Suppose that you can figure out what you expect to pay your poker room in rake for the upcoming year. They offer you 10% off if you pay in advance. Do you take the deal?

You misunderstood me. I meant using that particular argument to make the point was a silly way of doing it, because it obfuscates your actual point. No matter what numbers he put in, you can just put a number to make it zero. You simply used whatever figure would make it zero, which implies that he cannot win under any circumstances.

Of course rake has an impact on the game, whether it's percentage of the pot, time rake, etc. That has always been and always will be an aspect of playing poker in a commercial environment. It's how the establishment hosting the game pays the bills.

Obviously, any establishment is going to charge whatever they feel they can, and they are going to make that decision in such a way (if they are competent) as to maximize their profit potential. They need to balance the idea that as the rake increases, there comes a point where they start losing enough business to stop the income curve from going up. A really smart business will try to set the rake at exactly that point to the best of their ability. Whether their individual customers are able to turn a profit or not is immaterial to the poker room, as long as enough of them continue to play.

I am a small net winner at poker for the amount of time that I have been keeping records (7 years). Would I be a bigger winner if the rake had been less? Of course! But that's so obvious that I don't really think it's discussion worthy.

What *IS* discussion worthy, though, since you've got such a bee in your bonnet about rake, is what type of rake structure do YOU think would be fair to both the players and to the sites, keeping in mind that the sites are in business to make as much money as they can?

I said it "resembles" the chicken/egg debate.

Which came first the -$19 chicken or the -$1 egg?

If the $19 in losses came first and the $1 rake came last then, yes, the rake made me break even. Otherwise the rake was paid when I dragged the pot and it was the $19 in subsequent losses which made me break even.

I'd do it like they did with Rush and Zoom poker. Start it up, explain what it is and advertise it like hell. Make it as much like live casino poker as possible and call it "Pure Poker."

(Did Rush and Zoom catch on?)

I'm not sure. Would my rake money be better spent at the table? Or, on a poker book?

It doesn't matter what chronological order the wins, losses, and rake payments occur.

Identifying the one that happened last and stating that one caused the ultimate result is silly. Obviously they all combine to cause to ultimate result.

The only point was that the following, with respect to Player A, applies to a lot of players:

Before taking rake into account Player A beats the other players in the long run and, therefore, has a positive net winrate (before rake), but the rake is equal to or greater than the amount Player A wins from the other players and, therefore, after considering rake Player A is either breakeven or has lost.

Only a relatively small amount of players win after considering rake. But a larger amount of people win before considering rake, but end up losers when the deducted rake is considered.

BigBritches seems to keep disagreeing in some manner that rake affects winrates. I've made multiple posts on the issue in response to try to show that rake does affect winrate and that there are many players who but for rake would be winning players.

The actual numbers I used in the example were merely that, an example, and I just started from the example given by BigBritches where he played for 2 hours, won $20 in one pot and paid $1 in rake.

If you say so.

You have your example, I have mine.

I win a $20 pot and pay $1 in rake. If that affects my winrate, I'll take it and play it all day. I'll be the happiest player in the card room. At $19 in my pocket to $1 to the house I'll gladly take all I can get!

Do you agree?

I was hoping that you'd say yes bec it's a great deal. Then I, clever me, would point out that you are starting the year off stuck to the rake and the FIRST thing you've got to do is beat the rake before you can win anything. There's no chicken/egg. The rake is there, every hand, and it sucks money out of the game something fierce.

IDK how many ways to say it but here's one more: If nobody re-buys it's only a matter of time before the house has ALL of the money. Of course the game would break before that but you get the point. The rake is issue number one after you've acquired some competency in the game. Well, maybe number three bec you also need discipline and emotional control to implement the competency but you get my point. The effect of the rake is enormous and most ppl don't even think about it, thank goodness.

Yep.


Do I agree to what? That playing 1 pot and winning $20 and paying $1 rake for a net profit of $19 is good? Yes, I agree to that. And yes, I would take that over and over. I would love to be able to have a net profit of $19 every pot.

Of course, if there was no rake I would have won $20 on that pot. So, I don't see how you can think that the rake isn't affecting how much you win. And if you acknowledge that the rake affects how much you win, then it should be obvious that if you win more than 0, but less than you pay in rake, then you will ultimately lose whereas if there was no rake you would have ultimately won. Many people are in this situation.

At some point I've got to conclude that you're yanking our chains and this is it.

But that isn't going to happen, is it?

The effect of the rake would be enormous if there was no fresh money coming into the game. As it stands, for an individual player, the rake is a non-starter.

Once again: If I take $100 to the poker room and walk away with $150 two hours later have I beat the rake?

