For our readers who do not play online or visit one of the few local poker rooms, "the rake" isn't a garden tool. It is the house "take"... if you've been playing online, it is easily viewable typically at the top of the screen by the dealer and almost always is a fairly simple math routine based on the "called" bets.
I spent several hours over the past few days or so cruising the Internet and some of my poker books trying to find some details on "THE RAKE" --- Here are some of the excerpts, definitions, explanations that I've found.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_poker_terms
I found it very interesting that their definition included "juice" .... (lol)
rake
See rake (poker). Also "juice", "vig", "vigorish".
Rake (poker)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The rake is the scaled commission fee taken by a casino operating a poker game. It is generally 5-10% of the pot in each poker hand, up to a predetermined maximum amount, but not only can this percentage be anything, there are other non-percentage ways for a casino to take the rake, plus other means for a casino to earn revenue from players (e.g. serving meals). Poker is a player versus player game and the house does not wager against its players (unlike blackjack or roulette) so this fee is the principal mechanism to generate revenues.
It is primarily levied by an establishment which supplies the necessary services for the game to take place. In online poker it covers the various costs of operation such as support, software and personnel. In traditional brick and mortar casinos it is also used to cover the costs involved with providing a dealer for the game and the physical building in which the game takes place.
To win when playing in poker games where the house takes a cut, a player must not only beat opponents, but also the financial drain of the rake.
Mechanism
Three predominant types of rake are applied depending upon the format of poker game being played.
During ring games the percentage rake is taken by the dealer based on the amount of money being wagered by the players. In a live casino, the dealer manually removes chips from the pot while the hand is being played and sets them aside to be dropped into a secure box after completion of the hand. Online, the rake is taken automatically by the game software. Some software shows the rake amount next to a graphical representation of the dealer and takes it incrementally between the rounds of betting, whereas other software programs wait until the entire hand is over and then takes it from the pot total before giving the rest to the winner of the hand.
The second type of rake is "time collection", or "table charge", where each player pays a set fee for playing in a ring game, typically every half hour, but another method could be a monthly subscription fee at an online site.
The third type of rake is an entrance fee taken when entering a poker tournament.
Some online poker websites have done away with the rake altogether. These "rake free" poker rooms generate revenue by increasing traffic to the company's other profitable businesses, such as sports betting.
The Poker Forum.Com
http://www.thepokerforum.com/rakeandtime.htm
From an article by Dave In Call titled "The Effects of the Rake or Time Charge on your Bottom Line", he states that there are several things to consider when trying to determine to play in a given game. They are: 1) the cost and hos it is collected from the players, 2) the players and how much of a favorite to beat them that you are, 3) the action at the table and average pot size in relation to the charge and how it is collected.
The last sentence in this article reads, "Understanding how the house charges the players to be in the game and its effect on your bottom line is one more aspect of poker that you must understand in order to become a winner. "
The bottom line is that some form of rake will always be used by casino's and poker rooms set up to make profit from those that play. The magic comes from that rake being a fair charge that doesn't drain the game such that it is practically impossible for more than 1-2 players to win per sitting.
I hope that we will hear a lot of comments on this blog.
Let the suck outs begin!
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1 comment:
I prefer the timed rake every1 pays a fee usually like 5-6 bucks a half hour for games 5-10 and bigger. It speeds up the game and it makes it so a dealer never has to worry about putting in and taking chips out of the pot,so he can just focus on keeping the game running correctly.
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