How to Calculate Rakeback

You’re never going to need to calculate your own rakeback because you’ll always have live stats when you sign-up for an absolute poker rakeback account, but in case you’re wondering how we’re going to teach you. Before you can calculate the amount of rake you’re supposed to receive back you’re going to need to learn how to calculate the rake you contribute to the poker room you play with. Since your rakeback is a percentage of the amount of rake you contribute to the poker room it’s important you calculate how much you rake before you try finding out how much rakeback you’d receive.

Some poker rooms calculate the rake in ring table games differently then other poker rooms so you need to make sure you find out how your poker room calculates the rake. One method that the rake is calculated by is through contributed rake which is based on how much money you contribute to the pot for that given hand. The other method for calculating rake is through an equal share based on the amount of players in the game. For instance, if there are 10 players in the game and there is $3 taken from the pot for the rake, each player would earn $.30 rake.

When you’re playing in sit and go tournaments or other forms of tournaments you won’t pay a rake every hand you pay. You’ll pay a fee at the beginning at the tournament when you buy-in to the event. For instance, Poker Stars offers lots of tournaments with a buy-in of $10 + $1. The $10 is the amount of money that will go to the prize pool and the $1 is the rake taken by the poker room for hosting the tournament. Your rake when playing tournaments equates to the fee that you pay at the beginning of the tournament.

Once you get the latest absolute poker download and calculate the amount of rake you contribute to the poker room roughly you’ll be able to figure out how much you should earn roughly. You’ll need to find out the percent that you’re receiving from the poker room as your rakeback in order to figure out how much you’ll earn. Most poker rooms offer 30% right now although you’ll also find both higher and lower offers then this available. One thing to keep in mind when calculating your rakeback is whether or not the poker room you play with takes bonuses off of your rakeback. A lot of poker rooms take your bonuses off of the amount you earn in rakeback so make sure you find this out before you start playing so there are no surprises.

If you don’t feel like making the calculations on your own to find out your rakeback then there are plenty of rakeback calculators available online that you can use for free. Once you sign-up for a rakeback account you’ll be able to see your stats update in real-time in most cases so you won’t even need to use a rakeback calculator. Remember that your calculations or the calculations you come up with off a rakeback calculator might not be exact.

Playing the hand pre-flop

What should your strategy be in a hold ‘em tournament as it pertains to your pre-flop hand? There are a few general guidelines to consider. First, unless you plan on bluffing your way to the top, you need to at least have a strong enough hand to catch something on the flop should you be in a position to limp in. All right, that said, let’s explore some strategy further.

The first thing to consider when forming your PokerStar strategy is where you’re sitting at the table. It makes a huge difference in how you can play certain hands. Your position will either help or hinder your knowledge of other players’ hands and decisions. If you’re at an early position, meaning one of the first to act, your options are limited. At a full table, a bluff or check is suicide, as you’ll most certainly get at least one caller on a bluff, and if you check (unless it’s to set a trap) you establish yourself as a weakling ready to surrender his blind. Later position players can use what they’ve seen in the betting round thus far and react accordingly. They can limp in on a call, raise back with a bluff or strong play, etc… And by then, half the table might already be out of the hand.

A second point of consideration for forming strategy was already briefly touched upon – your hand. Crazy, right? How good your cards are might actually affect how you play your hand! You should already know how you plan to play certain hands in certain situations at Poker Star before entering live play. Then it’s simply a matter of remembering and sticking to what your strategy is for each of those hands, breaking only when you sense a trap or a tight table you can take advantage of.

A tight table? Great transition to the final point of strategy, how your table is playing. You’ll need to sit through at least 15 hands or so before coming to a conclusion here, but if the table is tight, you can open up with some aggressive play. Taking a risk here can net you some early blinds and establish you as a chip leader before the middle rounds where the blinds get up to a certain level. If players are aggressive around you, leave your options open – don’t automatically assume it’s the right call to do the opposite and clam up. While doing so might allow you to avoid the big hands, you’ll also miss out on some very winnable big pots. So stick to your hand strategy here and be open to going along with the aggressive game until you get burned a few times, then you can back away before it’s too late.

