[2easy]

different rooms use different methods.

some, like party, use what i would call ATTRIBUTED rake. that would be the number of players dealt into the hand divided into the total rake taken for the hand. whether you fold preflop or go to the river doesnt matter.

so, if 10 players are dealt in, and the pot is raked $2, then each player would be attributed 20 cents. if you had a 25% rb deal, then that hand would pay you 5 cents.

others use CONTRIBUTED rake, and there are two types of this, generally.

one would be total rake from the pot, divided by the number of players contributing ANY amount to the pot. i.e., big blind, small blind, and any others that put money into the pot.

so the same $2 rake, and say the bb and sb fold preflop, and 3 others go to showdown, then all 5 of them would get credit for their "share" of the rake, i.e., 40 cents each. so under the same 25% rb deal, each would get 10 cents for that hand.

lastly, another method of CONTRIBUTED rake would be the proportional method.

in this method, if the small blind put in $1, the big blind put in $2, and of the other 3, from the above example, one put in $6, and 2 others went to showdown and put in $20 each , then the sb would get approx. 2% of the rake credited to them, the bb approx. 4%, the next guy approx. 12%, and the 2 that went to showdown approx. 40% each. i'll leave the math extrapolation to you for what each would get for the hand under the same rb deal.

hope that makes it clear as mud for you.

and as regards pokertracker, it works very well for the "party" method, not so well for the others.

and when using pokertracker to do this, dont use the amount shown on the "general" tab.

you need to go to game notes tab, then click get all, and find total rake and divide by average number of players.

also, you need to make sure that you're not mixing 10 handed games with 6 handed, or even 9 handed, etc.

you can insure this by first going to the preferences tab, and then selecting from the game types list, and doing each of these separately.

hope this "clears this up for" you and "help(s) (you) better understand the way this stuff works..."