Have you ever heard the term “rake” while playing poker? If you’ve only played tournaments or home ring games, it might not be a familiar word. In simple terms, rake is the casino or poker room’s cut. In this article, we’ll explain what rake means in poker and how it should affect your strategy, in a way that’s easy for beginners to understand.
1. What Is “Rake”?
“” originally means a garden rake in English. In casinos, it referred to the tool used to pull in chips. Over time, the word came to mean the casino’s share in poker.
In most casino games, the casino naturally earns a profit because of the game’s structure. But poker is a player-versus-player game, so the casino wouldn’t profit without a fee. That’s why poker rooms take a portion of the pot or use other methods to collect their share.
2. Types of Rake
There are several ways rake can be collected. Here are the most common types.
- Rake
This is the most common method. After each hand ends, a portion of the pot is taken as rake. The rake percentage and a maximum cap are set, often described like “X% with a Y bb cap.” This method is especially common in online poker.
- Time Rake
As the name suggests, this rake is charged at fixed time intervals. It’s often used in higher-stakes cash games.
- Dead Drop
This method collects a fee from the button player before the cards are dealt.
3. How Rake Changes Strategy
So far, we’ve covered different ways rake can be collected. For rake that isn’t directly tied to the pot, such as time rake, you don’t need to factor it into individual in-game decisions. The type that affects strategy is pot rake, where part of the money wagered during the hand is taken. Here, we’ll explain how to adjust your strategy when pot rake is in play.
The key point is that when pot rake exists, part of the pot gets removed, so the expected value you gain from playing each hand becomes smaller. If you play the same way you would in a no-rake game, you can lose a lot over time. When rake is high, you should play fewer hands and tighten up.
Also, in most games, pot rake is only taken when the hand reaches postflop. That means if you end the hand preflop, you often avoid paying rake. As a result, choosing to call preflop tends to be less profitable. In general, players other than the big blind should mostly choose either “raise” or “fold.”
This is the opposite of games that include an “ante,” a forced contribution added to the pot separately from the blinds. For more on antes, see this article.
Conclusion
How was it? In this article, we explained rake, the casino’s share in poker. Because rake can significantly change your expected value, always check the rake structure before you play. Also, when rake is taken, the total change in chips across all players is not zero but negative. That means with average skill, you’ll lose money to rake. To profit long-term, you need to be one of the stronger players at the table. If you want to win at poker, try studying with the poker learning app “POKER Q'z.”
