The effect of the rake in low limit 6-max games

[jeh1978 0]

At the local Indian casino at which I sometimes play, the players who play 10-20 usually refuse to play at less than a full table, because of the rake. This got me thinking about how much of a factor the rake is in the 6-max games online vs. the 10-handed games.I assumed for the sake of comparison, that the average rake per pot for a $1-2 game is $.50. So, every 100 hands, $50 is removed from play by the house. That is roughly equivalent to a single buy for a $1-2 game. Assume 10 players buy into a full $1-2 game for $50 and no one rebuys. After 100 hands, there is $450 left in play distributed among the 10 players. If I am one of those players, and I have broken even, then I have $50 and the other 9 players have 400 between them. They average $44.44 a piece. So, I have and edge of 1.125 to 1 over the average player at the table if I am a break even player at a 10-handed $1-2 game. This is roughly equivalent to a 6% edge. ( 100= y + x y=1.125x 100=1.125x + x 100=2.125x x=47 y= 53) In a 6-max game, assuming I am a break even player, there is $200 left among the other 5 players after 100 hands, or $40 per player on average. So, in this game, if I break even, I have an advantage of 1.25 to 1, which comes to about and 11% edge over the other players. If my math is roughly accurate, then one's edge due to skill would have to be nearly twice (1.83 times) as high in a 6-max game as it is in a 10-handed game to show the same profit at the $1-2 limit. These were obviously very rough calculations, and I would appreciate it if someone who is better at math than I could point out any glaring errors I made. Also, if anyone could tell me where I could find more precise numbers I would be grateful.

[Smasharoo 0]

If my math is roughly accurateIt's not.You do pay slightly more rake in 6-max game, however there also happen to be lot more hands that don't hit the rake minimum.You scenario assumes every hand is raked. It's nowhere near that.

[krup24 0]

Paragraphs and spacing are your friend.Really tough to follow.

[jeh1978 0]

Smash, in the 1-2 games on pokerstars, the rake starts when the pot hits $5. If a lot of the hands aren't being raked in a game you're in, then you are practicing bad game selection. I actually see more hands folded around to the blinds in the full games than in the much looser 6-max games. The 10 handed games often have periods where everyone tightens up and the percentage of hands played and average pot size decrease sharply. This usually only happens at the 6-max games when they get down to 4 or fewer players. I am not claiming my math is perfect, just that the flaw is not that a significantly smaller percentage of hands in the 6-max games (at the limit about which I was writing) are raked.

[loxo 0]

Paragraphs and spacing are your friend.Really tough to follow.

I read it fine...............and its a really good question.

[krup24 0]

OK I reread and it is still tough to follow.But in theory ok I see where ur coming from, in reality there is no 1-2NL I've ever seen where there haven't been 10+ reloads in the first 100 hands.

[Smasharoo 0]

I am not claiming my math is perfect, just that the flaw is not that a significantly smaller percentage of hands in the 6-max games (at the limit about which I was writing) are raked.You're wrong.Sorry.Go through Ptracker or something and have a look. I play 10,000 hands of 6 max a week. I used to play 10,000 hands of 10 handed. I pay slightly more rake. In my PT database I have hundreds of thousands of hands at 1/2 full and 1/2 6. There just less raked 6 max hands. You pay more rake, because you win more pots per 100 hands, but there are less hands overall raked.