To me the way that makes the most sense to look at it is "house edge". If a tournament is $300+100, and there is no skill involved, you would get back 300 of every 400 dollars invested, meaning a "house edge" of 25%, not 33%.

DING DING DING. WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!!!

it's funny that i didn't notice that math myself vis-a-vis OP's original comment. although i think his point is valid

i hate to say it but i think 20% fee is justified as long as they don't chisel you for more $$$$ - either binding from dealer service fee or non-binding from heavy pressure to tip the dealers.

if they chisel you for more fees then 10%-15% is fair...

i actually always thought 10% is pretty low.

What if I´m a player that wants to estimate how high his ROI needs to be to justify playing the tournament. You play for the prize pool and you pay the rake on top, for example $100+$10 or 10%. You need to have a return on your wager ($100) of $10 (10%) to nullify the rake.

If you can't see how different methods can work in different circumstances and are so close minded to even quote PS as an authority (who want their rake % to seem as low as possible remember) then so be it. I wasn't even arguing which one is better, just that both are possible and preferable in certain situations.

There is no universally accepted definition, but does it make sense to do it in a way that is consistent across both tournaments and cash games? What about the concept of a "time rake"? If the term "rake" comes from using a metaphorical tool to take a percentage of the pot, then perhaps it is most in keeping with how the term came about to view it as a percentage of the total money. Maybe the term "rake" should only be used to refer to cash games and a different term should be used when talking about tournament fees. I've seen the term "vig(orish)" used in the past.

Do some people prefer using whatever method makes the rake percentage look higher, so they feel more justified about complaining that the rake is too high? Other than this, the only other understandable reason I can think of to calculate it as 65/300 would be the troll RedOak, so it seems like the better way is to do it as 65/365, unless RedOak is really annoying.

See my post #31 to see how your ROI will be affected by different rakes to determine if you want to play. http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...5&postcount=31

If I insisted 2+2=4 would that make me close minded? This is a math issue. There is only ONE correct answer and it is 65/365 not 65/300. I quoted pokerstars because interestingly I could not find another site that actually addressed this issue. If you think the world largest online pokerroom with experts in this area are wrong, then lol. That is like telling Einstein "I thought e=mc^3" and he told me "no it is e=mc^2", and I dismissed him by saying he doesn't know what he is talking about. lol.

The rake is high and what they take out is insane. You can justify it any number of ways but they take the approach of people are going to pay it because if they didn't they wouldn't pay tournaments.

Only recourse you have is to do what Jerry Yang did. Stiff the dealers because to the person that plays them regularly it adds up and it's always the dealers that lose.

This makes me completely crazy. I've recently gotten death stares from cage ladies when I politely decline that second toke. I just want to say, "What did you expect honey? I tip out every time I lose now too."

In today's rake environment I will not tip anything additional if the cash is less than 10k. Anything higher and my endorphins force me to give 1%, and that's incredibly generous.

The question becomes, what's the threshold of rake to recs that should keep even the most dogged regs away? How high does it have to get where even if the field were wet dream soft, there's still no point in playing? (I say "no point" rather than "profitable" since beating the rake isn't all that hot if you're worth $2/hr)

Eventually the rake is going to get so high that the tournaments will be unbeatable (it's already hard enough live because you can only play so many tournaments a year). The cash games in LA are basically unbeatable below 5/10 because of the "drop" rake. Once this happens the casinos will have to make a decision because eventually it will dry up. The stubborn regs will stay because the games will be softer, but in the long run their profits will be a lot lower. When they run the numbers and see they pay $50k a year in rake they might have a heart attack. Figure in taxes and downswings and it makes the longevity of poker as a profession 10 years from now pretty bleak.

Rake means nothing to the average joe, or even the informed casual reg like a lot of posters on here (me included) who wants to bink a huge score, or run up his stack in a big live game. But for the overall poker economy it's a really big deal.

im curious how much the wsop actually makes on a $365 with say 500 entrants. after dealers, floor, security etc, are they really making that much? compare that to online tourneys that usually have a 10% rake with none of the overhead that live tourneys have

Not to mention comped water bottles, Red Bulls, alcohol, coffee, etc.

The WSOP rake already includes the tip for the dealers. That's one of the main reasons why is rake has appeared to increase. It is a standard flat fee across all Circuit stops to discourage either deceptive add-ons or shaking players down for tips after the fact.

I can understand why players don't like when it increases, but live tournament rake is still one of the LEAST profitable sources of income for casinos.

Obviously the poker site wants a bigger denominator.

There is a very good reason people traditionally calculated rake the other way. Where 10+1 is 10%. That reason is the amount going to the prizepool is usually a whole number. No calculator needed to figure out 200+15 is 7.5%.

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$300+$65=$365, rake is 21.67%

Everybody can think of the tournament rake in whatever way they choose. I prefer thinking of it in terms of the money going into the prize pool. In the case of the $200+$30 structure of the Friday Borgata weekly, I evaluate the rake as 15% of the money going to the prizepool. This approach makes it clear what my ROI has to be for the tournament to be profitable.

I have independently solved this by thinking about it.

Under my plan you pay $0 rake, or 0% whichever you prefer, and only the winners pay a 17.8% cash out tariff.

You're welcome.

Both perfectly fine reasons to do it this way. Of course there are reasons to do it the other way that are also valid and until there is something like the poker police it isn't ******ed or wrong to use either of those ways.

Unless your name is RedOak of course because PS does it a certain way and so it can only be that way.

$365 to enter, $300 goes to prizepool $65 to the house. The house take is 17.80% of what someone pays to play the tournament. 82.2% goes to prizepool.

Make a bet at the sports book or the local bookie and you pay a 10% vig or $10 on a $100 bet, mkes sense in the grand scheme of things. The other way is OK too, no problem .LOL

It just seems that if one wanted to bet $55 the vig is an easy $5.50 whereas putting down any amount calls for a calculation in reverse and so a bet of $61 would calculate to a $55+ bet, too many pennies.

Mods, kindly rename thread, I suggest:

NVG has clearly lost its mind concerning rake percentage calculations

look, this is actually GOOD for the games. $65 rake on a 365 buyin will keep most pros away, and make the games softer!

Bnegs

Huh? Your ROI is based on your past tournament results. If you only played $200+$30 events and your ROI was 10% then despite the rake being 13.04%, (30/230) your ROI is still 10% and you would expect to win $23 net for playing this event.

+1

People on vacation in Vegas for the WSOP don't even look at the rake.

Here is a $365 event with $65 rake (17.81%) and $300 to pool, and 9% rake and $332.15 to pool with 1,000 players, paying 15% and mincash = 1.5x the $365 buyin. If you think rake does not matter if you win, then in this case the higher rake cost you over $5,500.

The answer is 65/365:

Imagine a 10 man SNG. The buyin is $200 + $800. If you don't include the entry fee, you have 400% rake. You can never rake more than 100% of a pot or prize pool. You can say the entry fee is 400% of the buy in, but the rake is 1000 - 800 = 80% rake, 20% left for players.