Beating the Rake ?

I am just learning poker at "the next level". I know my games and stakes are not typical of what I will see as I grow. Never played in a casino cash game, either online or live. But being a numbers guy, I am astounded at some of the math revolving around the house rake, and wonder what it takes to beat it.

Some assumptions, based on research of what is typical:

• Hands played per hour 80-100 on line 60-75 in person
• Hands played to showdown 25 per hour (live)
• Rake is 10% live, 5% online, both max at $3 or $4 per pot
• Hands with pots that pay maximum rake 25-30 per hour (???)

Using various combinations on anything from $1/$2 games on up, I seem to get a total rake per hour of about $100 - $150 whether online or live. That amounts to average of $12 - $16 per hour per player.

So if an average session is 3 hours, it seems like the house is going to take $40-$50 or so in rake. Add another $10 in dealer tips, means it costs $50-$60 or more every time you sit down at a cash table.

If these numbers are correct, it seems that the only way to win is:

Be a LOT better than everyone else at the table.
Play big enough stakes that the rake is minimized.

At a $200 buy in table, in 3 hours the house has taken $300-$450 (not including another $100 in tips) out of a total $1800 on the table, or 20-25%. So it seems I need to be 25% better than the rest of the table just to break even. At lower buy-nis, it borders on stupid.

As I said, some of my assumptions might be way off. Are they?

Am I misunderstanding something?

You've got some bad assumptions in there.

1st online most tables never see 100 hands/hr, 75 is pretty typical.
Live you'll be lucky to see 30 hands dealt an hour.

No rake is collected on hands that do not see a flop. This happens more often online than live.

Live rake often caps as high as $6 or $7 with BBJ per hand.

Don't get me wrong, playing this game is very expensive, but not nearly as bad as you're suggesting.

Also my local casino charges timed rake. $6 per 1/2 hour from each person at the table. This sucks at 200nl and for tighter players in general but it's easier to see just how much the rake hits you. So if you're only seeing 25 hands dealt per hour at 200nl there (very realistic btw) it's costing you 12BB/100 (24bb/100) to play in that game. Fortunately casino 200nl players are really bad and even decent players can beat the rake but just barely.

home games ftw?

Make sure you get rakeback.

Thanks Bill.

It looks like my assumptions are a bit off, but the net result is still around $12 - $15 an hour per player. So making money requires several fish in the game and no sharks, or bigger stakes than $200-300 buy-ins.

It's probably good that I stick with tournaments at this stage anyway.

Looking at my Db it looks like I average

$3.75 / 100 hands at 50nl
$5.72 / 100 hands at 100nl

I wish i knew what Db was....

Sorry. Database. As in my Poker Tracker 3 (PT3) database. I have 250K hands at 50nl saved (.25/.5 no limit) and 140K hands at 100nl saved.