Let's talk about rake, late 2025 edition.

If it's hard for you to find games and grind up through the ranks then don't. I'm not here to tell you it's easy for everyone to play a game for a living. All I know is there are public games available every single day in multiple states throughout the country.

It objectively is though. The overwhelming majority of people who play 10 hours a day (and yes, you REALLY should be doing SOME amount of study away from the table*) get burnt out. I am not telling you how things should or how I wished they were. I am reporting facts from the real world.

Also, I was replying to a post (that you wrote) that said "If I was awake for those 12 years I was at a poker table and I don't sleep that much." I don't know what this talk of 40 hours a week is, then later in the same paragraph you're talking about playing 10 hours a day.

Some signs of an unreliable narrator are emerging. Even if our earlier suggestion that you're just larping were out of line, the reality is undeniable that live poker is built entirely on self-report data and it's impossible to not misrepresent reality even with the best of intentions.

*Especially if your recommendation is to learn a whole other game!

I would just point out that what you said is true of a great many professions. 99.99% of people who want to be a pro in any competitive sport don't make it. 99.99% of people who want to be actors/actresses don't make it. 99.99% of people who want to be rock stars don't make it. I'm a writer - most people in my industry fail and never make it into a viable business not sure if its 99.99% but the number who pay their bills doing it is low. Most people fail at most things that they try. Even those who do find success have usually failed at a handful of other things first. It isn't like there is room for there to be a million poker pros. I don't know what the numbers are nation/worldwide, but you can't have 9 poker pros at a table because by definition at least one of them is losing and is now the fish. So whatever number of pros the ecosystem can support is a limited number, and on the other side you have the folks who want to become pros. If that exceeds the number the ecosystem can support, they can't all succeed by definition.

I think poker falls into that category of professions that captures people's imaginations when they see people gambling millions of dollars without an apparent care in the world. While the reality is that the number of people at that level actually making money is dozens, the number grinding out 6-figure incomes across the whole country is probably in the low hundreds, and the number grinding out enough to barely squeak by consistently is probably below a thousand. The number of people who say "I want to play poker for a living" is probably 1+ million. So yeah, by definition, 99.99% of people will fail. Poker captured my imagination once, and between regular jobs, I grinded a bit. I quickly discovered that I didn't love poker enough to put in the effort required. So I'm in that 99.99% of failures.

If you want to be on the Hustler Million Dollar Cash Game someday, then you either need to make millions some other way, or you need to approach your poker career with the same fanaticism and dedication as the guy who wants to be a quarterback playing a superbowl. Because virtually everyone who tries is going to fail, and a lot of those people who fail did in fact work really hard.

It isn't a profession like plumbing where there is a ton of work and not a terribly long list of people who are dreaming about doing it. It's a competitive industry that has room for X players to be pro, so to be pro you have to be better than 99.9% of the rest of the people who want to be pro.

Being a "poker pro" isn't necessarily making it as everyone has a definition of what that means. Is it making 100k/yr? Is it 200k? 50k? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to beat 1/2 or 2/5 certainly at a good rate and some of those guys might call themselves "poker pros". Now if you want to make an argument for those making 250k+ a year for the past 5+ years that would be my definition of a successful poker pro. That probably falls into the 99.9%. By the way every industry is highly competitive - high stake poker games are insanely competitive, building a plumbing business is highly competitive, etc. Any industry where there's the ability to a living wage (100k+) is highly competitive.

i think its going the way of casino daily tournaments as opposed to stud and limit

I suggest you be a professional master debater over professional poker player. 😉

Well I said my piece. Good luck out there guys.

i dont understand. you didnt respond to anything i said at pretty much any point

dont think this is reasonable metric to compare poker to (there just isn't that kind of money in the industry anymore). the number of people doing this in the entire world is probably astonishingly low - 5 years of 250k+. i think ~100k in a year of poker earnings with no more than idk 15% of the total earn in a day is a valid criterion (and still think the number of people who have done this multiple times in the last 5 years is shockingly low).

the world would be a better place if the gatekeeper was blitz / zoom winrate :(

If we're all prepared to sign-off on the statement "Poker is a comparably viable aspiration as being shortstop for the Seattle Mariners, except not a single top professional has ever made A-Rod money off the game and the worst 'professionals' are delusional degens with a lien on their house", then I think we've arrived at a truce.

