Rake is one of the biggest enemies an online poker player will ever face.  Some players call it the “silent killer” –  you rarely notice the rake and only pay it when you win a pot.  Despite its sneaky ways, players are becoming more and more aware of the rake and doing whatever they can to pay less of it.

If you’re not familiar with what rake can do to a bankroll –  and a poker room –  consider this example.  The typical rake taken from a hand of 3/6 Limit Holdem is probably somewhere around .50.  Let’s take a hypothetical room that only offers 3/6 LHE and runs a paltry 10 tables a day.  Let’s say each table deals 50 hands an hour –  also a very low number –  resulting in about 12,000 hands a day.

Now on to the players.  Let’s say our magic room only has 10 players and they all start with bankrolls of $10,000 –  very healthy bankrolls for 3/6 LHE.  No one deposits or withdraws from the room.  Guess how long until the rake takes every dollar of that money, regardless of who wins and who loses? 

Sixteen days.  Less than a month.  That’s the power of the rake.  It’s like a winning player who always wins and never gives you anything back, and it’s the reason why online poker rooms offer so many deposit bonuses –  they need a steady flow of cash in because the rake is taking so much money off of the table.

What can you do?  The best thing is to pay as little rake as you can upfront by doing research on poker sites with low rake.  All credible rooms publish their rake rates somewhere on their site, although you might have to click a bit to find it.  That’s a great first step to beating the best player at any poker table –  the rake.  

Get Carbon Poker VIP - 35% PLUS Bonuses