Holy mother of god - rake SUCKS!!!

I'd like to hear from folks at NL50, NL100 and NL200 what their effective rake is. Let's use regular BB/100, not ptBB/100. I will give more details below. For clarity, the formula is:

RakeRate = ( TotalRakePaid / TotalHandsPlayed ) * 100 / BigBlind

Jeez! I never realized how much you have to win at microstakes just to beat the rake. Since October, I've played 40k NL10 hands with a win rate of 10.8 BB/100, but I've paid an average of 11.9 BB/100 in rake. I know everyone's rake rate / 100 will differ based on the tightness or looseness of their style, site played, typical opponets' styles, etc. I have Rakeback of 30%, so my effective rake rate is 8.3 BB/100. My calculation to help anyone who's confused went like this: 38,272 hands with $455.04 in rake at NL10, so...

Robb's RakeRate = ( $455.02 / 38272 ) * 100 / $0.10 = 11.8896

I thought I'd post this for the noobs as I never realized what WINNING at NL10 meant - it means you're freakin' killin' the game. Break even NL10 is an accomplishment w/o Rakeback, and noobs who need 30k to 40k hands to start breaking even shouldn't be ashamed. But the upshot is, for noobs at least, GET Rakeback NOW, even if you have to switch sites, move money, drive to Canada to do your banking - LoL, just do what ya gotta.

Second thing, I started investigating where some "rake relief" will occur. Where I play (UB), they have what appears to be a fairly standard 5% of all pots with a $3 max. That means you would have to win a pot of MORE THAN $60 to get a "rake discount." We're playing NLH for standard 100 BB stacks, when we're lucky. So even NL25 with $50 all-in stackings don't qualify for a "rake discount." At NL50,we finally see a rake of only 3% on 100BB stack all-ins. So that's what I would like to see from the NL50's through NL200's - how does the rake's impact reduce as you move up? Does anyone at NL50 or NL100 earn more per hand than the casino rakes?

Finally, for anyone confused about ptBB vs. BB, PokerTracker is old enough that is was designed for limit poker where BB meant "Big Bet," the larger standard betting amount on the turn and river, typically 2xBigBlind. For NL10, where SmallBlind = $0.05 and BigBlind = $0.10, a win rate of 5 ptBB/100 would be $1 per 100 hands (5 * $0.20). It's equivalent win rate would be 10 BB/100 (10 * $0.10), if "BB" means "Big Blind," since No Limit has the same minimum bet for every round of betting. It has become ALMOST standard in this forum and others to read "BB/100" to mean "BigBlind/100" and to specify ptBB/100 when you mean it. But there is still confusion.

Sorry for the long post. Replies mucho appreciated.

rake at 6max at lower levels is typically one buyin/1000 hands.

Yea it sucks, so make sure at lower levels you are clearing bonuses and/or have Rakeback...that will help alleviate a lot of your concern. I think I made $25/1000 hands with Bonus/rb at $50nl.

At 100nl full ring over 125k-ish hands from within the past couple of months I averaged $0.0577 MGR/hand.

somebody correct me if i am wrong, but i felt that referring to winrates in NL was the exact opposite at FTR. i "assume" ptbb/100, unless otherwise specified.

therefore, i calculated my "rake" at about 5ish per 100. either way, beating the game at microstakes is pretty much crushing it.

As a point of reference and comparison, at 2/4 + 3/6, I'm seeing around 1/3 BI per 1k hands (if my estimates are right).

yea this is why Rakeback is so important

$50NL, 6 max I pay 14bb/100 rake which include BBJ rake. Wihtout the BBJ rake, it would probably be closer to 10bb/100 or 1 buyin per 1000 hands. Even at $50nl, you don't exceed the rake limit often enough to reduce your overall rake...I'd say you have to hit $100nl before you see any reduction in rake vs winnings.

*Last edited by Robb on Fri, 21 Dec 2007, 2:10pm; edited 1 time in total*

Just to give you an idea...

I played 37.53 hours this week of 100nl FR on PokerStars. I 14-table.

I paid $1728.19 in rake.

If I played the same amount for 52 weeks/year, I'd make PokerStars $89,865.88/year.

Something about the numbers here seems fishy to me...

How does Poker Tracker calculate how much rake you've "Paid"? Since the rake is taken from the pot, and you didn't create the whole pot from your stack, I don't see that as having paid the entire rake for that hand.
For Instance, a fake hand history:

HU 10NL, 5% rake up to $3
Hero: $10 AhAs
Villian: $10 KhKs
All-in Preflop
Pot: $20
Hero wins $19, $1 in rake paid.

Does Poker Tracker say that Hero paid a Full $1 in rake here? Because I see that hero only paid $0.50...If so, how is my viewpoint wrong here? Am I thinking too deeply? Not deep enough? I haven't been playing a lot lately, but when I was playing more (back at party when americans were welcome) and I wasn't killing the game, I was still showing a good profit... It just seems that this post is over-dramatasizing the effect of rake on profit...

I have paid 4.8ptbb/100 in rake at 50nl/pl since september, and my winrate in that period is 1.27ptbb/100.

Robb,
Thanks for the thorough explanation. I understand how my viewpoint was wrong, thankyou. So to word my example differently, the hero actually won $20, and THEN paid $1 in rake. That makes all the difference! And also brings up another small question... Does PokerTracker say that Hero won $20 for that hand, or $19? That would make a HUGE difference for the implications of this thread topic! I imagine that this is a simple question, but I haven't used PokerTracker myself in a couple years (since Mr Frist had his way...)

Chris

I know I'm kinda bumping this thread, but I have a question.

I guess I already know the answer, but I thought I would try anyway. I created a FTP account a LONG time ago. I'm talking a year or two before I actually played for real money and was serious about it. FTP has a strict policy about 1 account, per person, per lifetime. Is there ANY way in hell I can get RB for my FTP account? I am so used to the software there and have notes and stats in PT on so many players that it would be a waste to just start over at another site (which might be impossible for me since my credit card doesn't work anywhere other than FTP due to banking restrictions or some shit like that). I emailed one RB company about it and they said I couldn't because my account already had a promo code used for another thing (not RB) but I am almost positive I didn't use anything other than the initial deposit promo the first time.

For Live poker in California $1 comes out of the SB, another $3 in rake drops if we see a flop, another $1 for the BBJP if there is a flop (house keeps 10% of that), if you play at the Commerce there is another $1 if a river is delt and finally I usually tip a dealer a buck.

..Hence moving up was really important.

That's the thing though, I already tried one Rakeback provider and they said I couldn't because my account already had an "affiliate." I'll pm ya though.

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Holy mother of god - rake SUCKS!!!

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Holy mother of god - rake SUCKS!!!