Rake caps at micro stakes: turning 5.55% and $2 into bb/100

A schedule change, read correctly

When the WSOP network adjusted its cash-game rake, the percentage stayed at 5.55% while the cap rose for most no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha stakes — caps that had been $1 went to $2 — and the caps at the highest stakes such as $50/$100 and $100/$200 were reduced, with the changes applying primarily to tables with three or more players, as pokerfuse reported.

That is one announcement containing two opposite moves, and neither is visible in a comparison of percentages. A player at $0.50/$1 whose pots routinely passed $18 had been paying a flat $1; the same player now pays 5.55% up to $2, which is a real increase on every medium and large pot. A player at $100/$200 got a discount.

The conversion, step by step

The quantity you want is: rake taken from the pots you are in, per 100 hands, expressed in big blinds.

1. Pick the stake. Say $0.10/$0.25, so one big blind is $0.25.
2. Estimate the share of hands that get raked. A pot is only raked when there is a flop (no-flop-no-drop is near-universal). Assume 55 raked hands in 100 — use your own tracker figure if you have one.
3. Estimate the average raked pot. Assume $4.50 at this stake.
4. Apply the schedule. 5.55% of $4.50 is $0.25, well under a $2 cap, so the cap never binds at step 4.
5. Total per 100 hands at the table. 55 × $0.25 = $13.75, which is 55 big blinds per 100 hands taken from the table as a whole.
6. Divide by the players sharing it. At six-handed, if rake burden tracked seats equally, that is about 9 bb/100 each.

Step 6 is the one to argue with, and the argument is informative: rake is taken from pots, so it is paid disproportionately by the players who contest and win pots. A nit who folds 80% of hands pays less than the model says; a loose-aggressive player pays more. The model gives the table’s bill, and your share depends on your style.

Why the cap is the decisive number at small stakes

Compare two tables under a 5.55% / $2 schedule:

• $0.10/$0.25. A $40 pot is 160 big blinds. 5.55% is $2.22, so the cap bites and the room takes $2 — eight big blinds from one pot.
• $2/$5. A $40 pot is eight big blinds. 5.55% is the same $2.22, capped at $2 — but now it is 0.4 big blinds.

The identical schedule, the identical pot, and a twentyfold difference in cost measured the way a player’s results are measured. This is the mechanical reason that moving up stakes reduces rake pressure faster than it increases variance, and the reason a cap increase announced as "small" is a large change at the bottom of the ladder.

Three details that change the bill

• Player count at the table. Where a schedule applies different caps by number of players, short-handed and heads-up tables are often cheaper per hand; the WSOP change above applied mainly to tables with three or more players.
• Tournament fees are a different structure. A tournament charges a fee on the buy-in, not a cut of pots, which makes it comparable only on a per-entry basis. The related question of who funds an unmet guarantee is overlay.
• Rewards return part of it. A loyalty scheme that returns a percentage of rake paid reduces the effective figure, and the honest comparison is rake net of returns, not the schedule alone.

Where to find your room’s schedule

Published rake pages sit on the operator’s own site, and they change without announcement more often than players assume; the number in a review written last year is a historical note. Our room list covers which brands operate in which state, and the current bonuses page covers what is on offer.

Why two players at the same table can be on different rake schedules entirely — they entered through different state sites on the same network — is the subject of shared liquidity.