When Small Rake Becomes No Rake

There are those things in poker, as in life, that one knows in a factual way but doesn't really understand until one sees it in practice. As an example, I'll drop in a screen grab from a $500/$1000 limit Omaha game on Full Tilt, a few days past. The table featured three well-known pros --- Mike Matusow, Jeff Lisandro, and Jeff Madsen, who is screen-captured as the "CHECK" player shown below.



Matusow had stepped away to page Full Tilt staff on his secret subspace channel on a matter concerning Lisandro, but that's not important here. In this hand, Lisandro was the small blind, for $250, Madsen the big blind at $500; Lisandro completed pre-flop and Madsen checked behind. Then, Lisandro bet tthe flop for $500 and Madsen called again. The pot shows $1,999.50.

Oh, yeah, there's that 50-cent max rake at Full Tilt. LOL.

The lesson here is simple --- the higher the stakes, the less important the effects of the rake. Most players, including me, are used to rakes in the 2-10% category. In this hand, just with the minimal action shown, the rake was $0.50/$2,000, or 0.025%. In a hand where minimal action might include single bets on the turn and river, the resultant $4,999.50 pot means the rake for a hand such as that would be 0.01%.

Ummm, that's rake-free poker. And all I can add is, don't you just wish...?