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Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
Does anyone know how to compare cash-game rake to tournament rake?
Tournament rake is clearly a set number, but in cash games the number from each pot is a function of pot-size.
What's the method for comparing the two? There must be one.
I've spent a decent amount of energy theorizing about this. The main thing I have discovered is that rake is something you consider BEFORE participating in a game, and once you've paid it already, it's a sunk cost that has no bearing in strategy from this point forward.
Cash game example. If you're in a live 2/5 game, and there's a raise to 25 dollars and two callers before you. Action is on you in the BB, and you're deciding whether to call 20 to play for a 102 pot before rake. If you call, the pot will be raked 7 dollars, and be capped.
You don't consider what your actual contribution to this rake will be. You only consider that when you call you will need to extract 20 dollars worth of equity from the 95 dollar pot. Once you call, all decision making from that point forward will be a comparison of which play MAXIMIZES your equity in that 95 dollar pot. There will be decision points where neither choice beats the rake, but you will choose the lesser of two evils. Rake isn't consider at all once it is in the past.
So you can see what implications this has for tournaments. Take a winner-take-all HU SNG for example. The only decision you have that considers the rake is whether to play the tourney to begin with. Once you play, the rake is a sunk cost that is never considered again.
Suppose you choose to play, and villain open shoves the first hand. What does your equity need to be to call? Clearly if you called with exactly the strength of hand that is necessary to be +CEV, you would lose in $ equity when considering the rake, since you had no EV edge in that pot. But if you fold, you'll cede some equity to your opponent and the cost might be too great. It is possible that one losing play is better than the other losing play.
In essence you call that all in with all hands for which your win% of the SNG is higher than your win% had you folded. Tournament indifference points are always relative in this way.
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