is it possible to beat this game

[Kenshin]

I recently started playing mid-stakes hold'em at intercasino. Shockingly I have enjoyed both the software and the games. However, I have a question. I recently sat at a 5-10 pound hold'em game. In this game, the house took a rack of 3 pounds. This rake equates to approximately 6 dollars in a 10-20 game. Is it possible to beat a game with this high a take or should I simply avoid the foreign currency games?

[Homer]

It's beatable, but I don't see why you'd want to play it. Look at it this way, a solid B&M 5/10 player can beat the game for $10 an hour. On average they probably deal out 30-35 hands/hr, with the solid player winning 2.5 pots/hr (assuming they win ~8% of hands). The max rake live is $4, typically, and the max rake in the ICP game is 3 pounds, which is about $5. So, the same player in the ICP game will make $1 less per pot won, assuming the max rake is always taken. Therefore, they'll win $2.5 less per B&M hour, which means they'll still beat the game for $7.5/hr.

-- Homer

[Mike Haven]

that is disgraceful

no doubt it is another result of a non-poker-playing finance manager looking at percentages rather than the norm of the game

you should consider writing to the poker room manager querying this "mistake" and telling him you are going to post his response here

[Kenshin]

[ QUOTE ]


you should consider writing to the poker room manager querying this "mistake" and telling him you are going to post his response here



[/ QUOTE ]

I like this idea, I will do it forthwith.

[Kenshin]

[ QUOTE ]
To: feedback@intercasinopoker.com

Hello,

I wish to first preface my remarks by stating that I have highly enjoyed
playing at your site. However, I have noticed an inconsistency in the rakes.
In dollar games, your site extracts the ubiquitous 3 dollar rake. Yet, in
pound games, intercasino takes a 3 pound rake. Due to the relative values of
the curriences, this pound rake roughly corresponds to 6 dollar rake. I
believe this policy penalizes players in non-american games. Is this
increased rake an oversight or a concious decision on the part of your poker
room?

Thank you for your time
Kevin (10-20, 20-40 player)

PS I intend to post your response on the 2+2 internet poker forum

[/ QUOTE ]

[Taxidriver]

in my opinion no .. intercasino/williamhill / exist cause the good high limit games and that they also have a casino you can easily transfer money between... to bad cappers gone

[crockpot]

what a racket! and people think party's rake structure squeezes every drop.

i would play somewhere else if i were you. you can probably still beat the game, but it isn't worth giving up that much EV.

[Mike Haven]

nicely written - looking forward to their reply

[Kenshin]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi,

Thanks for emailing me. Currently the rake for InterCasinoPoker is 5% of the
pot up to a maximum of 3 units of the table currency ($3, €3 or £3). I
appreciate that £3 is significantly higher than either $3 or €3 so the play
on the sterling tables will be raked at a higher rate than the dollar or
euro tables.

I believe when we first launched the poker room we were limited to the one
method of calculating the rake, regardless of the currency of the tables. We
give our players the choice on which table to play because choice is always
a good thing, even though we know we will make more revenue on the sterling
tables we assume players will select the dollar tables as our ECash systems
are in dollars.

Thanks for letting me know there is some concern over this in the poker
room. It is emails such as yours (and the forthright postings on the various
messageboards such as 2+2!) that enable us to continuously make improvements
to the software. Although the improvements are sometimes slow they will
happen.

I hope this answers your question, but please feel free to email me if you
have any other concerns.

Sincerely

Ryan Hartley
Manager - InterCasinoPoker
ryanh@intercasinopoker.com


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