He paid a lot more in rake across the street, but also lost less money. In our game, he was constantly playing in heads up or three way pots, while the game across the street routinely saw eight players limping in to see the flop and chasing all the way to the river.īhupan also played across the street, and while he lost there too, he didn’t get humiliated and crushed nearly as hard as he did when he was facing a table full of regs. We used to have this recreational player named Bhupan come play with us and while we did what we could to ensure he had fun at the table, he was so bad at poker that he got absolutely destroyed when he played with us. Our win rate was still better overall playing in the game with the lower rake. The game with the higher rake was obviously juicier, but because the rake was so high it wasn’t really worth it for me and my other pro friends to play it. What ended up happening was the game I played in consisted of eight pros and two recreational players, while the game across the street had no pros in it at all. So obviously I chose to play in the game with the lower rake as did many other pros I know because we didn’t really think we would be able to beat the rake across the street. In the game across the street, they were taking $300 out of the game per hour! The casino I played at charges a $5 session fee every 30 minutes in a $10-$20 limit hold’em game, while the game across the street charged $10 a hand! Excluding tips, in the game I played in, $100 came off the table every hour. I’m going to discuss a real world example from my early days as a professional poker player in Toronto. Now, let’s take a deeper look at how an increased rake affects players. Rake increases take more money out of the game and benefit whoever is collecting the rake.

I do not believe that raising the rake is good for poker. So for a while now there has been a misconception that I think raising the rake in poker games is “good for poker.” I’ve never actually said that, but I understand where the confusion may come from because I was talking about some things (facts) that a lot of pros don’t want to hear, and like a game of broken telephone, my position has been distorted.

Daniel negreanu rake is good for poker