Regarding Jek's/BW's break-even points for BBJ (long)

[pokerplayer28]

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I think the jackpot 'drop' (i.e. 'additional flat $0.50 rake') at those tables still hurts you more at the lower limits.




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why do you see the drop as additional rake? say youre playing a .1/.2 game and every hand you put $1 in a jar when you get a royal flush you take your money out and start over. Is this game unbeatable?

Lets change the game to 1000/2000 does it make a difference?

[MicroBob]

I still don't care about ME putting the money into the jar or into the rake.
It gets taken out of the pot and that's all I care about.


I only play when the jackpot is high enough.
So the fact that the extra $1 is going into the royal-flush jar is irrelevant to me.

[Uglyowl]

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On the following tables there is NO JACKPOT and a very simple rake-structure of $1 when the pot is large enough:

At 2/4 you have 60% of the hands raked exactly $1.
At 15/30 you have 80% of the hands raked exactly $1.

Which table does the rake of a greater impact?

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As in online poker, slots, etc. the % raked is smaller as you move up in stakes. You will pay more money in rake/vig at higher level, but the percentage is less.

The reason people play the lower limits is they can't afford to lose an amount needed to play there and/or they are not skilled enough to beat the skill level.

If someone offered me a one in 20 chance to wager my house to win $10 million, although obviously +EV, I would never be able to do.

This game is very hard to beat you would have to agree, being a loser 95% of the time.

I think this can be compared to a NL tournament. If you have a 52% chance of doubling up (risking all your chips), it is not always correct to take this bet. +EV is purely a mathematical concept.


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Looking at it again:

At 2/4 you have a rake of $6 on 60% of the hands.
At 15/30 you have a rake of $6 on 80% of the hands.

I think this clears up the answer a bit...because clearly the 2/4 game is virtually unbeatable, while one would STILL be able to break-even on the 15/30 game.

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There is a number that makes it +EV, although it is alot higher than the BBJ we are discussing.

At $2/$4 you need less of a jackpot to be +EV. It absolutely has no bearing on you being able to walk away a winner more often.

Take 100 hands at each:

$2/$4 you pay $360 towards the jackpot
$15/$30 you pay $480 towards the jackpot

A skilled player would have an easier time making the $480 at the higher level back than $360 at the lower level, but think of the people who lose.

Are they going to feel the same way?

Would your rather spend $360 to win a large jackpot or $480 to win this same jackpot?

As in my betting the house example, +EV does not need to mean ability to walk away a winner most of the time.

You have the ability to beat $15/$30 it seems and is probably +EV to you but not the average person. The pursuit of the jackpot does not factor into this by the way.

It is an interesting concept

[MicroBob]

Sorry sorry sorry...and a million times sorry.
but I'm still stuck.

Lets disregard the +EV of the jackpot for a sec.

Is the extra money that you would pay at 15/30 (extra $0.50 per raked-hand or whatever) still worse than the money at 2/4 (extra $0.50 per raked-hand as well)?

Again...since you get to play for the jackpot on EITHER table I fail to see how thinking of it as 'an extra $0.50 to play the jackpot' makes a difference.

I'm playing poker...and X is the amount that is getting taken off of various tables...and no matter which table I play I also happen to have this jackpot opportunity.


Sorry for harping on it gang...and I guess I'll stop now because I'm really pretty damn stuck and there's not much use in boring the crap out of everyone with my thoughts (and general ignorance) about this.

[jek187]

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Sorry sorry sorry...and a million times sorry.
but I'm still stuck.

Lets disregard the +EV of the jackpot for a sec.

Is the extra money that you would pay at 15/30 (extra $0.50 per raked-hand or whatever) still worse than the money at 2/4 (extra $0.50 per raked-hand as well)?

Again...since you get to play for the jackpot on EITHER table I fail to see how thinking of it as 'an extra $0.50 to play the jackpot' makes a difference.

I'm playing poker...and X is the amount that is getting taken off of various tables...and no matter which table I play I also happen to have this jackpot opportunity.


Sorry for harping on it gang...and I guess I'll stop now because I'm really pretty damn stuck and there's not much use in boring the crap out of everyone with my thoughts (and general ignorance) about this.

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Let's pretend you aren't playing poker for a minute.

I'm going to use some simplified numbers that are in no way accurate, but will hopefully make my point.

The odds of being a part of a BBJ are 100,000:1. If the BBJ is at $50,000, $40,000 goes to the players, and for all intents and purposes, is evenly distributed amongst the seated player, so each player has a 1 in 100k chance of winning $4k. The value of that chance is $4k/100k or $.04.

If you pay the $.50 extra once every 10 hands, that's an extra $.05/hand. Obviously, paying $.05 for a $.04 value is not a good idea. This would come up at 10/20, where you basically are paying $.05 on 100% of the hands. But, what if you're playing at a limit that only has 60% of the hands raked? You're still getting the $.04 EV on every hand, but only paying an average of $.03/hand ($.05*60%).

If you can get $.04 EV out of a $.03 purchase, then you should do it (provided bankroll considerations don't cause you to put the breaks on.)

Does this help?

Also, one more time, these numbers were made up to be simple, so please nobody try to correct them.

[MicroBob]

Yes...I understand that and it doesn't seem very different from how somany others are putting it.

It still doesn't address my ideas though.
Being mostly that you are playing poker, and if they take an extra $0.50 'base' out of each hand it would have a greater impact on you at 2/4 than at 15/30.

Thanks for trying JEK...but your post didn't illuminate anything more than I already had read.

I'm not sure that I'm explaining my argument correctly...but I've attempted to so many times that I'm not going to do that anymore.

[HesseJam]

Uncoordinated thoughts:

Everything else being equal, the 50c drop influences your bottom line independantly of the limit you are playing. In relative terms the hit is higher to your BB/100 rate of raked hands in a lower limit than as in higher limits. In absolute terms (bottom line) it is the same.

If you could determine the probablility of hitting the Jackpot and gameplay would be the same in all limits there would also be no difference to your bottom line. It would be either +EV or - EV depending only on the size of the bounty - not on the limits or the amount of raked hands per 100 hands. Every raked hand is a lottery ticket. If you have more raked hands / 100 you are buying more tickets per hour thus either increasing your hourly rate if +EV or decreasing it if -EV.

I think the main factor driving the +EV threshhold for the jackpot to be different for different limits is: What type of hands are typically raked in the different limits? For example: If lower limits are looser, could it be that, compared to higher limits, relatively more hands of all raked hands have a lower probability to hit the jackpot at the time that they are raked.

[HesseJam]

Another thought to not let the thinking go astray:

We are discussing only the stone cold EV and not a risk/ utility function. You buy one ticket to the Lottery and the drawing takes place immediately. Buying a ticket has a certain EV and it is either positive or negative and it does not matter how many lotteries you hold per hour or per 100 hands. If risk did not matter, you would try to do as many Lottery drawings as you could if they were +EV.

[J_B]

Another thought too... The table is reallyt buying the ticket, not a single person. So, really your cost of the ticket would be # people/ticket cost. Of course that changes by how many hands you play, etc. Same concept as who's paying most of the rake anyhow.

[HesseJam]

Right. Also, it seems to be important to play at a complete full ring table because every additional player increases the chances to hit it overproportionally.