Rake in Low Limit Hold 'Em

[Adalbert Waldenbusch]

I've been playing now quite some time Limit Hold 'Em on the internet. Especially at Paradise and now at Party (0,5/1; 1/2 and 2/4). When I add it all up I quite lost some amount of money though I follow the books on the topic and though I read this forum and asked questions here (under another handle which password I've forgotten).

I won't post any hands now nor do I think I need a lot of advice else about my playing style, 'cause I know it cannot be so bad that I loose some money consistently. I rather suspect that it's virtually impossible to win consistently at this levels because of the rake.

As an example let's see Party Poker. At the 2/4 table the average rake may be 1,5 (max 3 $). If you win 7 games in hundred, you loose about 11 $ that way. That's 2,5 Big Bets. It's more than the amount you should have won in this appr. 1,5 hours (good player 1 BB / H).

My newest example: I played 80h at Party (2/4) and I am down 400$. Wouldn't I have to pay the rake I would be up at least 100$. I think Mason and Sklansky wrote their books for the 30/60 games where the rake plays no significant role. Were they to play at 2/4 maybe even they couldn't win much.

I also got some answers on this topic here on the forum, some guys said "Play at least 5/10", what I cannot afford at the moment, others said build a bankroll from 0,5/1 and so on, because they argued that the low quality of the bad players there do more than compensate the rake problem. On the other hand last summer a guy from Party called me by telephone and asked why I stopped playing there. Even he stated, that below 5/10 the rake eats up all your profit (and I think even a bit more).

Hey guys, what do you think?!


Adalbert

Do you think to play tournaments is a better idea?

[pudley4]

I play mostly 2/4 at a couple of different sites. According to my stats, I have paid x dollars in rake. I have won approx 2x dollars (after the rake).

The average rake in my Party 2/4 games is $1/hand.

[mmanne]

I don't generally play .5/1 or 1/2 but I know that at 2/4, I make approximately $10 / hour, after the rake is taken out.

Here's the problem I see with your logic
"I won't post any hands now nor do I think I need a lot of advice else about my playing style, 'cause I know it cannot be so bad that I loose some money consistently"
Not to be too harsh, but if you are losing consistently, isn't that saying that it is so bad?

matt

[LetsRock]

[ QUOTE ]
I won't post any hands now nor do I think I need a lot of advice else about my playing style, 'cause I know it cannot be so bad that I loose some money consistently. I rather suspect that it's virtually impossible to win consistently at this levels because of the rake.


[/ QUOTE ]

Rake (and other considerations live) is something that makes it harder to turn a profit in low level games. It is not something that can't be overcome.

Without more details, I would say your biggest enemy is yourself. If you're not willing to admit that you might not be playing optimally most of the time, even though you are losing, then you have a bigger problem than rake.

[Adalbert Waldenbusch]

At least these posts show that somebody does win there. Maybe I'm just on a bad run. Did you have this too, down 100BB in 80 h? (I hope noone of an internet site here answers so positively just to convince us low limit players to go on giving them our money).

When I post some hands, what would it help. That wouldn't make the difference between loosing and winning player alone?! Perhaps talent as in chess is the main thing you need and just not everybody has such a killer instinct?! /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

Regards

Adalbert

[illunious]

According to pokertracker after 11k hands, the rake is equal to 54% of my profit on the .50/1 tables (For every $154 I would of won, I keep $100, party gets $54).

The rake is a bigger chunk at the microlimits, but I think most here will agree these limits are still very beatable.

[mmanne]

It's completely up to you whether to post your hands or not. But I think that most people on this forum believe that it will help your game.

You say "Perhaps talent as in chess is the main thing you need and just not everybody has such a killer instinct", but what great chess player doesn't practice games, or read or listen to others to help better his/her game? I think it would be silly to think that a great chess player just sits there on his/her talent and doesn't try to become better

[LetsRock]

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe I'm just on a bad run. Did you have this too, down 100BB in 80 h?

