Poker companies like Party Poker and Pokerstars take percentage of every hand that is played on their site. Rake percentage is relatively small but if you are calculating person and used to track your play with software, you'll quickly notice how much more you would have earned if there would be no rake.

Professional and semi-professional poker players who play middle limit texas hold'em and earn about $10 000 in a month usually pay $3000 or more to a poker room without even noticing the money being gone.

When I was struggling at lower limits I managed to get a decent rakeback deal. I promised myself not do deposit more than $50 in a month and I kept that promise til I finally became winning player after three months of practice. But what I wanted to say is that I only got enough practice sessions because I got some of my rake back to keep playing. And it wasn't just pennies, you know, that rake was huge! No wonder Partygaming is a multi billion dollar company.

Usually it went on something like this - I deposit $50 to poker room A, then played there some, then got busted in a week or so and then... receive my rakeback, which was usually around $100, dadaa! I only had to deposit $50 once to start rolling and since that I have only used withdraw command when operating with my money.

Most of us don't receive rakeback, most of us don't bother even looking for it. Any why bother - best online poker rooms out there don't share their income with players. And best online poker rooms usually have worse players playing there. You know, it is pretty pointless to receive extra cash from rake if you get beaten by sharks at the same time.

You only have to know the basics - Party Poker takes more rake than the other monster poker sites, PokerStars has very player-friendly system towards tournament players and most of the sites offering rakeback are actually poor environments for poker enthusiasts, mostly because they have no players.

What can we do about the rake? Well, nothing! No rake, no poker room, simple as that. Deal with it. Losing players keep losing even if they don't pay the rake. Well, actually there is something you can do about the rake. Read poker literature, educate yourself and practise a lot. Have a blast!

Ralf Vinogradov is a webmaster of gambling related website GamblingRalf's Best Online Poker Rooms. Website itself can be found here: Best Online Casinos and Online Gambling.