Mike Caro

I have posted before and was pleased with some of the feedback I received. I am hoping that I get the same on this post.

I know I posted something regarding this in an earlier post but can not seem to find it so I am going to kind of start fresh and get some feed back on a frustration I am having and I really do need some thoughtful feed back and suggestions.

I play 3/6 limit holdem with a full kill and will take some 4/8 shots on good days. In the two primary casinos I play they have raised the rake cap to 6 dollars.

1 PPF (Players Promotional Fund) right away before anything

1 house at 5 dollar pot

1 house at 10 dollar pot

1 house at 20 dollar pot

1 PPF and 1 house at 30 dollar pot

TOTAL is 6 dollar rake

Add 1 dollar toke to this and it is a 7 dollar or one full big bet plus taken from your pots

I am an in my opinion an average or better low limit player. I have studied and read thousands of pages on “low” limit holdem. In the games I am playing they are averaging dealing just around 32 hands per hour or 4 button rotations per hour I have and do time it regularly. So it is costing an average of 12 dollars or 2 big bets and hour in blinds alone to sit at the table sometimes a bit more.
Now, I Know that in a raked game I need to make serious adjustments to the game and make sure I am coming in with a hand or getting great loose weak action to get involved. I then add the fact that this is a 3/6 game and that most of my adversaries are passive loose sticky “CARD” players not “POKER” players and I really know I need a pretty solid base of starting hands combined with the use of position as a shield and a weapon.
I am usually seeing the flop 6 handed, seeing the turn with 5 and the river with three and believe it 4 callers. The games are overall loose and very passive with almost no post flop strategic/defensive actions. It is very common to see a flop 7 handed with no raise. On the flop the first 5 spots check, spot 6 will bet and ALL checkers will call. No one had a hand strong enough to bet but every one likes to board well enough to call. I see the turn card do the same thing action wise on hand after hand you might loose one maybe two but 4 to the river is the norm.
I know that this means I have to really know where I am at in a hand and I have to have a good understanding of what multiple drawing hands are out against or with me, and how I stack up against so many combined outs in the other hands. I am probably one of the most aggressive players in the rooms I play and at the level I play. I will bet raise, and check raise far more often than I will flat call, especially with solid double draw hands and even second best but improvable hands to make sure I can get value or improve my odds of survival.

This is where my question comes into play. I am playing against multiple opponents (Schooling fish effect) AND the house. I can not seem to get any real traction for my game. Building a real bankroll seems impossible because of the fluctuations I face on a week to week basis. Now you have written on more than one occasion that it is not really important to protect a small or maybe a false bankroll if it can be replenished in a safe and regular fashion.

I am wondering if I fall into this category. I have a small bankroll that seems to float at around 600 to 900 dollars on average right now and does not seem to grow but can get damaged very easily in a bad day or two at this limit and take weeks to repair. I feel like I am spinning my wheels.

Should I move up to 4/8 as a base and then on good days take some small shots at 8/16 to at least try and make up a little for the cost of the rake, or is it so extreme that I need to focus on tournaments, save up and shoot straight for 8/16 at a minimum, if I am going to continue to commit the hours both at and away from the table in this pursuit.

At the 4/8 level I should not have to make any real adjustments to my overall approach to the game. Even though some of the players are a bit more aggressive/creative in their betting they are still coming in with marginal starts, get fairly out of line with there hands and over commit on a regular basis.

Help please I love to play and I want to play, but I need to see some benefit in playing and some growth or it is just paying the house to chase chips around and have lunch like a lot of my opponents do

Hi, Moneedude –

It's a great post, which many have read, but maybe it's a bit too complex for some casual visitors to digest.

Please keep in mind that the forum, so far, is only open experimentally and doesn't enjoy heavy traffic. Poker1.com, itself, is only open for testing. However, early visitors are appreciated, as long as they understand much of the functionality is still pending and that there may be many other glitches.

Okay, now…

A $6 rake (with or without a $1 tip) is way too high for a $30 pot. Unless "called" pots average $100, or close to it, it's unlikely that such games can be beat by most skillful players. It's possible that they can be, but that rake certainly makes earning a consistent income difficult.

It might even border on impossible.

When I say "called" pot, I mean that a bet is made and called before that portion of the wagering is subject to rake. That's almost always the case. It means that in your $4/$8 game with a full kill (mandatory double by the last winner), there will always be over $30 before the flop. That's the larger of the two limits you usually play, but the same is essentially true of the $3/$6 game.

The good news is that it sounds like the game you're describing has so many weak players competing for a typical pot that the average pot size is much greater than $100. So, in that case, you have a reasonable chance at winning, even though the rake is still too high. At 32 hands an hour (your estimate), with nine players per pot on average, the tax is around $26 average per hour, per player.

Some of this is theoretically returned by jackpots.

Regardless, that's way too high and it means that during a 10-hour session, over $2,000 will disappear from the players. That's a lot for nine players to absorb. So, I assume the turnover in the game is quite high and players leave frequently, often broke.

Should you move up with your limited bankroll? That was your question, and it's a good one. I'm not sure. Only you can decide.

Be prepared to go broke, even at the stakes you're playing now. But, if you can handle that possibility, then the rake will take up a smaller percent of your wagers as the stakes rise. That theoretically makes larger games more beatable, but those games also might have stronger competition, negating the benefit.

It's up to you. I would need to actually see the games to even attempt to advise you. And, even then, the decision is really your own.

Sorry I can't be more helpful this time.

Straight Flushes,
Mike Caro