Thoughts on high rake games
I play live cash games in Bangalore/Goa and the games are all very high rake - 5% capped at 20 bb/25 bb (the cap rarely reaches, so its basically uncapped) . The games run as 1 round of nlhe and 1 round of plo4 with one game of plo5 3 board bomb pot followed by a game of plo 5 pot fold every round. The games are super soft, however from what i have seen, only the ultra nits seem to be beating the game with a decent win rate. Few questions -
- Is playing ultra nitty the best strategy?
- Is booking wins a good idea? I see many people getting up with small wins although the table is soft. If you do have the edge over the field then wouldn't it make sense to just keep playing?
- Any tips on plo4 in such high rake scenario?
- overall are there any data points to understand what is a decent win rate in such games?
2 Replies
You’re playing games with a lot of variance, so I think you have to play tight. I’d make my moves playing Hold’em and play super tight in the PLO games.
Booking wins is a dumb idea.
You have to make nut hands
I’d play double suited high pairs AhAcKhKc
Double suited with flush & straight draws
AdAsKdKs - AhAcJhQc - better with aces because you need draws to the nuts
and double suited coordinated AcKsQcJs that make straights often.
You can’t splash around, I would be very disciplined.
Someone else might know, but I have no idea what a great win rate would be in these volatile games. But I think you can lose a lot if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Poker is the game where when you do everything right, you still lose sometimes. If you don’t play very strong starting hands, it will be hard to overcome the coolers that you cannot avoid.
I play live cash games in Bangalore/Goa and the games are all very high rake - 5% capped at 20 bb/25 bb (the cap rarely reaches, so it's basically uncapped)
You need to be clearer here, I think ... For live games it's common to specify the rake % and the size of the pot it is capped at (Eg. 10% to $70, or 5% to $200), or sometimes to only specify the max rake+comps (Eg. 7+2, or 10+0).
Your wording heavily implies (assuming $1-2) that the game is raked at 5% to $800 or 5% to $1,000 ... with the max rake then being $40 or $50 per. hand.
IIRC the worst raked game I played in was 10% to $250 on a cruise ship, and people have debated if it was beatable long term with the main argument being that almost everyone is a lot worse than a regular 1-2 casino player and drunk/on-holiday/whatever. Your game is raked 2x more, for the large pots.
Combining that with games where equities run closer, and often tend to generate large pots ... it's going to be a lot worse.
