Tournament Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
In the licensed Poker rooms of Nevada
In the licensed Poker rooms of Nevada there is a sign hanging at the entrance of each Poker room that reads, in part, "Rake 0 to 10%. Maximum Rake $3 per pot." In short, this means the house dealer may take nothing or the maximum 10% out of a pot. In this 0 to 10% house cut atmosphere it's difficult to know exactly what the house cut actually is. So, in order to find out, I suggest that the player clock the cut moneys collected from the pot by the dealer for one hour, then divide this total by the number of game participants. This final result will give you an approximation of your hourly house charge. If this result equals 25% of your initial chip buy-in, I recommend that you seek another Poker game in town.
In the licensed Poker clubs of California
In the licensed Poker clubs of California the operators charge a fee for playing on an hourly basis which usually averages about $5 per person. This pays the operator's overhead, salaries, taxes, etc., and earns him a profit. Since Poker gets a lot of play it is sometimes quite a lot of profit: one of the California Poker palaces nets more than $3 million a year—which is not peanuts.