MMM: What is this thing called...rake?

This week's Monday Morning Mailbag comes from a reader wondering why 2 + 2 does not equal 4.

Hey Sushi,


Can you help me out on the math here? I bought into a Rush Poker game for an even $5, played one hand heads up against another player who had $2.50 in front of him. We got it all in on a chop and at the end of the hand I had $4.83 in my stack. What happened to my five bucks? We split the pot.


Adam
Phoenix AZ

Dear Nickeled and Dimed,

You have run into what we in the business call...rake. On FTP at the low stakes you are paying 1 cent of rake for every 15 cents in the pot which means you're paying up to 6 2/3% of every pot. Now in your situation you had a $5 pot which got raked for 33 cents, 17 cents from you and 16 cents from your opponent and it was made very obvious by the fact that it was a large pot, got chopped, and you started with a nice round number. You still get raked the same amount but when it is a small pot that you scoop and you start with $4.38 in your stack then the rake is much less conspicuous. Rake, while a necessary evil, is a relentless foe which steadily erodes your bankroll.

To illustrate the effect here are some numbers. Currently I am -$63.36 against the rake in the cash games. With rakeback I am $143.01 up. If I got 33% rakeback like Cake offers then I'd have $185.34 in profit. If I somehow were able to find a site that didn't charge any rakeback I would have $658.11 in sugar, over $500 more than where I am now. Obviously you want to do whatever you can to minimize the effects of rake which is partly why I did not start out with Omaha Hi/Lo since there are so many split pots where you end up just getting your own money back but minus rake.

I hope that explains the discrepancy that you noticed in your stack.

Sushi Cowboy