Rake - The cost of Playing Poker
Rake is the 'tax' that an online poker room or casino charges for hosting the game. The amount taken varies and is taken directly out of the money accumulated in the pot.
This is an area that is often overlooked. As a player you need to take into account the amount of rake you are contributing. For instance, you play a thousand hands and win $50 in 500 hands and lose $50 in the other 500. Are you break even? All things being equal, yes. Unfortunately you've contributed rake to each of those pots. If the rake was 3% of the total, which is fairly standard, that would equate into a $1500 loss. So how do you accurately calculate how much rake you are paying? There is no easy and exact way to know unless you add up the rake per hand. Whether in a casino or online poker room, the amount of rake taken should be publicized. You can either do some loose calculations to work out an approximate figure or use a tool to calculate this for you as you go.
Fees for Tournament entry
The tournament equivalent is the entry fee, which is a one time fee when you register. It's also important to consider these amounts, which are usually 10% of the entry fee. So if the tournament was $200 to enter, there would likely be a $20 fee, represented like this: $200+$20. The $20 is dead money. If you played ten $200 heads up matches, the fees to the house would be $200. This means you need to do better than a 50-50 win ratio to post a profit.
To play winning poker, you need to factor in this amount if you're to stay in the green. When considering rake in a cash game, the rake contributions reduces the pot equity for each and every player in the hand. Remember, the players who win pots doesn't win the rake. Loose players who like to get involved in lots of pots, become more exposed to rake as they have to pay more rake with each hand that they play. A loose aggressive style is well suited to joining a room that offers rake-back.
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