But the majority of pots will be button vs blind, a c-bet and a fold to c-bet and there's 2 euros rake taken off a 12 euro pot.

the way i know live games is that most pots are multiway, a lot of limping, noone folding preflop. you´ll often find 5 players see the flop.

For big pots the rake drops to 4%, but for the smaller pots (which are a lot more frequent) rake is close to 20% which is really terrible.

so the adjustment should be clear: don´t engage in small pot warfare! only play hands that you can win a big pot with.

I don't think it's very profitable for a player to play in this kind of structure.

the rake is not the problem (i never thought i´d say this!). the real problem is that you can only play about 20 hands/hr. for me personally to make it worth my while, i´d need to make at least 15 big blinds per hour in a 2/2 game, which equals to 75bb/100!!! so if you play 10 hrs every day, you need to have to win 1,5 stacks every day on average. it´s not impossible considering the average customer, but it´s not a cakewalk either. you need to constantly be on your A-game, 10 hours every day.

another thing to consider is variance: at a rate of 20 hands/hr, you will need to be lucky to make money (in this case by "lucky" i mean "not running bad"). you need to win your 80%ers. imagine you lose five 80%ers in a row (which is very possible as we all know): that totally kills your 1,5 stacks every day.

yet still: although i sound pessimistic, i would not dismiss playing live. players are incredibly bad and if you run ok, you can make some cash extra (plus: sitting at a table with actual human beings is not quite as autistic as staring at a screen). as your sole source of income, i am a little more sceptical though.

cheers

s.

for you to compare: i live in berlin and the rake for a fullring 2/2 game looks like that:

no flop: no drop

split pot: no drop (very important)

< 20€ : no drop

20€ - 59€: 2€

60€ - 99€: 4€

100€ - 124€: 6€

125€ - 149€: 8€

150€ - 174€ : 10€

175€ - 224€: 12€

225€ - 299€: 14€

300€ - 399€: 18€

>400€: 20€ CAP

also you should find out if it´s mandatory or expected from you to tip the dealers (here in germany it isn´t. it may be frowned upon by some players or dealers, but it totally is ok not to tip) which de facto is also rake.

cheers

s.

Hey man. Answering this is pretty complex. First of all you state most pots will be button vs blinds with folds to cbets. If your really playing in a game where that's true, that's a pretty bad game at live 1/2 and definitely not worth your time regardless of rake.

However, I also think the comments about the profitability of these games to be way off.

It's like a 5% rake capped at 8. I've got like 900 hours logged of 1/2 games where the rake was 10% capped at 10 and my hourly is similar to that of a 2/5 sample in a tougher environment.

If I had the rake structure you had vs the people I played against my hourly would be significantly higher.

Also saying you need a 4% edge in the game is really a lazy way to Guage if you can beat the game. Each hand and each situation merits different profitability numbers.

You said it yourself, if you raise to 6,get the bb to call, and the pot is $13, the house is taking $2. Assuming u tip $1 per hand the "house is getting $3" so u need to win the pot significantly more frequently than normal to show a profit with a cbet. And that profit would only be $4.

Now consider raising to say $15 otb. You'll win the pot much more frequently preflop for a profit of $3 (no take and no tip either) and when u get called the rake is a smaller % of the pot so you can cbet more frequently.

These are only 2 small adjustments to make in a rake structure like this. I'd make a dozen more. But as long as you haven't found the tightest 1/2 game of all time, you can make adjustments to make this rake structure more profitable than a 10% rake game capped at $6