I've been doing some napkin math on the rake at my local 1/3 game and was a bit surprised by how much comes out of the pot. The ranges that I've been looking at on GTOWizard are for Live 10% rake games but from what I see, the rake in my game is closer to 20% (up to 3bb). This is including a few dollars for promos and taking tip into account. The rake is around 20% but never really gets below 15% until the pot is like over $100.

For example, a $30 pot will lose $3 for rake, $2 for jackpot promo, and I'll tip $1. So that's $6 (20%)

Most of the opening range on the GTOWizard live ranges are just above breakeven before considering this; so what hands are even playable at this structure? Like is A9s really generating a profit, or AJo, 99, etc. At what point do you just wait for JJ+ AKs, and just fold everything else?

I would consider limping in with some hands, but the rake is an even higher percentage the smaller the pot (ie. 30% rake on a $10 pot)

Just curious how others have adjusted to these higher costs

So i was looking at gto live 10% ranges and LOL. What a classic example of not blind trusting gto.

For those who dont know, the UTG range for gto wizard’s 10% live game is A2s+, ATo+, KTs, K5s, 65s, and TT+. Yes, it folds (almost all of) 99 and plays (almost all of) K5s.

So lets go into the why.

The goal of a GTO bot is actually not to win, its basically to minimize (their own) rake, and it assumes that its opponents are doing the same thing. Because preflop isnt raked, this means that villian GTO bots are playing an extremely high % of 3! Or fold, which means that the hero gto bot UTG ONLY cares about removal or pure value and postflop playability is basically irrelevant.

The “unexploitability” of a gto bot is actually just reaching an equilibrium where people cant make more money, but you absolutely can make the gto bot LOSE more money, by forcing them to pay more rake. (I feel like someone is gonna tell me this is wrong, so please refer to question 4 of this youtube video before telling me im wrong: https://youtu.be/t3Jqs4_Rz1A?si=Qwvpk0mwsr7Ghu67 ). In this case, the above strategy would lose a LOT of money by opponents simply calling and seeing a flop with more playable hands (opponents would also lose money), and it would also miss out on ev+ opportunities with hands like 99 that would gain quite a bit of ev against their too wide calling range.

To answer your question, my home casino charges $5+3(+1 tip) which is in fact 3 BB cap, but the +3 is a promo drop and the promo is returned via EV. The game is probably near unbeatable, you need to calculate the highest EV promo times to paly and try to play at those times.

You also should adopt a 3 bet or fold strategy preflop when facing a raise. Not only does it give you zero rake preflop wins, but also the pot becomes unraked > $50 so when you get called you can get into more meaningful pots allowing for bigger errors by opponents for the same rake price.

Grunch from title alone: I wouldn't.

Probably why you should read past the title. Hes including tip and promo drop, so hes explaining the normal rake structure at a casino.

What you're saying makes a ton of sense, I never could wrap my head around opening a hand like K9s but just folding a hand like 99. So in a standard live game where you see a disproportionate number of flats by opponents as opposed to 3Bets, do you find yourself playing more pocket pairs instead of the blocker based opens? And if so where is your line for pairs from EP or MP?

Also, how has your open size changed based on the rake? Are you just opening to $25 over limpers to try and get the pot >$50 as fast as possible, to get past the point of rake? Intuitively that feels like what I would try to do so you either pay no rake by taking it down or just skip right past the $50 line and can play the pot rake free from there.

Yes, i think PPs are more valuable than the solver thinks for a variety of exploitative factors.

I do not play a static range at all, and my 1/3 preflop strat explanation could probably cover about 10+ pages, but i suppose my most static range is from utg, which is probably something like 22+, ATs+ AJo+ KQ for a $15 raise; Id probably recommend tighter than this (fold 22-55 at minimum, probably 66 AJo KQo ATs) unless youre crushing. An extremely tight EP range goven the blinds is sound strategy.

The standard raise size at low stakes is $15. My strategy is that I try to bet the amount that gets me heads up, so if it goes multiway a lot, i tend to bet more and more preflop until people start limp folding, so yes i have had my raises as big as 25. The more i need to raise to get HU, the tighter i play. The worse the limpers are, the looser i raise.

Just to give you an idea of how dynamic my open strategy is, I find that vs a decent number of villains I could play my hand blind IP HU profitably, so with 1 or 0 limpers and bad players as the limper/blinds im targeting, my range is 100%. Again, wouldnt recommend this if you arent crushing.

Another thing is PPs hit high hands (as does Ax), which tends to be the promos the casinos run. A huge amount of EV is returned via promo. At my local casino on friday and saturday mornings they give out $40k via high hand in about 3-4 hours. So lets sat $10k/hr split between 30 tables of 8 players (240 players) = $42/hr promo assuming everyone has the same odds to hit. Some of that is taxed cuz promos >$600 are less valuable, so lets sat $30/hr. Thats gonna likely make up >50% of your winrate at 1/3. (Not to say its more important than your actual play, because avoiding losing your shirt to the rake, and even batting to break even ignoring the promo is very important. I still recommending 3 betting or folding pre rather than flatting, because not seieng a flop and saving the $9 rake is a fine outcome and its fine you had no chance to hut a HH)

After that promo finishes it goes down to $1000/hr payout which basically means $3/hr payout, and then in the evenings theres no payout at all. You can see why hunting promos is so important.

ItÂ’s not 20% rake really. ItÂ’s typical 10% + promo unless I misunderstand. But yes when you really count the rake pot after pot you realize where the money goes.

These games are not very beatable if players are playing correctly for the structure (tight / high EV hands). And even if they arenÂ’t, stealing small pots has minimal EV. So avoid nitty games.

But the players probably arenÂ’t playing correctly. And if youÂ’re willing to give a little action getting the worst from time to time you will find yourself in some very big pots with the best of it.

If the games are good (loose) and deep they are very beatable making exploitable adjustments if you are positionally aware and aware of stacks (and whoÂ’s ready to punt (etc.))

If youÂ’re playing unexploitable ranges profit will be minimized IMO because your opponents are not playing how the solver expects unless you are custom node locking and all that stuff. But IÂ’m not an expert on solvers.