Rake Racers.com

As has been emphatically stated elsewhere on RakeRacers.com, rake is a pig at your poker table, and you need to put that pig on a diet.  Online poker sites are charging 5% of every pot at your online poker cash tables for little more than providing a server where you can play.  By using bonuses, rakeback, rake races, rake chases and loyalty programs, you can easily reduce this to 2% or less.  Paying 2% instead of 5% is getting 60% off the price to play poker.

But is that's not enough for you, consider this:  rakeback and bonuses, when added to your winnings, can have a significant impact to your win rate.  It can even turn a losing player into a winning player.  let me demonstrate this with some examples.

You play 10,000 hands of $2/4 limit holdem and your winnings from all of your pots is $400.  Your win rate is 1BB/100 hands.  Not fantastic, but you're winning and having fun playing poker.  But let's figure rakeback and bonuses into those winnings.

If the average pot for those 10,000 hands was $16, then the total rake paid to the site was a staggering $8,000.  If you are playing full ring, with an average of 9 players getting cards per hand, then you would be credited with $888 in rake.  If you receive 60% of that back through rakeback, bonuses and promotions, then you can add $533 to your earnings.  This brings you to a total of $933 in earnings for the 10,000 hands which translates to 2.33BB/100.  That's pretty good!

You should be able to visulaize how a losing player can still be earning money at poker.  Say you played those 10,000 hands at $2/4 limit and your net was a loss of $400.  Adding back the $533 in rake reductions now turns you to a net positive of $133, and overall you are earning money playing poker. 

You should still work to improve your game if you are only earning after the rakeback, bonuses and other promotions are added to your net wins or losses.  You increase your earnings substantially, and it is always more fun to win money at the tables than to grind it out at the rakeback mill.  But take heart, losers can be earners and small winners are big winners if they are using bonuses, rakeback and the other promotional tools available to put the rake pig on a diet.