3/6 rake unbeatable? according to TT Holdem

[DesertCat]

I decided to use Turbo Texas Hold'em to try to find some leaks in my game. I set up a table full of mostly loose passives, and set the rake to my local casino's 3/6 level. To refresh your memory from my previous post, that is

1) $2 at $10
2) Additional $1 at $30
3)$1 jackpot from small blind.
4) $1 tip on pots over $30

I played this table and was losing (maybe 1000 hands or so). Okay so my game needs more work. Trying to determine where my leaks were, I took a look at the profiles that were doing better than me. I was shocked to notice only two were ahead of me, and only one of those was a winner. Every other profile was a bigger loser than me (no jokes please:).

Trying to understand how this could be, I ran a high speed simulation using that table, 30k hands. None of the profiles won! They were all significant losers. I added a couple of tight players and ran a new simulation, the tight players did better but still lost significantly ($4k each). I changed the game levels to 6/12 with same rake and re-ran the simulation. Voila! Both tight players won as did other loose players! I then re-ran the simulation with party poker rake, and half the table won...

This leads me to conclude that 3/6 at my casino's rake level is unbeatable (at least with the loose passive style of play prevalent there). What am I missing?

[Danenania]

Are you sure you made your opponents bad enough players in the simulation? There's no argument that in even a marginally tough game a rake so high would be oppressive, but LL Live games tend to be sooo loose and passive that it's overcome. I'm not familiar with the TT software, but is it possible when you call someone a "loose" player, it has them seeing 30% of flops when they should be seeing 65%?

[Wright Patterson]

Yes, the rake is brutal - the jackpot rake doesn't help - but the average 3/6 live game is beatable despite this. Even the average 2/4 live game can be beat, though the rake there is generally surreal in its harshness.

Keep in mind that even Turbo's "best" players aren't as good as you can and should become. They are especially poor when it comes to adapting to different game conditions or reading players. And Turbo simulations, although occasionally useful, have a huge fudge factor - easily big enough to prevent them from being useful in answering your question here.

Nonetheless if your casino offers a 4/8 or 5/10 game, you'd be wise to move up as soon as your bankroll and win rate allow.

[Beavis68]

Someone wrote an article on poker pages about this, I think they determined you would have to win about 4BB/hr to overcome the rake - can't remember if they included tips or not.

[Bob T.]

I suspect that the bad players in TT holdem aren't nearly as bad as real life 3-6 bad players. The rake in the game that you describe is big, but at the same time, I would be surprised if the players in that game are good enough that they could prevent someone from being a winning player.

Good luck,
play well,

Bob T.

[haakee]

TTH's "loose" players are not as loose as typical "loose" 3-6 players.

[Johnny_Cash_Advance]

3/6 is definitely beatable. That's the only limits I've been playing for a while now and I win pretty consistently. It's easy to get yourself into trouble at these table by seeing too many flops with weak pocket cards. Only play strong pre-flop hands or you'll be betting with second-best hand too often.

[Andy B]

It's been a while since I touched it, but my impression is that TTH is not an incredibly realistic representation of a real poker game.

You only have a small handful of posts, and they're all focused on the rake. While the rake certainly isn't helping, it isn't the only reason you lose.

How many poker books have you read? I have about sixty in my library, and I've read another fifty or so. Some of these books I've read more than twenty times. You probably don't need to read that many, but you should be studying TOP, Ed Miller's new book, and maybe some others.

We know you don't post much, but how much time have you spent reading this board? There is a wealth of information on here, and it's free, fer cryin' out loud.

You've logged 70 hours at your local casino. That's just not enough time to really learn the game. I started playing casino poker a little over four years ago, and I did win from day one, but I had spent five years in what was probably one of the toughest fifty-cent home games that's ever existed.

Focus on improving your game, and with time, you may be able to beat the rake. Continue to focus on the rake, and you won't be able to beat much of anything.