If anything I think this is optimistic ... I doubt they'll increase the stakes to make sure the game is viable for the players. Eg. Casinos near me still run 1-5 Stud. and 4-8 Limit HE, and my guess is both of those games are unbeatable and I hope/think most of the people playing them understand that. So wouldn't be shocked if we stayed at 1-2/1-3 games, for a long time, with rake increasing so high you wonder if you're on a cruise ship.

Another option is what I saw in the UK this year, where the casino had a poker room but the dealers only turned up at 6pm for a $50 tournament and then maybe a cash game would run an hour or so later as people busted (AIUI the major city about 1.5h away still had real poker rooms, but I couldn't travel easily).

im talking major markets (specifically vegas tbh). you are completely dead to be a pro now i think in smaller markets unless you stumble upon a gold mine or have incredibly low aspirations

is fairly clear what im saying is accurate when on any given day there are more private games running than public > 10$ blind level. am not sure whats going on in this thread re the myth of the altruistic game runner with a heart of gold just trying to make a pleasant playing environment for people as opposed to siphon every single drop of ev into their pockets (i say this as someone who has benefited disproportionately over the years from private games)

I honestly think it should be a low bar for this discourse that we all agree that a viable CAREER means you are expected to make at least $2mm (adjusted for today's dollars)* off of it lifetime and retire by the time you're 65.

Anything else is at best per diem work, more likely a side hustle or profitable hobby.

*Lowkey under-discussed aspect of poker-as-a-career is how little the market is affected by the value of the dollar. You better hope 5/T+ games get MORE abundant by the time the dollar's worth 2/3s as much, not less so...

Saw a stat that said 100k now is worth 53k compared to the year 2000. Cracking the six figure mark isn't what it use to be unfortunately.

Legit don't know and am curious what you've been implying with casinos having a role in games drying up and what can be done about it--or, for that matter, if I'm even getting the implication right.

My perspective from being a part of a new room getting started. Can’t even get a PLO game started, certainly not spreading limit games. But the tournament crowd is way bigger than the cash players.

Not too many fish stumbling into cash games anymore, but they are alive and well in tournaments. If I was looking to go pro in my situation, I think I’d attack the tournaments.

To the general public, cash games are boring and filled with sharks and rude people. They want to have fun and all those OMCs are no fun. But tournaments offer excitement, the chance for a big score, and nicer, worse players to deal with.

I love Vegas and to me you need to play somewhere like that where there’s lots of choice for games if you really want to go pro. The opportunity is in finding weak games, not playing in the only game running.

Only in Vegas can you be on the way to your room and spot a PLO game with a lady with a diamond on every finger showing her cards to everyone and having a great time giving away her money. Sleep later, sit down until she leaves. Nothing GTO about this kind of opportunity that happens more than you think.

Retired, better than average player that has seen the unimaginable bad runs. I don’t think anyone should consider a full time poker career until they’ve had this experience. You better have a plan when there’s no money available this month.

I’ve never played so many hours like Brian. Time flies by at the poker table, so I think I could do this easily and it sure sounds like fun. I’d like to try it for a couple weeks. It might not be fun at all, and I wouldn’t want that to happen.

Finally, I admire those that seek a living playing poker. But there’s a lot of pressure and many of these same people are my targets when I play. Occasionally I run into a crusher, but mostly it’s people that will be giving up the dream soon.

Thanks for posting GG.

I feel your pain in respect of the mind-numbing task of tracking rake. I only managed to do 4 tables at an hour each, a few years back, so your sample is nearly 3x mine and nothing to be sneezed at.

Just reposting my figures for 2/5 at 10%/$15 cap (no BBJ and no tips because tipping not legal in Oz):

• Average hands per hour: 33.25
  
• Average total rake per hour: $283.25
  
• $15 cap met: 32%
  

If you added another $3 to the effective cap in your room, from $12 to $15, then the average per hour/per table would be $280 (3 x 11.43 + 246), very close to my figure of $283.

However, using BBs as the metric rather than $ there's a significant difference: 93bb at 1/3 v 57bb at 2/5. In this respect, the rule-of-thumb that the higher the stake the less the rake appears to be true.

Most rooms I see have the same or very similar dollar rake at all stakes, so that tracks.

