I recently started playing the underground games (there are no others where I live).

The games are typically 5-5, but play closer to 5-10. Even though it starts shallow by mid evening most stacks are over 1000 and preflop open are +50
Games are 10 handed and max rake is 25 (including if there is no flop - though that does not happen often).
I play mostly tight aggressive,
Some rooms have a one time hospitality fee between 50 - 100 (I know!!)

There is a game which have a one time fee of 300. I presume the game runs for 6-7 hours a session.

Which do you think will be more profitable?

Here is what bing thinks about it -

Bing seems to think you have to pay it each hour. Why don't you just do some estimation yourself?

And I pity anyone who has to pay that much... You probably need at least $5-10 to have a beatable game.

Making some assumptions, the $300 game is pulling about $500 per hour out of the game. Otoh, the rake game is prolly pulling about $500+ per hr. Seems the time game organizer sized the fee basically to be equivalent.

If above true and you truly are playing tight (or at least tight for this game), then the rake game will always be better if all else are identical. With even a near no4mal dist there will be nights the rake game will be better or worse but prolly not much.

However, the tighter you play in the rake game, the less likely you are to keep your invite.

You could also choose not to play in games that are predatory. $100 a night fee is fine, $10/12 max rake is also fine (also less than ideal) for an underground game. $25 max rake or $300 nightly fee are just outright predatory and I choose not to support business that operate in a predatory way. That would be like working for a car repair shop that scams their customers.

out side of the states it is pretty common for the max rake to be this big. And I'm not talking $, about a 1/3 of it
Where I live, in which poker is illegal, there is no other choice.
And it seems like the games are very beatable.

If I was a tight player (which I am not) I would always choose the rake game.

There will be some days that it would be better in the other direction.

But the thing for me is that I have a stop loss limit (because I will tilt after I have lost over two buy-ins in LHE and 3 buy ins at NL). So if I am leaving early then obviously the $300 overall fee would have been a bad investment for the day. And I would likely save money if it was just a rake game with no hourly fees.

Personally I have found that if it is properly balanced I do better with hourly or half hourly fees because I do change my game style to be tight aggressive. Which actually improves my win rate in some games...

Similarly if you find as a tight aggressive player that you loosen up when you are down (tilting perhaps?) then the hourly fee is better.

I would choose the rake here and it's not even close.

First of all, you have to win 12 max rake pots before you even break even on paying the nightly fee. So if the game sucks, or your plans change, or you run bad, you're really getting a bad deal.

If the game is full ring and has a lot of action, it's actually pretty tough to even win 12 pots in a night if you're a solid player. Sure, some nights you might win 20, but if I was given this structure I would just pay the 25 rake and play super solid, and if they don't want me playing solid I'm not playing.

You said the game is 10 handed. Wow, definitely hard to win 12 max rake pots. Pay the 25. Most nights if play tight you'll win 5-7 pots and pay less than half the nightly fee. And that's assuming you play the whole night. You'd be shocked how often in a 10 handed game you can go the whole night and only win 2 or 3 pots, or even less. My longest session without winning a pot was in 10 handed plo, 7.5 hours and left without ever taking down a pot.

At a 10 handed table, the players who win the most pots, are usually the biggest losing players. The guy who sits there all night and wins 4 pots is usually the guy who goes home a winner. 10 handed is a terrible game.

Who cares what the blinds are? You need whales, end of story.

Ive seen 1/3 games where people open to 50 and get multiway action regularly. I've seen 5/10 games where a raise to 30 will usually win the blinds. The blinds really aren't what's important. The opening size and the stacks are, and they are often not that correlated with the blind size

Easy math. 10 handed, 25 hands per hr, 6 hr session so 159 hands per night. On average random player random night pulls 15 pots. If the average rake is 80% of max then average player pays the same in both games.

In this game average rake at 80% of max is probably a little high but if game is loose enough that opens are 50 and go multi-way $20 is not that high. Or if the % is like 20% instead of 10%.

Why would you do this? You should play tighter in raked games and looser in time charge games.

You are 100% right.

I'm guessing I had no sleep and messed up.

I would normally play looser in the time charge games.

In raked games I'm not a tight player either but I tend to play tighter especially if there are a lot of tighter players in the game.

Sure, fair point. I was using stakes as a shorthand but yes, what you said.

Of course blinds and pot size are highly correlated in the literal sense (most 5-10 NL plays bigger than most 1-3) but there are exceptions. Especially in Texas, I'm told. And hopefully in the OP's private game.

Yes but if this game is good, that means there's a bunch of loose players in it. Loose players win more pots, and the winning adjustment generally is to play tighter and value bet aggressively against them. Especially in a 10 handed game. So expect to win less than your average share of pots.

Loose fish also tend to cause a game to get less hands per hour.

And if there aren't a bunch of loose fish, then your best move is to not play this game.

And of course, some nights for a variety of reasons, you may want to leave early. Easy choice to just pay 25/hand.

Which is what I said in my original reply (#3 ITT). Rake game should be better for OP.

But if you adjust correctly, you might win fewer pots but you will max out the $25 more, prolly almost every pot you drag. So you are at 2 pots per hr but $25/pots. If you only win 25% of VPIP hands your are VPIP at ~15%. And that assumes you never hit a BBSpecial nor ever get a good hand to play in your blinds.

On average the rake game while ugly is better than nightly charge. But not by a lot if you play the whole night.

I actually think you have to run quite good to win 2 hands per hour at a 10 handed fishy live game.