Or, if I go with $100 and return with $50 and I didn't win a single pot, has the rake affected me enormously? No, since I didn't pay any, it hasn't affected me at all.

I don't think I said that rake has no effect on winnings. It just isn't as big a deal as some math fantasists would have us believe.

"Whereas if there was no rake?" Do you advocate rake-free poker?

Nossir. I'll trade a dollar for $19 all day long.

Wouldn't you?

See this chart:

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/f...07to8-6-10.jpg


It shows my cash game results from late 2006 to early August of 2010. The play was mainly at Poker Stars and Full Tilt. It does not take into account any rakeback/FPPs/bonuses I earned. (I'm using this particular chart showing play from those specific dates because I conveniently already have it posted on 2+2.)

The chart shows how much I won after considering rake. That amount is $66,103.53. It also shows how much I paid in rake. That amount is $107,717.76.

That means that I won from the other players $173,821.29 ($66,103.53 + $107,717.76). The sites took $107,717.76 in rake. That means the sites took from me just under 62% of the money I won from the other players as rake.

Would you say "the rake affected me enormously"? If not, is it at least significant? Did it affect the amount I won, or my winrate, in any way at all?


Though I did get some of the rake the sites took from me back in rakeback, FPPs, and other bonuses ... I would estimate I got approximately $30,000 to $35,000 of it back through these. Assuming I got back $35,000 of it, then ultimately the sites took from me just under 42% of the money I won from the other players as rake.

If you answered yes to any of the earlier questions, would you still answer yes after the paragraph immediately preceding this sentence?




Sure. That'd be cool if anyone would offer it. WSEX did offer it for a while to try to draw people to their site for sports betting, but they never got that much traffic.

I don't expect anyone to offer rake free poker though.

But competition between different providers would be good for the consumer in my opinion and one big reason in my opinion is that hopefully it would help to keep rake as low as possible. Consumers recognizing the cost of rake and opting for lower rake options would likely help this as well.

One last try and then I give up: Would you agree to play HU paying full rake? IOW, if your poker room charges up to $4 when the table is full would you ask for a rake reduction if it got down to HU?

Here's one last thing. I play mostly 8-16 limit. Sometimes higher limit players, who pay a time charge in their game and don't chop blinds, sit in the game. When they do they DO chop blinds. Hey, look, I finally found a place to use DUCY?

Except all rec players want time for themselves to act. Maybe that is that they don't know what to do immediately or maybe it is that they are playing whilst cooking the tea or dealing with the kids or placating the wife.

The time others take irritates the rec player but having their own hand folded irritates too.

Consider this vs the rec player that plays 2hrs per week and rakes like a dollar. Now tell me from a business perspective which player the site should be trying to attract and Cator to... If they profited 40 grand off the grinder and 40 or 400 or what ever miniscule amount of dollars off the rec then I think it's pretty clear. regardless if the reg is cashing out or not.

-Darth

Well this bit gives you the clue, follow the money

All the rake and all the profit for the reg came from losing player deposits. The losing or rec players are the whole business for both the site and the reg.

Sorry, I can't play a game of "your numbers."

Well, finally, we can agree on something -- twice!

If we each had $250k and blinds were $1k/2k would you?

Not sure why this matters. I always chop unless my opponent doesn't want to.

Nice job on the DUCY.

The Moneymaker poker boom of 2003 wasn't caused by grinders. It was RECs flocking to the tables because they thought they could do it, too.

I'm sure the poker sites value their REGs but without RECs the REGs would be pretty much out of business. They know they need both with the ratio hugely in favor of the RECs.

That's why this discussion started out exploring ways to attract more of them.

I think I get where you are coming from. You are a REG, you believe the REGs benefit sites because they generate more rake than the REC player, and you believe there should be no rules to attract the REC player that would adversely affect the REG players ability to earn.

That is certainly a valid opinion to have and defend, but I dont think it was the question that was asked. But there is a problem. If you look at many of these threads you have REGS bemaoning the fact that:

The games have dried up
No money in poker, everyones solid
The games are not juicy like in 2004
Its just a bunch of REGs at the table pushing money around
I can't get any action anymore
I may have to get a real job soon

Why is that? Maybe its because the RECs have left the building and aren't playing anymore. The hyenas ate all the Wildebeests and they have migrated to another plain. Now you just have packs of hyenas complaining that there aren't anymore Wildebeests.

Thank you Lego for this chart.

Your numbers are actually pretty impressive and one of the best I have seen.

The trouble with this is that you are probably one of the very best players (you are a Lego coach after all) so if we imagine how this will look for an average player or in general a person of average intelligence that plays poker as a recreation and not as a profession that this sort of person has no shot at beating the rake.