I don't track total rake off the table, but I do track rake that I pay in every session so that I can track a "rakeless" winrate as well. I just count the chips missing from pots I win due to all sources, and add back promos and rakeback.

With a 10% rake 5+2 structure and mostly $1 tips, my 2025 was a net of $3,394 paid to the house over 198 hours, or 8.6 bb/hr (this just from $1-$2). As a winning player I'm probably very slightly more than an equal share from the table but 8x this (table size, ignoring empty seats) is around 68 bb/hr, similar to your results with the fact that 5+2 is significantly more favorable than 6+3.

That you're likely paying more in rake than you actually win is not surprising but still a little disturbing. I doubt many would be winning, on a net basis, more than 8.6bb/hr these days.

As I've said previously, if there was more transparency around rake, for example a receipt provided to each player itemising how much they paid to the house for the day, then general attitudes about rake in poker would be significantly different.

The reality is that most have little idea of how much they're paying in total for a session; telling a rec that they're paying 10% capped at $7 probably translates as maybe $10 or $20 bucks for the day, unless you get lucky and win a bunch of pots, in which case, whatever, who cares because I'll be feeling good anyway.

This is very impressive

Personally, I’ve found it unproductive to focus on rake. It’s obvious that playing higher reduces the rake, but if all you have is 1/3 it’s not an option.

It’s kinda like focusing on shuffle machines setting the cards. It could happen, but I’m unlikely to know one way or the other.

My best friend in poker has been a dealer over 20 years. He says he believes I’m playing a fair game and that’s good enough for me.

The rake is surely a factor and probably justifies my tight play. I kinda hold on to the fact that somebody (probably not me) will win a big jackpot someday.

Specifically because of the rake, I probably shouldn’t be throwing nickels to the dealer when I win a big hand. It certainly cuts into my profit overall and most dealers wouldn’t complain if I stuck to a dollar.

GG’s post is shocking as I never realized that the house was taking 1,000+ every 4/5 hours. I guess they have a lot of people to pay.

I don’t know if I came across like I wanted. Just saying that you can’t focus on these things.

Just play the game
My hand against villains range, etc is plenty enough to focus on. Don’t mix in thoughts about things you can’t control.

I've also started writing down the rake I pay, if anyone is curious (for 20 sessions, 71h, ~2600 hands)

yo but don't travel to Germany to play here pls, don't need the game to be tougher.

You can and you should. Games exist that are unbeatable simply because of how high the rake is and as DrTJO said, at 8.6bb/hr in rake I doubt many are actual winners.

Now to also give you some props, you say you play tight, that's good with high rake.

Most people aren't winning if there was no rake. Sure, if you have a very thin edge and you are barely beating the game, rake could be the factor that drives you to losing, if the rake is absurdly huge the game might not be beatable. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is whether you are beating the game or not. If you aren't beating the game you have two options - increase your skill edge or find a different game. Lowering the rake isn't an option.

I'm curious what people mean when they say they "pay" the rake. Are we adding up every dollar that goes into the rake and dividing by the players at the table? Are we just counting the money taken from pots that we win? What if you win a pot and "pay" $7 in rake, but then get felted the next hand where you would have lost that extra $7 anyway? Did you "pay" $7? Because in that situation it makes absolutely no difference to your bottom line.

On the other hand, if somebody else scoops a pot and it's smaller because of rake, and then you felt that person the next hand, you missed $7 that would have been in play.

It isn't really that clear cut how much rake "you" are paying in the sense that it impacts the amount that you take home. The idea that you should pass on playing a spot that you know is EV plus because you'll pay rake is just silly. I don't think there are that many situations you are going to find yourself in a low stakes game, where your edge is only the size of the rake and the play goes from being plus EV to minus EV. At least not if you are talking about the typical rake that you see in US casinos versus the typical players that inhabit low stakes.

I am still waiting for somebody to point out a concrete situation where you would play a hand materially differently if there is rake versus if there isn't rake.

Interesting that our numbers are so similar, although obviously lol @ sample sizes.

I'm assuming your tables are 9 handed, so my 33.7 hands per hour versus your 33.25.

My rake (only) of 57.3 bb/hr versus your 56.65 bb/hr (although I do get slaughtered more on non-distributed BBJ/promo drops and tips).

My current maximum rake met of 37.7% versus your 32% (both maxing out in 30bb pots).

G~samesies!G