[/ QUOTE ]

Everybody has some pretty extreme bad runs. (I'm in the midst of some pretty ugly results this week!) 100BB in 80 hands seems pretty extreme, but I can see where this is possible with an unusually high number of consecutive bad beats without any drags in between.

[ QUOTE ]
Perhaps talent as in chess is the main thing you need and just not everybody has such a killer instinct?!

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but "killer" instinct comes with experience - it can be learned.

[rharless]

At the 2/4 table the average rake may be 1,5 (max 3 $). If you win 7 games in hundred, you loose about 11 $ that way. That's 2,5 Big Bets. It's more than the amount you should have won in this appr. 1,5 hours (good player 1 BB / H).

That 1BB/hr that you "should" win is what you should win AFTER the rake is taken out.

The rake in LowLimit holdem is significant; I don't disagree. But, the poor play of your opponents prevalent at LL holdem makes up for the "extra" that you pay in the rake. My win rate at 2-4 is almost twice my win rate at 5-10, if I measure in number of bets won per hand.

As you go to higher levels you pay less, proportionally, in rake, but you also play stiffer competition.

Posting hands here is very helpful. I have been posting hands for a little over a year and I have been more than pleased with the help I have gotten from the forum. Hard stats indicate that my winrate has increased 140% (i.e. more than doubled), but in my gut I know I have had some good runs this year so the final effect is that applied forum advice is probably "only" doubling my winrate.

PS, it's easier to double one's win rate if you start out with a very small number /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Adalbert Waldenbusch]

Thanx for your commentary but in one point you got me wrong, I meant 100 BB down in 80 h o u r s (not Hands).

adalbert

[LetsRock]

Oh! Then that's not a real bad run at all (it's not winning but it's not a massive hemorage) - could just be some tough luck.

[bigpooch]

Not to worry then! If you play long enough, you will
inevitably be on a slide of 300 BBs. You should consider a
100 BB slide as just temporary bad luck especially in LHE.

[ZeeJustin]

I think it's near impossible for someone to be able to beat $5/$10 without being able to beat $.50/$1, rake or no rake. Start low.

[Cosimo]

The normal abbreviation for hour is hr; here on 2+2, h normally means hand(s).

80 hours is about 5000 hands. If you drag one pot every 12 hands, that's about $600 in rake. If your EV is 1BB/40h, your expected win is $500 profit (after rake). The pots that've you drug probably totalled around $12,000.

-100BB after 5000 hands is about 2 S.D. below expected win. For a SD of 10BB per 40h and an EV of +1BB/40h, you'd be at 125BB +-112BB 67% of the time. There's about a 2% chance that you'd be down 100BB after that long. So either you've hit a cold run of cards, or your EV is less than 1BB/40h (or both). The tiny rake online is not your problem.

One thing about LL vs HL is that the competition is much weaker at low limits. Even though the rake is higher, you should be making more. S&M have mentioned this in their books.

Now, if you were playing 2-4 in a live casino, THEN the rake could be destroying your win. $6 in rake, jackpot drop, and toke comes out of most pots in my local 2-4 game, which is FAR FAR worse than Party's rake. 4x as much. It's barely beatable by an expert player.

[Dov]

As Dr. Schoonmaker pointed out in Psychology of Poker, Tight Aggressive Players (TAP) aren't born. They study and practice to get that way.

The natural way is to lose.

[umdpoker]

true. i think most are born either weak-tight or loose aggressive. i was naturally weak-tight because i am risk averse. it took me a lot of practice to get the whole aggressive thing down, but i like it. once i understood that i am actually risking more by not betting, i could throw the chips out there without the nuts.

[Trix]

Its not the rake....
If you play better players then you loose.
The players usually get better as the stakes get higher.
If you cant beat .5/1 then you will get stripped in 5/10.

[Adalbert Waldenbusch]

Interesting

"There's about a 2% chance that you'd be down 100BB after that long. So either you've hit a cold run of cards, or your EV is less than 1BB/40h (or both)."

And what percentage would you calculate for 0,5BB/40h (I don't believe that 1BB/40h is already valid for me anyway).

