dealt trash for a few hours and pretty much had to just sit there folding, and still payed like $90 in time when I would've paid about $0 in rake. As a tighter player who tends to either build big pots when I get involved, or often take it down pre (in which case there's usually no rake), I'm not a big fan of paying time.

this is a perfect example of why all rake should be time rake

Just do the math. How hard can it be to do your own homework?

The argument is not that the act of raking slows the game down.... the argument is that players will act faster if they are paying time....

My own experience does not bear this out, but that may be because only the larger games in my room take time, and cost is pretty cheap so nobody in those games seems to care about the time.