High Rakes are Killing Limit Hold 'em
A successful poker room is like a pyramid. That is, there are more small games than large games and the regular small stakes players tend to feed into the larger games.
However, in small limit hold 'em games, the rake is now so large, that it's very difficult to develop regular players. (Thus, you don't have the players to start games and keep games going.) This result can lead to an upside down pyramid which in turn leads to less games in the future. And the answer to this is to reduce the rake in the small limit hold 'em games.
(In the small no-limit games, even though the rake is also high, it's still not high enough that a core of regular players can't develop.)
Right now we can see this in The Bellagio Poker Room where I usually play (which in general is well run). There are almost always more $30-$60 games than $15-$30, and no games of smaller size.
For more discussion, see my Cardrooms book where I address what I think are appropriate rake sizes for small limit hold 'em games:
https://www.amazon.com/Cardrooms-Everyth...
All comments are welcome.
Not bc of the rake at all. Commerce had their unbeatable 8 dollar rake 40 min/max game for probably 15 years and they'd have tons of tables running. The vast majority of 1/2 or 1/3 nl players lose yet that's by far the most popular game in the country.
The high rake might make 10 or 20 percent of the players lose. The rest would lose anyway. They simply are interested in playing limit bc to them it's not fun.
Once limit players were introduced to NL 20 or so years ago they simply never went back. It had nothing to do with rake.
The only thing you left blank was, what if limit had stayed the norm. What would poker be like now? I wonder what your thoughts are.
I don't think this could have happened for the reasons I gave. The lower limits would have been chocked off. On the other hand, if the rake was kept low at the lower limits, I think there would be more poker games than what we currently have
It also seems like the stakes should go up. There were a zillion 4/8 games 20+ years ago. That should be at least 6/12 today or maybe 8/16. Of course, that would help with the rake. Why would someone willing to play 3/6 or 4/6 in 2004 be unwilling to play 6/12 today or 8/16 today?
I agree with this, but the rake still needs to be lower at $6-$12 than what it currently is.
I think part of it is losing players just want to mess around and since they can never win long term, raising the stakes to make the rake beatable is still -ev for them. But then when the rake is raised to brutal levels at very low stakes, almost nobody can play for profit (even small) and losing players get fewer winning and break even sessions. So the game is less appealing for everyone.
This is my point exactly.
The lack of action is also an issue in hold em and that relates to the rake too. It was easier to beat the rake back when you often had capped, multiway pots. Maybe something like having 3 blinds would help.
I've always thought Omaha hi limit should catch on in places like California. If Boulder Station can constantly have multiple tables, it seems Commerce could. It's an action game. That helps beat the rake. It can be played for profit, yet the bad players can go on heaters.
While not the subject of this thread, the short-term luck factor is too high and the skill level too low for Omaha limit High to thrive as a poker game.
Do you mean a $7 flat rake or a 10% rake up to $7?
If it’s the former, then certainly this is an absurd rake for a 4/8 LHE game.
If it’s the latter, you are only paying $1 in rake on the flop in the situation you describe. And this has been true of pretty much every rake structure for decades.
And even a 10% rake to $7 at 4/8 is lower than a 10% rake to $4 at 2/4 LHE, which was the rake structure when I first started playing in casinos almost 20 years, and that game was extremely popular in almos
The right way to look at this is how much money (in rake) is coming off the table during some specific period of time (such as an hour). I think you'll find the $7 rake taking more money off the table. However, in your example, both rakes are, in my opinion, way too high.
This is true from the perspective of the casino.
But from the perspective of the player, I still think my argument holds. At a $10 blackjack table, players could choose to bet $500 a hand whenever they want. But most still only bet $10 most of the time, or maybe $20 when they are winning.
