When is the rake insurmountable?

[johnnyhearts]

I'd like to know theory/ideas regarding at what point the rake becomes the only winner in a game regardless of disparity in playing strength of the players i.e.) There is a point at which Sklansky couldn't beat a game of chimps that have been trained to hold cards and put chips in randomly. What would that be? Let's take the more reasonable example of Sklansky playing $2-4 against the usual crew of loose neophytes (Let's put the rake at $3 + $1 for a jackpot promotion fund). I doubt he can beat it. Can he beat $3-6 being raked at the same amount? $4-8? At what % of rake can he make a big bet/hour?

Maybe this has been discussed before on here. Please direct me to the forum and thread please. Also, anybody that gets all mad about my saying, "Sklansky can't beat monkeys", just change the monkey part to "you and your buddies", thanks.

[Onaflag]

I don't know at what level the rake cannot be beat, but I can tell you that $4 gets taken out of every 3/6 pot I play and I make money. The players rotate in and out all night long effectively paying the rake for you.

This reminds me of funny thing a couple weekends ago. It was Friday night and I had to get up for some reason or another Saturday morning so I had to leave the 4/8 game around 2am. There were lots of chips on the table and I hated to leave.

Saturday morning I did what I had to do and headed back to the cardroom. The same guys were still sitting there and I jumped back in the game. Something was very different about the table. Chip stacks were tiny. I asked if everyone quit last night and just came back. Nope. Been there all night.

I asked one of the guys where all the chips went and he pointed to the drop box. They all knew that if they continued playing each other, the rake would eventually eat all of them up. Or did they know that? Someone would go bust and buy another rack or two, sure, but the drop box is, was, and always will be the winner in any game.

But that DOES NOT mean you cannot make money at any level. Certainly not enough to raise a family, but plenty for extra spending money.

Onaflag............

[BarronVangorToth]

It's amusing in those rare situations where you start a game and, after a few hours, EVERYONE is below where they started ...

We had that at Foxwoods a few weeks ago where we all knew what everyone bought in for and two hours later we all had a little less than what we started with.

Great table selection ahoy!

Barron Vangor Toth
BarronVangorToth.com

[AaronBrown]

A simple answer is when your share of the rake equals your advantage. For example, if you average +2 BB per 100 hands at a table of 10 players, a rake of 0.2 BB per hand will make you a break-even player. It could be a little more or less depending on your style, if you win a few big pots the rake bites less than if you steal a lot of blinds. The structure of the rake matters also, is it a fixed amount or a percentage up to a cap?

[dogmeat]

When you are only good enough to break even without the rake.

Alright, that's not really what you want - but discussions like this are worthless.............the game is still good regardless of the size of the rake if you are a big enough favorite over the other players. There is no other way of looking at this without trying the game and seeing what the competition is like. I used to play in a private game that has/had a $100 buy-in and you could not get more until you busted. The host charged $20 upfront, and then every hour took another $5 for drinks and $5 for snacks - that's pretty healthy for an hourly rate for a small game.

However, in that home game, the players were terrible, and even though it was $50 to play for the first three hours, it was well worth it.

Dogmeat /images/graemlins/spade.gif

[Iceman]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd like to know theory/ideas regarding at what point the rake becomes the only winner in a game regardless of disparity in playing strength of the players i.e.) There is a point at which Sklansky couldn't beat a game of chimps that have been trained to hold cards and put chips in randomly. What would that be? Let's take the more reasonable example of Sklansky playing $2-4 against the usual crew of loose neophytes (Let's put the rake at $3 + $1 for a jackpot promotion fund). I doubt he can beat it. Can he beat $3-6 being raked at the same amount? $4-8? At what % of rake can he make a big bet/hour?

Maybe this has been discussed before on here. Please direct me to the forum and thread please. Also, anybody that gets all mad about my saying, "Sklansky can't beat monkeys", just change the monkey part to "you and your buddies", thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

Cardrooms often let short-term greed take priority over their long-term interests, but very few of them are stupid enough to spread unbeatable games. Almost any rake that exists in an actual game can be beaten if the players are bad enough. I've heard of limit seven-card stud games in Europe that have uncapped 10% rakes but that are highly profitable for the few strong players there - those games contain multiple players that would automatically call to fifth or sixth street every single hand regardless of their hands or their opponents' boards or the action.

I think a 10% uncapped rake would make most limit holdem games unbeatable for a good player against typical opposition, but a very strong player could still beat a very weak lineup. If the rake was 20% uncapped in limit holdem, I don't think Sklansky could beat people who just learned how to play.

[CourtJester]

I dont believe that any rake that it offered is unbeatable although it just makes it that much tougher obviously because those are more bets not going to you. I play at the local indian casino and they just rape us, 10% up to $5 + 1 for jackpot in a 1/2 game, thats HUGE. Think about it, in a $20 pot they take $3 which is 15% (then the dealer tip, another .5 or $1), thats a ton compared to online which is <5. But i think the game is still beatable as im the only thinking being at the table besides my friends who occasionally sit there.

[bobman0330]

It's not exactly correct to count a jackpot drop as part of the rake. It's not good, but you do have a chance of winning, which ameliorates the impact on your EV