Rake
Rake is the fee the room takes from pots or per hour. It quietly eats a large share of small-stakes win rates and must be tracked for a true hourly.
In short: The house's cut of each pot.
- Category
- Metric
- Best use
- Session review and bankroll decisions
- Related page
- What to track in a session
Why Rake matters
Rake is the fee the room takes from pots or per hour. It quietly eats a large share of small-stakes win rates and must be tracked for a true hourly. Metrics matter because stake decisions need a unit that survives a change of game size. Cash profit tells you what happened. A rate tells you whether the session belongs in the long-term picture, and whether a bigger game, a different room, or a different schedule is actually paying you.
Worked example
A capped rake can turn an 8 BB/hr gross rate into roughly 3 BB/hr net at small stakes. The useful part is not the label itself; it is the decision it changes. If the example changes your stake, stop-loss, review queue or next study block, write it cleanly in the log.
How to apply it
Write the raw session first, then convert it into the rate. For live cash, that usually means hours, net result and big blind size. For online or tournament work, use the hand count or total buy-ins when the format gives you a cleaner denominator. For Rake, the practical question is whether the label changes a bankroll, session or study decision. If it does not change a decision, it belongs in a note, not in the headline read.
In Overshove, log the raw result, stake, hours and any cost fields before you judge the rate. The dashboard can then show the number by stake, venue, day and sample size, so you are reading a filtered metric rather than a headline graph. Use the same spelling every time, then link it back to what to track in a session so the page, calculator or guide beside the term does useful work.
Common mistakes
- +Reading a rate without checking the sample behind it.
- +Comparing raw money across different stakes.
- +Ignoring rake, tips, travel or buy-in volume when the metric depends on them.
Questions players actually ask
How should I use Rake in a session log?
Use Rake as a decision label, not decoration. Log the raw session first, then attach the term only where it explains a stake, bankroll, variance or study choice you can review later.
What is the common mistake with Rake?
The common mistake is reading the term without the sample and context behind it. In live cash, a clean label still needs stake, hours, stack depth, cost and result data before it tells you anything reliable.