You’ll always have a few big gamblers who like to risk a lot in a short time, but the vast majority of players prefer to lose their money slowly. And I think you’ve made this exact same argument against NLHE ma
This needs a little clarification. If players, in poker, consistently lose their money slowly, they'll quit playing. Thus the short-term luck factor needs to be high enough so that they have a fair number of winning sessions (even though they are long-term losers). This is also true of casino games.
makes sense, i hardly see as many 3-6 , 4-8 as I used to and I assume partially is due to rake
south point used to always have 2-4 3-6 games running frequently and now its half of that or 1 table. and south point has only gained popularity in tghe last 2 years
I also think that poker rooms would be much better off with lots of limit games instead of lots of no-limit games. One reason is that the dealers will do better tip wise.
I'm quite frankly surprised limit holdem is still alive.
Games run around bad players not mis regs. If a player pool has enough bad players you'll have plenty of regs.
Limit hold em is mostly a dead game and it's not bc of the rake.
Personally I just play plo these days and haven't play a hold em hand since covid started. But If I was going to play a form of hold em I'd actually play limit since at least people play fast. But obviously the vast majority of poker players prefer nl.
You need both. The regular players help to start games and keep them going. The bad players pay for everything.
Not sure how anyone is really arguing his point. The rake at low stakes limit is practically unbeatable , this is not up for debate. I guess what we are really debating is whether a casino wants to lower rake for a game/occupied floor space that probably isnt netting them all that much to begin with. But there definitely could be a niche for this type of thing. I could see a casino catering to just low limit mixed games or something along those lines.
This is the point. Having games with low rake is certainly better than having empty tables. Plus, if it helps to create regular players that can feed into other games, it's even better. But this won't happen over night.
It being almost unbeatable doesn't mean that's the real reason games dry up. The vast majority of players lose. And it's always been a higher percentage of losing players at lower stakes games.
Go into a large poker room and count the number of winning players sitting at the tables compared to losing players. You should see many more winning players than losers. What happens is that a player who plays lots of hours and wins should count as many more players than someone who only plays a few hours and loses.
You're making an argument that I hear all the time and is wrong. You need to consider how much the winners play compared to the losers.
You're proving my point. They barely run at all these days.
Get a bunch of bad players to play it and you'd have a lot more games. Right now all you really have is a bunch of 80 year olds screaming for the floor to fill a seat the second someone leaves.
Instead of those 10 people get 10 awful players and you'd have a lot more than just the one game running.
I agree with this. Many years ago I told a poker room manager that he should take all their promotional money and give it to the worse players in town with the stipulation that they must play in his poker room until all the money they were given is gone.
For more discussion on what makes a good poker promotion, see my Cardrooms book:
Not bc of the rake at all. Commerce had their unbeatable 8 dollar rake 40 min/max game for probably 15 years and they'd have tons of tables running. The vast majority of 1/2 or 1/3 nl players lose yet that's by far the most popular game in the country.
The high rake might make 10 or 20 percent of the players lose. The rest would lose anyway. They simply are interested in playing limit bc to them it's not fun.
Once limit players were introduced to NL 20 or so years ago they simply never went bac
Okay. It's been a long time since I played in California. But when I played their prop system kept a lot of games going, and since the props were paid to play, this meant that some players paid a high rake while others paid essentially no rake. This meant that the overall rake wasn't really that high, it just wasn't distributed fairly among the players.
A dream setup for the poker room is everyone is equally skilled and in the end the room gets all the money.
This is true and I've seen poker rooms where the management wanted to run things exactly this way. For more discussion see the chapter "Everyone Breaks Even" in my Cardrooms book. Of course, poker rooms with this attitude fail, and that's probably why I haven't seen this philosophy from a poker room manager in many years.
recs don't care about the rake, they lose to better players way faster than the rake anyway
my local 1/3 NL rakes $35+$5 (lol) the place is packed every night and the games are actually good enough where a competent player can still win
recs don't care about the rake, they lose to better players way faster than the rake anyway
my local 1/3 NL rakes $35+$5 (lol) the place is packed every night and the games are actually good enough where a competent player can still win
It doesn't matter if the recs care about the rake or not. What does matter is if the game in question can over time develop regular players who will help start games and keep games going.
