Avoiding the Rake

     If I count up their percentages
     I know they're getting rich
     But they haven't taken everything
     Those paybacks are a bitch                      Billy Joel

    The surest way to make money from a poker game is to run the game and take a cut (or rake ) from the players. People have been doing this probably ever since the game was invented. As we all know,  when it comes to gambling, the house always wins. OK, so poker is not strictly a gambling activity, but even the best players have bad runs, and the only one guaranteed a payout is the house. Of course the bigger the rake, the harder it is for the players to get a winning edge: yet another reason why game selection is of vital importance.

The vast majority of the games I've played in have involved some kind of cut for the house, although some have been less expensive than others. Most of the games I've been playing in recently have been tournaments of one kind or another and the commission charged on these types of games is pretty standard. In online SitNGos and tournaments there is generally a 10% charge on top of the entry price, so a $5.00 game costs $5.50 and a $50 game costs $55. I play in a live tournament on Friday nights where the structure is slightly different: 10% comes out of the entry fee, so the $20 game fee is actually the equivalent of an $18 + $2 tournament. This makes the fee slightly higher than 10%, but not by much. The great thing about tournament fees is that the money comes out up front, before you even sit down at a table, and you know exactly how much you're paying.
   Not counting freerolls or pub games where the prizes are bar tabs, I have played in a few cash tournaments where there was no house commission. There used to be a Friday night tourney at a pub in Otahuhu where the organisers were the bar managers, and the game was run in order to attract customers and increase the bar take. So there was no extra charge on the entry price and the entire prize pool was paid out. There was a similar tourney at a different pub in Three Kings around the same time, on Wednesday nights, but I only played in a couple of those because of transport difficulties. Neither of these events are going anymore, which is too bad because un-raked games are hard to come by.
   The other tournaments that are available to me are the local casino games. However the cheapest tournaments available at Skycity Casino (if you include the cost of rebuys and add-ons) is the $60 Sunday game, and this is way beyond my buy-in limits. But there is a much more compelling reason for not playing Skycity Casino tournaments and that is the tournament fees. The Sunday Game is actually $45 + $15, which amounts to a 33%  fee. That's just ridiculous. I see that they are advertising some other tourneys in the lead-up to the Anniversary Weekend Tournament, but the cheapest fee I can see is the 20% charged in the 50+10 game. It's still a pretty big chunk out of any potential winnings. Even though I like the idea of playing in casino tournaments, if I was ever to reach the point of being able to afford to play in a $60 game it would make a lot more sense for me to play in a 50+5 online tournament. Ten percent I can live with.
   When it comes to cash games, I've been involved in quite a few different types. The earliest poker games I played in had a minimum bet of $2 and the blind bet for each hand went into the 'kitty' . This money went to the host at the end of the session and each time when we played a different person took a turn at being the designated host. I don't know what this cut amounted to in terms of percentages, but I know that the host always ended up with a pretty healthy payout. As a result, it was hard to come out of these games with money in your pocket unless you were the host.  There was a similar game type that I played in at a local pool club. The difference was that this game was always run by the pool club managers, so they always got the kitty. They must have made a healthy profit from running these games.
   It was around the time that I was playing in these games that I also started playing occasional cash games at the Skycity Casino. There is a 10% rake taken out of each pot in these games. I don't know enough maths to figure out how much money is coming off the table but it must amount to a fair bit. I guess it means that you'd have to be the best player at the table (rather than say, in the top three) to have a reasonable chance of winning. But I stopped playing in these games anyway; not because of the rake, but because I realised that the buy-in was well above my comfort level.
   I also ran a few cash games of my own at the ORSS club that had a different type of rake system. In these games the players were charged a 10% commission on top of their buy-in (this money was donated to charity, as required by law). So with a minimum $60 buy-in, players would pay $66 and get $60 worth of chips, and the same would apply to any top-ups. This is the same as the system commonly used for tournaments and works out much cheaper than raking the pot.
   Of course you occasionally get to play in games where no money comes out of the pot. I've managed to run a couple of home games of this type, and on both occasions I still made a profit just from playing poker. The home games run by the group from Poker Meetup ( www.meetup.com/poker-333 ) are also rake-less and I played in one of these a while back. This was an Omaha game and playing in this game finally helped me to realise that I can't play Omaha to save myself, so I didn't go back. This group of home game players also have some Texas Holdem games going but they are run at an inconvenient time for me to play in.
   I've been able to play in a number of  rake-less cash games recently. These are organised by K, one of the players at the Friday night tournament. If he gets knocked out of the tournament early he will usually try to organise a cash game among the other tournament casualties. So if I've exited the tournament early as well, then I'll play in this cash game. K also occasionally runs a home game at his sister's house and this game usually has no rake. So I play in these games whenever I get the chance. K sets these games up with a weird structure, where everyone buys in for $20 each, even though the big blind is $1, giving the players an ultra-short starting stack of just 20 big blinds. But it's just a matter of adjusting to the odd blind structure and being glad you have a cash game to play in.
  As for online cash games, I must confess that I haven't been paying much attention to the size of the rake. I've played in Omaha Pot Limit, Texas Holdem Fixed Limit and Seven Card Stud Fixed Limit cash games online but in each case I've had little choice over where I play, so the size of the rake hasn't come into consideration. Looking back at it now, I see that the Stud games on Pokerstars were raked at 4.5% and the Holdem games on 888 were raked at 5%. In both cases that's much cheaper than any live game I've played in where a rake has been involved.
   It's my intention to play in online No Limit Texas Holdem cash games later this year, so I thought I'd better compare the rakes on 888 and Pokerstars, as there are plenty of games of this type available on both sites. It turns out that the Pokerstars fees are much lower than 888. Pokerstars charges 3.5% rake for the lowest level games of 1c/2c and 4.15% for the levels above that. The 888 site charges 6% for all lower level games. What's more, both sites have a cap on the fees charged for any one hand. For 888 the maximum rake per hand is $4 across the board, but on Pokerstars it starts at just 30c and goes up to $1.50 at the lower levels. Clearly, if I want to pay the lowest possible rake, then I should play on Pokerstars. However there is a complicating factor. Another aspect of game selection is choosing the loosest or 'fishiest' games where inexperienced players are calling with all sorts of rubbish hands. This sort of game is the easiest to beat and therefore the most profitable. 888 has the reputation of being the loosest, fishiest site around, largely because of the number of players who have drifted across from the online casino. Pokerstars, on the other hand, generally has more solid poker players and has tougher games. So the question is: does the fishiness of 888 make up for its comparatively high rake? This is something I'll have to consider seriously before I decide which site to play cash games on in the coming year.
   For the moment at least, I'm pretty happy with the level of fees in the games I'm involved in. The 10% fee on both the online and live tournaments is pretty much standard across the board, and on the odd occasion when I get to play in a live cash game, it's usually rake-free. In the past I've played in some pretty expensive games and ended up contributing to some-one else's pocket but I believe I've learned my lesson now. When I play poker now I try to ensure that I have the best possible edge by not paying any more than I have to. Having done that, all I have to do is play well enough to come out a winner. That's all.