Is 4/8 limit holdem beatable?

I came back to LHE after about a 12-13 year break in 2023 and had forgotten how to play well-and the game had changed.

I am paying about $20/hour in rake to sit at the table.

After 500 hours I was losing about .5 BB/Hr as I improved, posted here, studied.

Last 5-600 hours I am managing to win around .5-.7 BB as I am now comfortable with my style and decision making, with some great help from the guys here. I am actually getting some negative variance lately so I think I can get this closer to 1 BB but I think it would be very hard to get much more due to rake.

Short answer, yes, very hard to beat this rake.

4/8 is the biggest LHE game at my local place, another place with a longer drive for me plays bigger games. Will be making that drive after a couple hundred more hours of solid results.

I think with the high rake 20-40 LHE in California is beatable but trying to make a halfway decent living is difficult for most but the VERY VERY best players. Fortunately for me I have a day job.

I believe the experts can beat $4-$8 limit hold 'em even with the high rake. However, those who are capable of this aren't playing at this level. Thus, I suspect that there are virtually no players at this level who are long-term winners.

See the chapter "Excessive Rake" in my Cardrooms book for more discussion on exactly what the rake should be.

It depends on the rake and your definition of "beatable". If by "beatable" you mean long-term winning over $0.01, then yes, I think that is possible. Beyond that, it is hard to tell.

If your playing in "good games" and playing correctly the rake doesn't matter! Good games your playing raised multi-way pots (5-9 handed) I never really understood the concept of the rake draining all the money from the game? You have a list of people WAITING to infuse more money into the game every time someone leaves table. Of course 4/8 is beatable. But not if your using 20/40 tactics.

As someone who admits that you don't track your results, I don't think you should be so confident in your opinion.

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you need to track your results to know if you're making or losing money???? You don't think I should be so confident, you don't think period, lol, or you would have come up with a more intelligent response to my statements, then.....aahhh duuuuhhh you don't track your results..... lmao! Instead of sounding like a fool, why not point out what I said that was wrong and then explain why it's wrong. What did I say that was wrong Crispix? ..........and all we here is SILENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LMAO.

Man I been on this site for over a decade lol...(used to be DEAD.MONEY). We had the same discussion about this 10 yrs ago! The rake, The rake, The rake, lol. If you are constantly playing hands 2-3 handed, then YES! the rake matters. However, if you are constantly playing raised pots 5-9 handed, the rake doesn't matter......NOW DO I NEED TO KEEP TRACK OF MY RESULTS FOR THIS TO BE TRUE???????....CRISPIX? LMAO!

The amount taken is less than $10/hour time charge per hour. The promotional drop is returned disproportionately to the 4/8 game. There are tips, but also money on your card per hour. If you are playing reasonably, you are playing fewer hands, so a smaller percentage of the rake.

You must have amazing abilities to consistently find games that have raised pots that are 5-9 handed.

Hmmm, I will have to check my math on this, 30 hands/hour, 8 handed , $4 at $30, $2 at $10 for promos, say roughly $160/hour to count for chops/small pots. Average 7 handed for short/lobby hands.

4 SB/hour- $4 whether I fold or play.

Say I play 20-25% of hands including BB, 7/hour, 4-5 handed max rake. $1.5x7, roughly $10.

Tips $3/hour -$1 comp, $2

Ok say $16/hr. Our 3/6 game gets the disproportionate return at my place, 6-8 very flop chasing the promos. Say I break even on the promo, $12/hour.

Maybe I have some bad estimating. I guess 20/hr was too high.

GARDENS IN SO CAL...FRIDAY NIGHTS...SATURDAYS, SUNDAYS....HIT & MISS THRU WEEK AFTER 6PM

I wouldn't count the promo drop, as it should come back to the players and proportionally more at 4/8 limit.

That depends on what promos they're doing.

Bad beat and high hand both give more to 4/8 limit and less to like 2/5 nl, because in a 4/8 game there are more players to the flop and to later streets. They won't be as likely to get everyone to fold betting there set that might become quads, and no one is likely to fold hands that have a decent chance of becoming quads or a straight flush.

That's true, but I still wouldn't count on getting the money back from a BBJ. I have paid tens of thousands of dollars in jackpot drop and never gotten anything from them. Plus if you do win one, you're going to pay a lot of tax.

Obviously, the bad beat jackpot gets hit rarely, but you should have the expectation of getting the money back. When you hit it, you hit it big.

FYP. You will never get to the long run in this, so don't ever count it as expectation.

The bad beat jackpot is terrible for the game. In California they rake $2 from every pot. There is no transparency with the money the casino takes and they’re allowed to take 20-25% for administrative fees.

If there were no administrative fees, I think it would be good for the game, since the money would all be redistributed back to players in the form of the BBJ and the BBJ attracts players who want to gamble. Obviously the distribution of this money is going to be very lumpy, but this is generally true of poker, where short-term outcomes are wildly variable but converge around your "true" WR over a long period of time. (And this is a good thing - you want people who are bad at poker to have a chance at winning in the short term so they keep coming back.)

The administrative fees complicate things. You could theoretically figure out an empirical solution to this by calculating how much was coming out of the game in the form of "administrative fees" and comparing it to the additional EV that the BBJ brings into the game by encouraging losing players to gamble. But there are so many moving parts and fuzzy assumptions here that I don't think it's a productive exercise to model.

/thread

I disagree with this. Some of the BBJs (especially in Atlantic City) are so big that most people will never even get a share, and those that do are likely to take it completely out of the poker economy and spend it on luxury items or paying off debt. Plus, if you were a breakeven player without the BBJ, you would come out roughly even every year and not owe taxes. With the jackpot maybe you'll lose money for 9 years then even if you win it all back in the 10th year, you will owe taxes on the jackpot, even though it's just getting your money back.

In addition, changing many breakeven players into losers in the short term and making losing players have bigger losing session is bad for the game, as they will be less likely to keep playing, either getting discouraged or running out of money.

If a room does need promos to attract players, it's much better to have smaller high hand promos, which everyone will win occasionally, and keep most of the money in the poker economy.

Your point about people taking BBJ money out of the poker economy is a good one, though I'm not convinced that the net effect on the game is bad if it's driving enough people into the room to play. I also have no problem with high hand promos, aces cracked promos, or the like, though I don't think they are mutually exclusive with a BBJ.

As for taxes, it's worth reiterating that poker income is taxable regardless of whether you get a 1099. I am sure many/most people don't actually pay taxes on their poker winnings, but you technically have to (and you can deduct losses if you itemize your deductions).

Yes, regarding the taxes, that's why I used the example of a player who would otherwise be break even. And the same goes for losing players. Only a small number of total players are winners, even moreso at the 4/8 level. When you hit a jackpot, you can't deduct losses from prior years in which you lost money.

I also think the benefit of bringing in more players is much smaller than most seem to guess. Again using the example of AC - whichever room happened to have the biggest jackpot always got a significant increase in the number of players, but then after it hit those players just moved on to the next place to have the biggest current jackpot. So they didn't bring in any additional players at all, but just moved them around.