Does it have anything to do with rakeback?

Lets say we have three groups;

1)If you are earning more money in than you are paying out in rake you are beating the rake.

2)If you are earning the same money as you are paying out in rake then you are not beating the rake and probably breaking even. (this is where having rakeback can be put you in group one)

3)If you are losing well your not even beating the game never mind the rake.

Wow, that's all it means to "Beat the rake"? Simply make more money than you pay to the rake? Makes me wonder why there are so many threads regarding this.

It means that you are better than the pool of players that you play against, by a margin that is bigger than the rake, so you end up in net profit.

The reason that this is important is that there are several games where you can crush your opponents, but it is almost impossible to crush them enough to have a winrate that is bigger than the rake. Low stakes LHE, CAP NL etc.

"Beating the rake" just means making a net profit. It doesn't really have much to do with the rake at all, except that some games (e.g. microstakes PLO, fixed limit) have relatively high rake, so very few players of those games have decent winrates.
So it's a figure of speech, generally used for high rake/low winrate games. e.g. Someone might say "I'd love to play more fixed limit, as it's full of fish, but it's hard to beat the rake".

If there was no such thing as rake, approximately 50% of players would make money. Since rake does exist, it's more like a third that do so.

Here's a practical example. You understand how rake works, but this is going to be new to someone, so I'll be very basic. I decided to play poker after watching the WSOP and WPT. They don't talk about rake on television.

I'm giving more information than you asked for, again, because this is the beginners forum, and someone may find it useful.

At the site on which I play (America's Cardroom), the least expensive tournament is $5 +.50. $5 is the tournament entry fee, 50 cents is the rake, which is the fee that someone pays to Americas Cardroom for using their site.

Sometimes you will cash and win more than $5. Other times, you won't cash, and you will lose the $5.50 that you paid to enter the tournament. But to break even, you have to average making not $5, but $5.50, per tournament.

The 10% rake that you often see at low-level tournaments means that a lot of players are going to lose money. As you play higher, for example, tournaments over $10, the percentage of rake will get lower, and depending on the site, you might see a tournament listed as $10 + .80, which is an 8% rake.

That makes it sound like it should be easy to move up and make money. And yes, the rake generally gets lower as you move up, but the players also get better.

A $1 to $5 player might be playing a tournament "just for fun", and he might go all-in with A5 just because he has a suited ace. 2+2ers in the micros make their money off players like this.

At $10 to $20 the rake will be lower, but there won't be nearly as many clueless players. Being good enough to beat the rake won't get it done any more. You might have 3 players at the table who are as good as you are, and you have to be good enough to identify those players and adjust, or win chips from the bad players, or both.

Basically, to have any success at poker, even to break even, you have to make some decisions, many of them financial, before you play:

Do I want to make money, or is this just entertainment, like seeing a movie?
Am I willing to play at the very lowest levels, such as $1 tournaments (or cash games with 1 and 2 cent blinds) if I don't have much money to put on the site?
Am I beating my current level by enough that I can probably beat the rake when I move up?
Am I willing to devote regular time to study, so that I will be prepared when I move up and face better players? If you study 5 hours a week and the guy on your immediate left studies 20 hours a week, that game or tournament might not go too well.

you can have a positive winrate (you have more money than when you started...timeframe=longterm is best).............and still not beat the rake.

When you are paying $4000 a month in rake, you sort of realize that money looks better in your pocket than the sites' pockets - regardless of how much you earn post-rake.

Furthermore, the rake is the most consistent winner in the game and suffers no fluctuations. Because of this, it totally is another player at the table to contend with. For example, say in a limit split game, there are decisions that must take rake into consideration (i.e., calling down for a split will yield a loss on the hand due to rake).

Because less than 1/3 of players can beat the rake! By the way, I sent you a PM regarding your new desktop.

But still why do some people say you can't beat the rake?

Sometimes you can beat the rake.

This thread is incredibly old, and I think the question was already sufficiently answered, so I'm gonna lock this up.