impossible to beat cardoorm 2/4 game?

[topspin]

This is the question I thought this other thread was asking before I clicked on it. Since it wasn't, I got curious enough to post it myself.

Most B&M cardrooms at the 2/4 and 4/8 levels seem to rake ~10% of the pot, with a cap that is not very often reached. Add in dealer tokes and you're paying even more.

Party at the 0.5/1 level rakes ~5% of the pot. Over about 20k hands, the 5% rake is just slightly more than my winnings. In other words, if Party doubled their rake to 10%, I'd be a losing player.

Given this, I'm recently started wondering if 2/4 and 4/8 is a slightly losing proposition, in the same sense that blackjack is -EV: you're so close to breakeven that you win and lose often enough that it'll take a long time to figure out if it's variance. I'll grant I've seen some real donks at B&M, but with the betting structure of limit there's only so much you can extract from them per hand.

Any small-stakes B&M players with enough hands at these limits to comment?

[TStoneMBD]

assuming that a normal casino rakes $3 per pot and that you are going to tip each pot, you have to pay $4 per pot.

assuming you win 1/10 hands like the average person and are dealt 33 hands per table hour, you are paying 3.3BBs/h, or 10BB/100.

all i can say is wow.

[topspin]

[ QUOTE ]
assuming that a normal casino rakes $3 per pot and that you are going to tip each pot, you have to pay $4 per pot.

assuming you win 1/10 hands like the average person and are dealt 33 hands per table hour, you are paying 3.3BBs/h, or 10BB/100.

all i can say is wow.

[/ QUOTE ]

Happy Birthday!

It's not quote that bad, since you should actually be winning < 10% of the time. I checked and I win ~6.8% of my total hands, which means that of the $400/100, you'll pay ~$27/100 or 6.77BB/100.

That still seems pretty astronomical to me though.

[meep_42]

The rake is ridiculous, but the play is SO BAD at casino 2/4-4/8 that it is still quite possible to be a consistent winner.

-d

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
It's not quote that bad, since you should actually be winning < 10% of the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Precisely. As Lee Jones (and no doubt others) point out, you should be winning fewer pots than the opposition but bigger ones. Also, you should be winning much more than 10% of the time that you voluntarily put money in the pot.

My experience at low limits is not yet enough to be conclusive, but I certainly believe you can beat Foxwoods $2/4 pretty handily However, the rake means it's not as easy as one might think.

[OrangeKing]

The rake is definitely your biggest enemy in these games - they're beatable, but I don't think by all that much. Now that I'm starting to accumulate a respectable bankroll, I think I might have to play 4/8 for now on.

[SuitedSixes]

I played a 2/4 game two weeks ago that was raked at the same rate as 3/6 (including $1 per for Bad Beat Jackpot). I left with $100 profit in 5 hours, and I was the only one to leave with chips in that time.

[Tom Bayes]

IMO, playing $2/$4 in a cardroom for any reason besides pure recreation is silly. If you are trying to build a bankroll to play higher, you are better off doing it online. The rake is less brutal online and if you can build a decent bankroll playing $0.50/$1 or $1/$2 online, then you'll be ready to feast on B&M games in the $3/$6 to $5/$10 range.

[bbarker703]

In my limited time at $2-4 and $4-8 (20 hours), I was consistently small loser (-1.5 bb/hr). In 18 hours of $6-12, I'm +1.3 bb/hr. Granted it's an insignificant sample, but doubt I'm much smarter than I was at the lower limits. My plan and my suggestion to you is to move up quickly to a limit which provides a nice compromise between win rate and risk to your bankroll (most likely $10-20). If you've got 20k hands behind you online, I'd think you're more than ready to play $6-12 hammered and $10-20 sober. Best of luck.

[topspin]

It's more a question of idle curiosity. The nearest B&M is over 2 hours away, so I pretty much only play for recreation, and then only $2/4 since I typically only have a couple hundred in cash on me.

It's a guilty admission, but I confess I've always felt slightly superior to the blackjack players, the majority of whom are pouring money into a -EV game. The rake calculation above made me reconsider whether or not I was doing the same by playing 2/4.

[ QUOTE ]
My plan and my suggestion to you is to move up quickly to a limit which provides a nice compromise between win rate and risk to your bankroll (most likely $10-20). If you've got 20k hands behind you online, I'd think you're more than ready to play $6-12 hammered and $10-20 sober.

[/ QUOTE ]

Regardless of the quality of play, I think it'll be a little longer before my comfort level rises to the point where winning or losing several grand in a single session becomes old hat [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]