Playing live in Las Vegas...$4 rake max, plus the $2 headed to the bonus.

Logic is giving me conflicting answers. If I'm better than my opponents, and a bunch of tourists are constantly feeding $100 bills in to the game, then rake shouldn't matter that much as I would still be winning money.

On the other hand...there's a lot of money going in that drop box. And I've worked in surveillance and been in the count rooms...I repeat...there's a lot of money in those boxes.

I'm not sure what you're asking here.

You should be considering rake when you play. That said, most standard live games (like the kind you play in Vegas wherever) are still plenty beatable post-rake.

As to how rake should impact your strategy, the answer is not really much. Yes, if you want to be technical about it, rake impacts best play. But for the purposes of someone asking a question like this in BQ, you're best off not really thinking too much about rake (as long as the game is beatable) and trying to play the best poker you can.

Your table is probably paying close to $300-$500 per 100 hands. I'm not sure what stakes you're playing, but I'd bet more than half the money lost among the losing players ends up in that box.

Not sure what you want to know.

There’s a sum X that comes off the table in rake every hour. Every regular who cares about rake has a pretty good understanding what that number is.

If there are “a bunch of tourists” who constantly feed $100 bills to the game, we should be talking about >$1000 per hour.

There is a lot of money going into those boxes!

Here's how I look at rake .. Find out where they transition to the next $1 and gear your PF play to those numbers.

I played in a room where they dropped the 'next' chip at 'the eights' ($18/28/38) .. So I would open for $8 since the game typically went to the Flop with 2-3 Players, hopefully at least one being a blind. 3x8 plus $3 in blinds is $27 .. just under the next drop point! If only the BB called then the pot was at $17.

If the table was 3-5 callers then I dropped down to $7 or made it $11 .. 4x11 plus blinds is $47, thus under that last barrier in a max $5 room.

If you're not at a table where you can get a lot of bet-folds on the Flop, then this thought process is moot. I play a high VPIP style that 'the rooms' love since it generally produces max rake when I'm around. But that still doesn't keep me from trying to keep a few of those dollars out of the box .. until the next hand!

It took quite a few years for a Dealer to figure out what I was doing. It does make them work harder since there's always a lot of chip change going around, but the table usually figures out my opening size(s) and keeps those quantities available. GL

@OP, the rake is easily beatable, especially in a touristy game you describe. Yes, a lot goes into the rake box, but not nearly as much as is being passed around between the players. For a good player who doesn't pass it back, the $4 doesn't matter much. Anyone for whom the $4 makes the difference between winning and losing vs the live fish is a fish themself.

OP said the rake is capped at $4, so the max possible rake per 100 hands is $400 unless you're counting the promo drops.

A live table sees what, 50 hands per hour at its fastest? So the max rake per hour would be $200 no matter how much money the tourists are punting. Any excess that they're feeding is going to the other players (which might be the point you were making).

Every game plays differently, but a rough estimate for a low stakes live game is 30 hands per hour.

Significantly more hands than that usually signals a bad game.

If you want a mathematical basis for assessing rake, consider this:

EV = Pr(win)*Amount won - Pr(lose)*Amount lost

Now if the win amount is the pot less rake, and only the winner player pays rake, then

EV = Pr(win)*Pot - Pr(lose) * Loss - Pr(win)*Rake

where Rake is the average amount raked when you win.

So, the average decrease in winnings due to rake is Pr(win)*Rake.

Since the rake will normally depend on such factors as street (e.g. no rake for a pre-flop win), pot size and possibly other factors, the above is a simple case but suggests how rake can be analytically treated.

Even that seems quick, 20-25 would be typical imo

I relate the rake cap (or so) to the size of the big blind. I compare it to the online games, and to any live games I know, like a 10 cap for 2/2 and possibly up to 2/5 games (possibly 15 or 20 cap) that's like any 2 big blinds cap game and very beatable in live games when it is beatable for the best players even online.

The live games are slower, but one is not just sitting there doing nothing, and one plays higher and can win more big blinds per 100, so can be easy going and still not bad at all, and less skill needed. One just needs to be able to play the looser games well and have the roll. It is a good pair with online play as one needs time off for recovery or one will not be playing winning poker in any tougher games online because the memory and attention suffer for too little time off.

It keeps amazing me how much useless nonsense is being spewed here

Who cares about how much money goes into that box?
Would you rather win $50 / hour and have $400 go into the box?
Or win $20 / hour and only have $200 go into the box?

It doesn't matter how much money goes into the box, it matters how much money goes into your pockets.

Unless your motive is not money.

I agree, but there exists some hypothetical amount of rake that would make it impossible for money to go into your pockets. That amount is much higher than the existing rake, though, so your point is still valid.

but rake is just one of the factors for deciding if a game is +EV or not

the most important factor is probably your own skill level
are you good enough at poker to beat the other players at the table

which leads to the next factor, how good are the other players at your table


high rake games probably attract less good players, so the game should be easier, thus you could potentially have a higher win rate in a higher raked game


my point is, it probably doesn't matter, unless they're raking some absurd amount
just git gud

That part is true for a single session but not for the long run given that players have finite gambling budgets.

If somebody has $1000 to gamble away per month, he’s sitting out the last 2 weeks, no matter if he lost $100 to other players and $900 to rake or the other way around.

In holland they play 1-2 2-2 euro games with a rake of 5% cap 14 euro's ( 7bb)
I think those games are still beatable because they play quite deep and the players are horrible.