The ‘rake’ can be defined as the fee the poker room charges players (from here on out ‘poker room’ or ‘house’ is referring to a casino, online poker room, local card club/poker room, or possibly a game run by an individual(s)). You’ll find generally two different methods that will be employed by the home to collect the rake. The first is when the card room will take a share of the pot up to a particular amount. As an example, they can take 5% up to $3 before they ‘push’ the winner their chips. Simply how much the house takes and what requirements has to be met before they ‘rake’ the pot will differ between online poker rooms and ‘live’ (not online).

The next method, as well as the one that won’t be discussed in too much depth here, is what is called a ‘time charge’. The home will collect a certain amount of cash every half hour or hour from all the players playing. The time charge method is often not utilized for the bottom limit games, as well as in the mid to high limit games, it’s not absolutely employed. From here on out ‘the rake’ is only going to make reference to the rake which is collected from individual pots. This is the standard method that most poker players are used to and may be the focus of the rest of the article.

Live poker rooms can have different requirements of once they rake the pot and at what percentage. For live poker rooms the percentage will be 10% and, determined by the poker room, can have a maximum of $3-$5. Some poker rooms in addition have the minimum rake that they take from each pot, irrespective of the size. As an example, if there is a 1/2 NL game and also the blinds are $1 and $2, they might take up to $3 from the pot on the flop. This means if everyone folds to the small blind, he/she calls the big blind, and the big blind checks, the house will collect up to $3 (according to their policies), despite the fact that they are heads up and the pot only has $4. The house will then take another dollar in the event the pot reaches $40 (10% of $40 is $4, but they have already taken $3) and, if there maximum is $5, they are going to then take another dollar at $50.

Since most players understand that contributing $2 to be able to win $1 is a tough proposition, most poker rooms shall allow the small blind and big blind to ‘chop’. It means that they can both receive their blinds back if they both agree which it is acceptable. This has to be done before the flop and no other players can be in the hand. Poker rooms that do collect rake irrespective of how many players you can find if there’s a flop, usually have a ‘no flop, no drop’ policy. This means that if there is absolutely no flop, regardless how many raises or how big the pot, the home will not collect any money from the flop. It needs to be remembered that not all live poker rooms collect rake if there is a flop. This really is sometimes regional, but could also vary from poker room to poker room in the same region.

Online poker rake differs in a number of ways. The very first is that the percent of rake that is usually taken is 5% and this is almost always capped at $3. Not simply is there commonly a maximum $3 collection, but there will be always no minimums. In some games the pot will need to be as large as $30 before the house collects their percentage. In games where the home collects 5%, due to simplicity, also they can divide the total amount they collect into ‘cents’. This implies on a $20 pot there may be a rake of $0.50. For online games, there is just not an alternative to chop in the event the small blind and big blind are in the hand ahead of the flop.

The above mentioned descriptions of how live poker rooms and online poker rooms calculate and collect rake are the most frequent methods employed. As was mentioned, the guidelines will vary, but a majority of poker rooms use the above rules and using them as guidelines might help the poker player (whether a novice or beginner) decide which version offers the highest return. There are plenty of other factors that determine the profitability of a poker game and it would be foolish to base game selection solely on the rake collected.

It’s fairly obvious that the maximum rake that the house collects in live games is a substantial amount higher than online. Even if it was assumed that they only charged no more than $3 the minimums are a lot easier higher than online poker rooms. Seeing a flop with three people and $9 in the pot ($6 after the rake is taken), as an example, creates a negative expected value that’s fairly tough to overcome. It is also safe to deduce that one pays more per hand in rake in a live setting in contrast to online.

Despite the fact that more is raked per hand in a live poker game, the total amount which is paid hourly is comparable. In a live game, in the event the average rake per hand is $3, but there is only 30 hands per hour, the house will collect $90/hr. When playing online there is an average of 70 hands an hour. Should the average rake collected per hand official website is $1.50, the hourly collection from the table is $105.

Using the above as guidelines (based off of 2/4 limit games) the table as a whole will pay more per hand in live games, but more hourly in online games. This is as a result of the total amount of hands that will be possible per hour per table online rather than live.