World Series of Poker: Exit stage left

Here’s a run though of an incredible knockout punch delivered during the 2008 World Series of Poker tournament. Players at the table include the Russian Akopyan, Hellmuth and others. AK (as I’ll refer to him for short) opens the bet for $16K with a pre-flop hidden hand of 10, 9 off-suit (interesting, no?).

Player Ballande of CarbonPoker peeks at his Ace, Queen off-suit and immediate goes all-in. AK no doubt is wondering at this point if he made such a wise choice to put those initial chips in play on such a sketchy hand.

Hellmuth folds, which is great, we don’t have to hear or even see him much right now. The bet stands at about an additional $66K for AK to call. Bellande currently holds a 63% to 37% statistical advantage on the hand.

A head-shake-inducing quick call from AK follows. You have to wonder why he makes this call. It doesn’t make sense. Even if he feels Ballande is bluffing, which he’s not, the probability that he is beaten by just one higher card is high enough to significantly discourage this type of call on an all-in bet. My guess is AK was smarting from the feeling of being burned and let his emotions get in the way of his common sense. Too late to take it back now. Ballande eagerly flips his cards after the call.

The pot stands at $174,000. Ballande, after seeing what AK called with, makes a comment and then starts shaking in anticipation in his chair. Anyone else would do the same thing, as well as wearing the sizable grin on his face.

The flop is Ace, 2, 8….which puts Ballande at a massive 94% advantage now. Out of the corner of your eye, though, you have to peek at that 8 and wonder if weird things are afoot here. Nevertheless, the flop pulls an expected fist pump and cheer from Ballande.

The turn is a 6. It’s also worth nothing all 4 community cards are of a different suit, so there’s no chance of a flush. The Carbon Poker Pro Ballande was calling for “no jack and no seven” so the six was a welcome sight to him. Still, though, the advantage drops a few percentage points, and the lingering stink of an inside straight rears its ugly head.

The river is…do I even need to say it? Yes, a 7. Ballande rips his hat off and wipes his brow with his sleeve, his plastered grin suddenly replaced with a frustrated, disbelieving frown.

You hate to see that happen. But, as anyone knows, that’s poker.

Increase Your Rakeback Earnings by Multi-Tabling

One thing that almost every full-time ultimate bet poker player has in common is that they have the ability to play multiple tables online at the same time. In order to increase your profits at online poker often the best way of doing so is through adding more tables to your game. Whether you play cash games or tournaments you’ll be able to add more tables to your game which should improve your bottom line.

When you multi-table you don’t need to make nearly as much money on each table then you normally would in order to post profits for the day. For instance, if you generally play 1 table and you win $20/hour at the table then you would only need to win $5/hour at each table with 4 tables to make the same amount of profit. If you manage to make $20/hour on average per table then you’re going to be making $80+/hour which is more then most people earn at their jobs. This profit is before you even begin to add any of the rakeback you receive to your profit.

Of course when you start to multi-table if can become difficult to focus and play all of your hands. The one thing you need to realize when multi-tabling is that you won’t be able to make as many moves. You’ll need to take your time and wait for your monster hands at each table to make money. You shouldn’t become accustomed to making weak and marginal calls when you multi-table because one bad move could cost you your profits for your entire session for the day.

Some players out there currently multi-table over 20+ poker tables at once and although I don’t advise you to do that to start out it is possible in the future. When you start adding more tables to your game you’re going to need to make sure that you have the bankroll to cover the costs. If you’re playing $10 + $1 sit and go tournaments and you want to start playing 4 tables at once then it’s going to costs you $44 instead of $11 every time you want to play. As you can see you’re going to need to have the bankroll to cover your losses so that you don’t run out of money.

The most common mistake that new players to Ultimate Bet Rakeback make is that they go broke because they are on tilt or because they’re trying to make more money then they should be. You’re not going to make thousands of dollars everyday playing poker, but you definitely have the potential of having some great days. In order to become a professional poker player it isn’t about the great days you have, but it’s more so about how you minimize your losses when you’re on a bad run. If you’ve never multi-tabled before then I would recommend that you start out with 2 tables and start moving up as you deem fit based on your comfortability levels. The last thing you want to do is become overwhelmed by playing too many tables at once because it could cost you a big chunk of your bankroll if you aren’t playing you’re A game.