The Rake and How to Beat It

What is the Rake and how do you beat it? If you play Texas Holdem at a casino, poker room or online poker room, there is a rake. The rake is a percentage of the pot that goes to the house, usually 4 to 10%. A lot of poker rooms will only rake when the pot reaches a certain level. The term comes from “raking a little off the pot.”

If the house is only raking when the pot reaches a certain level, you can play to minimize your contributions to the rake. For example, you can blind steal or buy free cards. Blind Stealing is betting when only you and the blinds are left in the game pre-flop. To pull this off, you should be in the dealer position, just before the small blind. You make a large enough raise to get the blinds to fold, and you “steal” the blinds. If you’re in last position, you can buy a free card. If on the pre-flop, no one else has raised, you bet. This cuts down on the number of players – ergo cutting down the money in the pot, which avoids the rake. Everyone who doesn’t fold will tend to check to the raiser – you. Then, on the turn, after the other players have checked again, you don’t have to bet again. That’s why it’s called a free card. It is best used if you’ve got a flush or straight draw.

Getting pots early and getting out is how to minimize the rake. Let’s face it, the house is going to get its money. You just don’t want to give them more than you have to. The rake at a casino or poker room is going to be more than an online poker room. Let’s face it, there is a lot less involved in maintaining an online room than a building with dealers, waitstaff, parking lot attendants and everything else. They have to pass that cost on to the players and one way they do it is through the rake. The rake at an online poker room is usually about half of what a live casino or poker room would charge.

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Omaha Poker

Omaha poker, sometimes known as Omaha Hi or Omaha Hi-Lo is a variation on Texas Holdem, which is a variation of Seven Card Stud. Basically, it is a community card game, like Texas Holdem but there are a few differences, which make it a poker game of its own. So even though there is a Flop, Turn and The River, Omaha is definitely not “Holdem Lite.”

First, there are the hole cards. In Omaha, you get four. Like Holdem, the hole cards are dealt, blinds posted and a round of pre-flop betting. Then, the dealer lays out the Flop. Again, like Texas Holdem, there is another round of betting. The Flop is followed by the Turn. And another round of betting. Then we come to the final card, The River. There’s a final round of betting and then the showdown where the winner of the pot is decided. So, it seems like Omaha Hi-Lo is a lot like Texas Holdem. And it is in the way play unfolds.

Now let’s talk about the differences. We already mentioned that each player get four hole cards instead of two. But, a player can only use two of the four hole cards to make his final hand. In fact, you have to use two of your hole cards. You can’t use one hole card and four community cards, or use no hole cards and just “play the board” like you can in Holdem. Think how sad you’d be if you had four Aces in the pocket. This rule also makes it tough to pull some other winning hands.

The other big difference is the Hi-Lo aspect. You might get a straight flush, but you’ll still split the pot with the lowest hand. No cards over an 8 qualify for a low hand. Eights and lower do qualify. If you were dealt four deuces as your hole cards, you’d be sunk. You would be stuck with a pair, which eliminates the chance to go low, and it’s the lowest possible pair you could have, which means going high doesn’t look too good either. Having to consider this hi-lo strategy and draw hand limitations make Omaha a very fun and challenging game.

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Different Types of Tournaments

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Texas Holdem tournaments, along with most all other poker tournaments, follow a typical path. All players start with the same amount of poker chips. At the poker tables, the blinds gradually increase. And the players are gradually eliminated until a winner is decided. The winner is awarded a prize amount and so are the other top finishers. Most of these poker tournaments are freezeouts – once a player loses all his poker chips, he’s gone.

While that’s the way it usually goes, there are a number of variations on this theme. One of the most common is Re-buy and Add-on Tournaments. A re-buy lets a player buy back into the poker tournament. There’s usually a time limit on when you can re-buy. After it passes, players can still add-on. They can buy a set number of poker chips for a set price to “add on” to their stack. With these options, you can take more chances betting, especially in the early rounds where you can re-buy.

If you’re in a hurry to make your money or get chased from the poker tables, you might try a Turbo tournament. That’s one where the blinds rise very quickly, sometimes every 5 minutes. Sometimes as quick as every two minutes. With blinds getting that high, there’s not too much post-flop play because players are often forced to go all-in pre-flop or fold. In a Turbo tournament, it’s smart to play aggressively. Steal the blinds as often as you can and hope the poker cards come your way.

A satellite tournament doesn’t offer a cash prize. It rewards the winners with entry into a higher buy-in tournament. The World Series of Poker uses satellite tournaments.

We have Party Poker to thank for the steps tournament. It is usually a series of single poker table satellite tournaments with increasingly larger buy-ins, with big cash prizes at the final step. Most steps poker tournaments have five steps. Winners of the first step are awarded an entry into the second step and so on.

These are just a few of the many poker tournament variations you’ll run into in casinos, live poker rooms and online poker rooms and casinos.

Written by texas holdem Team · Filed Under Poker

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The Rake and How to Beat It