In your mind what is a reasonable rake?

At what point do you look at the other way when rake is too high?

Low limit live tournaments are raked at a high % bc it is costly for the room to run a tourney (dealers + table space etc).

The rake is often 20% or more which I believe is unbeatable in the long run.

These types of tournaments should only be played for fun with no expectation of turning a profit.

1) Yes, all 'daily' tournaments should be looked at for 2-4 hours of fun at most venues. The structures just don't allow for much 'poker' throughout the tournament.

2) IMO even the best 'daily' tournament Players will struggle to profit since there's so much pressure to chop once the money hits. You need a few wins mixed in there. If you could even expect to cash 20% of the time where's the profit if you are 'always' chopping?

3) OP, what's 'the other way'? Cash? If you can only budget a small amount then a tournament may be the only way to go. But if you can at least BI for 2x the table min, then you may want to consider cash and just nit it up. At least you wont be forced to put your chips in 2 hours later if the cards are cold. GL

10-15% is reasonable and expected. Tourneys with buy-ins $60 or less are going to be higher for reasons listed above, and as mentioned, should just be for entertainment anyway. If you are playing $100+ tourneys with 20%+ rake then it is too much IMO. You should expect 15% or less.

If I recall, the way rake% are generally calculated in the poker world is rake/buy-in without rake as opposed to rake/full buy-in (including rake).

So in case of 80+20 for instance, rake% would be 25% instead of 20%.

Is that about right?

I think you're working the exchange rate in there somewhere ...

IMO you look at the total amount of 'out of pocket' and break it down from there.

Where it gets tricky is with Dealer add-ons ...

$250 tournament ... 220/30 ... 12% rake (30/250)
But now include the $10 DAO for typically 25% more chips ... 15.4% rake (40/260)

Essentially this is a forced 'pre' tip but since it's really pretty silly to pass on it so I toss it into the rake (expense) department.

Most venues list all the numbers separately for larger tournaments since they don't want to answer the question 100 times. GL