I want to save up about 5k to take a shot at the 2/5 game cause I thought that rake is pretty normal and beatable (right?). But was also wondering, might the 1/2 game be worth playing in the meantime?

10% rake sounds absolutely insane to me, but given how bad the players are, if you just play very tight pre, raise huge and only valuebet, this might be beatable? Or is it just not worth the time anyway? Could dedicate the time playing 1/2 to studying for the bigger game of course so there's an opportunity cost.


The games:


1/2 with 10% rake, 10 rakecap, 250 buyin limit.

The game is very loose passive, almost everyone is limping, even really bad hands (even before the 10% rake). If you RFI to 10 theres like 3 callers on average. Postflop also very loose passive.


2/5 with 5% rake, 25 rakecap, 1250 buyin limit.

I havent played this yet but cant imagine there's any (semi)pros or even regs who actually study poker / solvers etc. But probably not as loose as the 1/2 game just cause its more money at risk.

Bart Hanson says he can't beat the $1/2 game and that playing $1/2 is bad for your poker game because you have to play so ridiculously tight to beat it.

I don’t have a definitive answer to what you are asking but you need to realize that the rake percentages are a sleight of hand to distract you from the rake cap. A rake cap of 25, even if it’s at 5%, is NUTS.

Those are REALLY high rakes especially the cap in 2/5. I get that rooms aren't making money. I mean with all of the unncessary stimulus that was done. The same 1/2 game from 2019 was generating $X income for a poker room towards costs. Of course, with inflation, that's now 25% less value though the costs of everything else has gone up.

At some point the 1/2 games have to be 1/3 and 2/5 has to go to 3/6 or something. Otherwise, it's a death spiral for the card rooms. Either that or do what these places are doing.