The poker rake.

Both in online and offline poker, poker rooms generate their money via the rake. A popular misconception about the rake is, that only the winner of a hand pays it. in reality every player who’s in on a hand pays part of the rake.
Different poker rooms use different methods to calculate the rake, but whichever way they reach their results, the bottom line is, poker rake is a nuisance for you the poker player.
Naturally, it is in your best interest to try to reduce the rake you pay as much as possible. Real money online poker is not only more difficult to beat because of the competition, but it’s also tougher to conquer because of the rake you pay.
The very first thing you can do to reduce the rake that you pay is play online. Live poker is an extremely expensive pastime, and you need to win and win big in order to truly end the month in the “+” column. Just think about it: live poker incurs a bunch of costs even before you settle down to the table. Most live poker events worth attending are usually quite a distance away. Travel costs money, once there, lodging costs some more money. Moving around, eating and just getting by, adds more to the costs. By the time you settle down to the table, you already have a pretty hefty negative balance you need to deal with. Then comes the hourly-charge which is quite a bit bigger than what you’ll have to put up with in on line poker.
Online poker rooms require none of the above named costs, and on top of that, the rake is not charged by the hour, but rather, the room takes a certain percentage of every pot as rake. The standard is 5% up to $3 maximum.
Now that you know which sort of game you have to play in order to save on the rake, let’s see how you can make further cuts.
If you play low limit/stakes, the rake can be as high as 3,5%. That’s because most online poker rooms feature the no-flop no-drop policy which basically means that they do not take any rake off hands that see no flop, even if there is a lot of pre-flop betting going down.
Play in tournaments, (STTs) because tournament fees cost less than the rake you pay in a cash-game. Cash-games charge you for every single hand that you play, and if you win, they charge you more. Tournaments take a one-time fee, and once that is paid, you can play for hours on end, or as long as it takes for you to win or to drop out of the tournament.
Just about the worst kind of game you can play as a rookie are short handed cash games or heads up cash games. Since these games are both much faster than regular cash games, you’ll pay more rake/hour
The other problem that they pose is, that skill is more important in these games than the luck-based variance most rookies are riding.
Short handed and heads-up games are much more aggressive too, and thus the variance they throw at you is also bigger. You need an even bigger bankroll to swallow all the variance, and thus you find yourself in a bunch of predicaments all of the sudden.
Rakeback is definitely the best way to reduce the impact of the rake on your play. Sign up for such a deal and get 30-50% of the rake you generate for the room back. Some rakeback deals offer you as much as 135%, but those carry special obligations too.
All articles written by (c) James West.