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RakeBack
Articles
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Online
Poker vs Live Poker
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The ‘rake’
can be defined as the fee the poker room charges players
(from here on out ‘poker room’
or ‘house’ is referring to
a casino, online poker room, local card club/poker room,
or a game run by an individual(s)). There are generally
two different methods that are used by the house to
collect the rake. The first is when the card room will
take a percentage of the pot up to a certain amount. For
example, they could take 5% up to $3 before they ‘push’
the winner their chips. How much the house takes and what
requirements must be met before they ‘rake’
the pot will differ between online poker rooms and ‘live’
(not online).
The second method, and the one that will not be discussed
in too much depth here, is what is known as a ‘time
charge’. The house will collect a certain
amount of money every half hour or hour from all the
players playing. The time charge method is usually not
used for the lower limit games, and even in the mid to
high limit games, it is not always employed. From here on
out ‘the rake’ is only
going to refer to the rake that is collected from
individual pots. This is the standard method that most
poker players are used to and will be the focus of the
rest of the article.
Live poker rooms can have different requirements of when
they rake the pot and at what percentage. For live poker
rooms the percentage is usually 10% and, depending on the
poker room, can have a maximum of $3-$5. Some poker rooms
also have a minimum rake that they take from each pot,
regardless of the size. For example, if there is a 1/2 NL
game and the blinds are $1 and $2, they might take up to
$3 from the pot on the flop. This means that if everybody
folds to the small blind, he/she calls the big blind, and
the big blind checks, the house will collect up to $3
(depending on their policies), even though they are heads
up and the pot only has $4. The house will then take
another dollar once the pot reaches $40 (10% of $40 is $4,
but they have already taken $3) and, if there maximum is
$5, they will then take another dollar at $50.
Because most players realize that contributing $2 in order
to win $1 is a tough proposition, most poker rooms will
allow the small blind and big blind to ‘chop’.
This means that they can both receive their blinds back if
they both agree that it is acceptable. This has to be done
before the flop and no other players can be in the hand.
Poker rooms that do collect rake no matter how many
players there are if there is a flop, usually have a
‘no flop, no drop’ policy.
This means that if there is no flop, no matter how many
raises or how big the pot, the house will not collect any
money from the flop. It needs to be remembered that not
all live poker rooms collect rake if there is a flop. This
is sometimes regional, but can also vary from poker room
to poker room in the same region.
Online poker rake differs in several ways. The first is
that the percent of rake that is usually taken is 5% and
this is almost always capped at $3. Not only is there
usually a maximum $3 collection, but there is almost
always no minimums. In some games the pot will need to be
as large as $30 before the house collects their
percentage. In games where the house collects 5%, because
of simplicity, they can divide the amount they collect
into ‘cents’. This means on
a $20 pot there can be a rake of $0.50. For online games,
there is not an option to chop if the small blind and big
blind are in the hand before the flop.
The above descriptions of how live poker rooms and online
poker rooms calculate and collect rake are the most common
methods employed. As was mentioned, the rules will vary,
but a majority of poker rooms use the above rules and
using them as guidelines can help the poker player
(whether a novice or beginner) decide which version offers
the highest return. There are many other factors that
determine the profitability of a poker game and it would
be foolish to base game selection solely on the rake
collected.
It is fairly obvious that the maximum rake that the house
collects in live games is a significant amount higher than
online. Even if it was assumed that they only charged a
maximum of $3 the minimums are much higher than online
poker rooms. Seeing a flop with three people and $9 in the
pot ($6 after the rake is taken), for example, creates a
negative expected value that is fairly tough to overcome.
It is also safe to deduce that one pays more per hand in
rake in a live setting as opposed to online.
Even though more is raked per hand in a live poker game,
the amount that is paid per hour is comparable. In a live
game, if the average rake per hand is $3, but there is
only 30 hands an hour, the house will collect $90/hr. When
playing online there is an average of 70 hands an hour. If
the average rake collected per hand is $1.50, the hourly
collection from the table is $105.
Using the above as guidelines (based off of 2/4 limit
games) the table as a whole will pay more per hand in live
games, but more per hour in online games. This is due to
the amount of hands that are possible per hour per table
online as opposed to live.
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