The problem is that most of the old guys playing limit holdem want to play 4/8 or 3/6 so they won't lose much. They aren't trying to win. Just something to do and maybe lose less than at slots or if they played 8/16 or 10/20 limit holdem or 1/2 or 1/3 NL.
The rake is pretty high at those stakes. Few regs will play it, because the amount they can make is so low. If you want to grind low stakes, you can play 1/3 NL, 2/2 PLO or maybe some O8 or mixed games and 10/20 or higher.
Okay. It's been a long time since I played in California. But when I played their prop system kept a lot of games going, and since the props were paid to play, this meant that some players paid a high rake while others paid essentially no rake. This meant that the overall rake wasn't really that high, it just wasn't distributed fairly among the players.
There weren't that many props working and when they did work they weren't in those games. Props filled short handed games to fill them from breaking.
So yea go play 10/20 Omaha hi low that's 5 handed
2 hours later it filled up go play some sort handed stud game etc
It wasn't we have 25 tables of 1/2 nl with a list go play one of those tables.
I do agree with you on incentivizing bad players to play more but that's what easier online than live.
This is true and I've seen poker rooms where the management wanted to run things exactly this way. For more discussion see the chapter "Everyone Breaks Even" in my Cardrooms book. Of course, poker rooms with this attitude fail, and that's probably why I haven't seen this philosophy from a poker room manager in many years.
To be clear, I didn't say they should actually do it because it is a bad way to run a room, but in an ideal World, that's exactly what would happen from their standpoint.
It doesn't matter if the recs care about the rake or not. What does matter is if the game in question can over time develop regular players who will help start games and keep games going.
if your game is full of recs it doesn't matter who starts what, if all the recs show up at 2pm to start the game then the regs will naturally arrive earlier and earlier until the equilibrium is reached
if the games are bad to the point that you need someone to start and keep it going in hopes that someone shows up who can salvage it you got much bigger problems than rake
If you're in a baby stakes limit game where pots are heads up you can cut the rake in half and it's still a terrible game where nobody is winning any money and nobody is having any fun.
I mean the counterfactual to this is playing in a short game where the rake is one dollar per flop (4 handed or 3 handed). These can be some of the best games.
I really do think it’s the rake that makes it not profitable. Let’s say you are an entry level player trying to build your bankroll. If rake is so crushing that it turns you from a slight winner to a slight loser, you’ll never have a chance to move up in stakes. Meanwhile in no limit since you can always win a whole stack in every hand, rake just won’t be as much of a drawback.
Thus all the entry level players rightfully pick out no limit over limit since anyone with half a brain can see that limit is near impossible to beat for a nonexpert when high rakes are involved.
Not sure why this has created so much discussion, should have just been a few nods and yuups.
A high rake will erode a low limit game in same way that water slowly creates a canyon. It doesn’t matter if at time the players cared about the rake. The “rake” never plays bad or has an off day, it’s there chipping away every hand.
I mean the counterfactual to this is playing in a short game where the rake is one dollar per flop (4 handed or 3 handed). These can be some of the best games.
I really do think it’s the rake that makes it not profitable. Let’s say you are an entry level player trying to build your bankroll. If rake is so crushing that it turns you from a slight winner to a slight loser, you’ll never have a chance to move up in stakes. Meanwhile in no limit since you can always win a whole stack in every hand, ra
I assume he meant a full game. But yea you're right for a short handed game.
There weren't that many props working and when they did work they weren't in those games. Props filled short handed games to fill them from breaking.
So yea go play 10/20 Omaha hi low that's 5 handed
2 hours later it filled up go play some sort handed stud game etc
It wasn't we have 25 tables of 1/2 nl with a list go play one of those tables.
I do agree with you on incentivizing bad players to play more but that's what easier online than live.
As I said, it’s been some time since I played in. California. But I remember when a lot of silent props were employed. Are you aware of what a silent prop is?
