Some questions pop up in my mind :
1) I’m a small time poker player so I’ve never really noticed the extent of the rake – what share is it really of my bankroll over the course of a month?
It’s 1-2% of pot total isn’t it? and it usually caps off at a couple of bucks per hand at my level. That seems like it might only be 0.5% of turnover ??
Doesn’t seem much.
You would be shocked if you knew how much rake affects the income of a poker player.
Lets take myself as an example. I started playing No Limit poker, but was a losing player and decided to put some work into my game. I started playing shorhanded poker fixed limit at the 1/2 limit at Party Poker. After playing 18000 hands (I know this as I keep track with Pokertracker) i had a profit from the play at only 305 dollar. This equates to 0.85 Big Bets/100 hands. Its not very much, but its an ok start (players are considered decent to good when they make between 2 and 3 BB/100 hands). How much do you think I paid in rake?
Answer: 1251.50 dollar. That is actually almost 3.5 BB/100 in rake. If the site was rake free I would had a profit of 4.35 BB/100 hands.
Ok, lets see my 5/10 6 max numbers. I have played over 31000 hands at the other sites than Party. My winnings are 5225 dollar or 1.67 BB/100 hands. I have paid 7535 dollar in rake, or 2.4 BB/100 hands.
As you can see, the rake is horrible for the players, and it takes more money out of the poker economy than is good for the long term health of the games. The poker rooms have gotten too greedy (The Poker Room network is the worst offender after their latest rake increase – they kill their low limit players, Im actually telling every player i meet to stay away from those games).
The high rake makes it impossible for the serious players not to go after the rakeback sites. The losers are the fish, that pay too much rake, lose too much at the tables and do not know or understand the rake impact of the poker economy.
Watch out for WSEX, the rake free site. They will create an earthquake in the poker industry.
BTW, I pay between 6 and 8 thousand dollar in rake EVERY MONTH.