How Beatable Is This Game?

[Mike]

So I play over at Playground in Montreal, the action is pretty decent. Certainly not amazing or garbage, a lot of fish but a lot of filthy nits infesting the games. I mostly play 200NL.

Bottom line is the rake is outrageous. It is 10% capped at $9 with an additional $2 taken from every pot for the bad beat. You have to figure that for any pot that reaches cap you are giving $9 + $2 + $1 OR $2 tip. = $12 or $13 per decent pot.

I’m trying to figure out how beatable these games are, over a long session you can easily end up paying more than $100 (half a buyin) in rake and tips. You have to figure this is a huge portion of your average profit per session and I believe over the long run even for good regs these games are going to be very difficult to beat for a reasonable profit.

[temp]

Do not count the jackpot drop in your calculations. The house returns 100% of the bad beat drop (you should verify this since Playground rules might be different from Las Vegas rules). If you make a high hand or win jackpot money, add that win into your session. Also, do not account for tips in your calculations since you will basically tip the same no matter the rake.

If ten muppets are playing at a ten-handed table and the dealer deals 30 hands per hour, then each muppet wins 3 hands per hour. The numbers are the same for 9 muppets, 9-handed, and 27 hands per hour. What is the average pot size in this game? I will assume it’s $90 for now. So you will be paying $9 rake, three times per hour, or $27/hour. You probably get $2/hour comps, so we’re at $25/hour.

In the words of one of Roy L. Fuchs imposters, ‘That’s too fucking high!’ I know players who used to smash $1/2 blind NL for $35/hour, and that was with about a $12/hour rake, but the games were easier back then. Your game is beatable, but unless you are smashing it, you will do better begging. I remember when the standard rake was $4 in LV. Then Caesars went to $5 and all the grinders moaned and complained and went somewhere else. Which made the games at Caesars the most profitable games in town; nothing but droolers.

I could advise you to get into a bigger game, but nothing I say here is going to stop you from playing that 200NL at Playground you degenerate sicko.

[Mike]

I disagree that I should not be counting the bad beat $2 I give every hand. They do have a high hand bonus, however it is not on weekends and during the week there are always a lot of tables, meaning the odds of me winning are very low, and according to my calculations, the high hand giveaways are -ev compared to just not paying the $2.

[Author]

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