Adalbert

[Guido]

Hi Adalbert,

[ QUOTE ]
I've been playing now quite some time Limit Hold 'Em on the internet.

[/ QUOTE ]
I started playing seriously about half a year ago.

[ QUOTE ]
Especially at Paradise and now at Party (0,5/1; 1/2 and 2/4).

[/ QUOTE ]
Me too, since November I played only on those two sites.

[ QUOTE ]
When I add it all up I quite lost some amount of money though

[/ QUOTE ]
I didn't, on average I win 2.7BB/Hr per table (only about 270Hr).

[ QUOTE ]
I follow the books on the topic and though I read this forum and asked questions here

[/ QUOTE ]
Great! Keep doing that and never think you know everything or have seen everything.

[ QUOTE ]
I won't post any hands now nor do I think I need a lot of advice else about my playing style, 'cause I know it cannot be so bad that I loose some money consistently.

[/ QUOTE ]
This sound a bit arrogant. And if you are a consistant loosing player, there must be something wrong with your game. I think you have read a lot but do you use this knowledge correctly?

[ QUOTE ]
I rather suspect that it's virtually impossible to win consistently at this levels because of the rake.


[/ QUOTE ]
My profit is exactly twice as big as the rake I paid.

Conclusion: I don't think it is impossible to be a consistant winning player, this forum has lots of winning players. I think every good player should be able to make at least 2BB at the online low limits. Perhaps you just had a bad streak. But when you read a book you can't expect to be a good player all of a sudden. When you know the basic concepts you HAVE to post hands. Perhaps you make some basic mistakes although you know how to play but you just don't do that.

Thanks,

Guido

[Cosimo]

With S.D. at 10BB/40h and EV at 0.5BB/40h, your expectation after 5000 hands is 62.5BB +- 112BB. Being at -100 BB puts you at -1.56 S.D., which has a 5.9% probability. If you are a breakeven player (EV of 0), there's a 18.7% chance that you'd be down 100BB.

I used this chart (http://people.hofstra.edu/faculty/Stefan_Waner/RealWorld/normaltable.html) to find the percentages.

Going the other way, your win rate has been -.8BB/40h, and your 95% confidence interval is +-1.8BB. In other words, there's a 95% chance that your actual win rate is between +1BB/40h and -2.6BB/40h.

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
With S.D. at 10BB/40h ...

[/ QUOTE ]

Where are you getting 10BB/40h from as his S.D.? Just a guess?

How could I calculate my SD? I have 11500 hands in pokertracker. I could go by session, but all sessions are not the same length or number of hands. Also I tend to play longer when I am down, and have had a few hell and back sessions, so this would not be reflected properly if I went session by session or even hour by hour.

[CarlNiclas]

Pokertracker calculates your SD (per 100 hands and per hour, if I remember correctly) for you - I think it's on the "More detail" button on the session notes tab.

[lefty rosen]

The rake they are talking about is live rake whick is nearly double, plus the added expense of gas and food and tipping. Online the rake at low limits should be nearly irrelevant as the skill factor of your opponents will determine how much you make or lose.

[Cosimo]

Wild guess! My SD at 50c-$1 is 10.5BB/40h. I think 10-15BB/hr is common, depending on the game type. You can calculate your own SD, but that requires very extensive records--or PokerTracker, as Carl pointed out. 10 is conservative; 15 is high for an aggressive, wild game (both cases for 10-handed low-limit online poker).

So, uh, yeah, despite the precision on the % chances that I gave, those numbers were based on a gross approximation. I could be off by 50%.

However, I think it's the trendlines that are important. Until someone has records for tens of thousands of hands at one game type, any guess of winrate is going to be inaccurate.

[ChipWrecked]

Pokercharts.com also figures SD.

[TimM]

Thanks I thought I saw an SD calculation somewhere, but then later thought I was confusing it with SD = Showdown.

My numbers for 2/4 are 2.71BB/hr, SD/hr 13.18, 63 sessions, 5788 hands, 97 hours.

Pushing it to 3/6 now, would be nice if I could even be close to this.