Raked Hands

Forgive me if I've posted this in the wrong section.

I've recently joined Party Poker and have the $25 bonus pending if I have 125 raked hands. I've done some reading on it and still a bit confused, what exactly are raked hands? Is there a way to find out how many raked hands I have so far?

Go to the lobby, on the bar at the top select "My Account", which brings up a web page. Then select the bit that mentions bonuses and it'll tell you how far off you are to collect your bonus.

A raked hand is a portion of the pot that is taken by the house after the pot reaches a certain size (its usually only a small percentage, you can find the raked hands breakdown somewhere on the site). This is how the poker sites make their money.

Good luck Stealthy!

The "Rake" is the percentage that the casino collects from every pot. For example, if the casinos' rake is %10 and you win a pot that ends up being $10, you actually only win $9 and the casino gets the other $1.

I don't play on party poker, but on other sites you can usually see where you stand on clearing the bonus money in the cashier area of the site.

Thanks for your help. I take it then that it's just from cash games then? At the moment I'm just playing $6 sit and go's.

Yeah, but when you enter those, the entry price is $5, plus $1 to the house. I'm not sure if they'll clear your bonus.

Rake is officially for cash tables. SNGs/MTTs have an entry fee.

To be a raked hand, you personally have to have contributed 1cent in rake and the total rake must be above $1.

This however can be slightly misleading, because all players who are dealt cards are said to have to equally contributed to the rake, regardless of how far they take the hand.

examples
1) 6 people are dealt cards, 3 people enter the hand, pot size is $1. Is NOT a raked hand. Rake is 5c (5% of $1), but officially your "contribution" is 5c divided by 6 (not 3), ie 0.83 cents. Therefore not a raked hand.

2) 10 people are dealt cards, you fold without paying a dime, end pot is $5. This is a raked hand. 5%of $5 is 25cents. 25cents divided by 10 is 2.5 cents, your rake contribution.

This is a very commonly misunderstood concept, so I hope the above helps.

Welly

ps most sites allow bonuses to to cleared through SNG/MTT entry fees as well.