How the rake impacts your poker winnings

When it comes to misunderstood poker concepts perhaps none is more misunderstood than the rake and how it impacts a poker game. The rake is a predetermined amount of money that is taken from the pot -usually 5-10% up to maximum of $3-$4-as a house collection. In this article I’m going to look at some of the ways the rake can change a game of poker, and how you should adjust your game accordingly.

Slight winner, or slight loser?

The first aspect of the rake I will discuss is how the rake can turn what seems like a +EV situation, or hand, into a losing proposition. This is especially important for players who have chosen to employ a looser style, pushing any small edge they can.

Here is an example: Suppose you play in a $50 online No Limit Holdem game where the average pot is $20. Now suppose you have run some simulations and determined that 56s can be played against a specific opponent type with a profit of $.40/hand. Seems like a good proposition, no? The problem is that you are going to paying $1-$2 in rake for each win! So if you’re expecting to win $40 per 100 hands this calculation does not include the rake. Therefore, if you’re winning 25% of the time you play this hand you’re going to be paying $25-$50 in rake per 100 hands, which makes this hand a possible loser in high-rake games!

The point here is that if you are playing marginal hands you need to make sure that the rake isn’t so much that it offsets the winning potential of the hand. This is even more important when playing live, where tipping also comes into play, since you could be shelling out an extra $1+ per win.

Loose or Tight?

This concept is a bit easier to wrap your head around: Would you rather win one $800 pot, or ten $80 pots? Both scenarios seem to have the same end result, but when you add the rake to the equation the situation changes quite dramatically.

In the first example you would lose $3 to the rake, for a total pot of $797. In the second scenario you are paying $3 X 10 wins, or $30 in rake, for a total of just $770! Now throw in tip money as well -for you live players-and the situation becomes even bleaker. Furthermore, the higher the rake -it’s not uncommon to find card-rooms with $5 rakes-the worse this scenario becomes. Think about it; if you play in a card-room with a $5 rake, and a normal tip of $1 per win, you’re looking at $60 for those ten wins, compared to $6 for the one win. That’s the difference between walking away with $794 or $740!

Basically the higher the rake, the tighter you should be playing, since a loose/aggressive strategy is based on winning numerous small to medium pots. This is why players who prefer to employ a loose/aggressive strategy prefer a time collection over a raked game, since everyone pays the same amount regardless of how active they are in time collection games.