I’ve noticed that on this forum people add up pot sizes as if there were no rake. I’m definitely not trying to change the forum’s standard or anything as a newbie with 5 posts, but I’m wondering how people generally calculate the rake in game?

Unless I’m playing for stacks, I always subtract 10% of the pot plus $3 for the BBJ and dealer’s tip. (Good average between the usual $1 and the occasional larger tip for a large pot. I also tend to give a bit more if I suck out on a bad play.) Anyway, I’ve definitely had situations where I would have the correct odds to call if the hand had no rake/drop/tip, but these costs pushed me to a fold.

Do other people do this when calculating pot odds? Or do people generally consider the rake a hidden cost of the game that isn’t calculated?

Even though the rake can have a drastic effect on pots (especially those that hover around the maximum rake size), overall everything we do at the table is just an estimate anyways (i.e. we never know exactly how many outs we have, or exactly what percentage of the time our opponent is going to pay off an X size bet when we hit, etc.), so it probably doesn't matter all that much if you ignore it since everything you do is going to be off by +/- 10% anyways. But, yeah, the more accurately you count the pot, the more likely your estimates are going to be more accurate (it's just that it likely won't matter too much in most cases).

GcluelessestimatingnoobG

I keep very careful count of the rake, and in-game I will often subtract the max rake from the pot in my head while making decisions.

Oh absolutely, in game I don't count to the exact dollar either - I try to estimate to the closest $5 increment in small pots, and closest $10 increment in larger pots. The rake/drop/tip usually corresponds to 1 or 2 increments. Not big, but I think it's easy enough to incorporate into the routine mental math I do with every hand.

But in post-hand analysis here, I sometimes see equity calculations done to the 0.01% and the pot size is unraked/untipped, and that makes me chuckle a little.

In game, yes, I think about the rake. On the board, a couple things:

- Rake is small as a % on the pot in the sorts of hands that get posted here. If 200 bucks are in the pot, the rake is down to 5% or less (2%-4% on avg). Most people aren't posting hands with small pot sizes

- Most of the ranging/analysis exercises are designed to help you understand the probability that your hand is good vs a villain range, not to bog that down in the effect of rake. E.g. pokerstove is generally set up to show "you're good 33.2% of the time against that range, not 32.1% after rake is taken out" because all it does is evaluate the probability you'll be ahead at the river based upon the cards that are known. People are generally just copying those analyses over.

I do this as well. Max rake is 4+1 and pots that I'm typically involved in I go ahead and subtract $5 to make slight adjustments in bet sizing. It's more relevant in pots that are directly hitting max rake territory, less relevant in really really big pots.

Sounds like you need to find better games with Lower rake honestly


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Just subtract max rake + tip from every pot.

If you’re truly playing “TAG” like 99% of people on here claim to be then every pot you’re involved in that sees a turn should be exceeding the max rake.

In game I round to 5s. If a flop should be 68, I us 70, etc. It typically doesn't matter in the overall equity in the hand because if a spot is close, it's going to be close if you round or not and we're doing this at the table so I'd rather get that part out of the way and concentrate on ranges. Once pots get bigger, like when people are betting 200+, I'll typically round even more just to make the maths easier

I'll typically write the hand down correctly and subtract rake if I post it, but if your playing pots that are continually over 200+, rake is going to be such a small % that it's pretty marginal to worry about

Pretty much every pot I am in is always max rake since I always RFI, unless its heads up in that case I am usually C-betting. So it is usually always a max rake because of the C-bet. I do not automatically tip the dealer for each hand as I think this really affects overall win rates. I only tip when I scoop a big pot. Why are you tipping the dealer? Is it because you feel you should because everyone else does, or do you just like to tip them?

A big pot to me is over 500 at 1-2

I subtract the rake from my HHs, but it's only $5 - $6 max. I do the same in-game.