Different poker sites have different methods for calculating your personal rake contribution and thus different methods of calculating rakeback.

The 2 main broad methods are Dealt Rake and Contributed Rake. 

Dealt Rake is where you only need to have been dealt cards to be seen as contributing to the rake.  For example: if 6 players are dealt cards at the table and that hand ends up raking 60 cents then each player’s rake contribution is 10 cents, regardless of who the main players involved in the hand were.

Contributed Rake is usually done via 1 or 3 methods.  First method is where you need to actually be in the hand at showdown.  Second Method is where you need to actually be in the hand at the rake contributing point.  Third method is where you need to have contributed chips to the pot.

Let’s look at the 3 Contributed Rake variations in more detail.  If a player needs to be in the hand at showdown it means that many hands that charge a rake will not have that rake allocated to a player, as not all hands reach a showdown.  So in situations where an opponent folds (after the rake-charged point of the hand) and there is therefore no showdown then no rake contribution is allocated and therefore no rakeback is earned.   This being despite the fact that rake was indeed charged.

Slightly fairier is the second of the Contributed Rake variations in which your exact rake contribution is calculated even without showdown.  In this method, as a general rule of thumb, players who are not involved post-flop are not a rake contibutor.   So people paying blinds or antes but then folding pre-flop (for example) are not calcualted as having contributed any rake, but the players still involved in the hand after the rake contributing point are.

And finally the most straight-forward of the Contributed Rake variations (and the most common) is the direct pot percentage variation.  To give a simplified example: if a pot is won by PlayerA of $100 and that money came from $25 PlayerA, $25 PlayerB, $25 PlayerC, and $25 PlayerD, then a rake of $3 would be allocated as 75 cents per player (a quarter each).  So that 75 cents was your rake contribution and you will get your percentage rakeback based on that.

The Dealt Rake method is by far away the best for the majority of people getting rakeback, as the best players playing 6-max upwards tend to play a lower percentage of hands than the bad players.  If you are a heads-up player it doesnt really matter because you tend to contribute 50% of the rake each no matter which method it is.

Quite a lot of rakeback orientated players have got a litte annoyed with Full Tilt Poker, as they have recently switched from Dealt Rake to Contributed.  This has left many of them with big drops in their rakeback.

Some alternative sites which use the much better Dealt Rake method are Doyles Room Rakeback and Cake Poker Rakeback

James Bord bested a field of 346 players to take down this year’s WSOPE Main Event. He joins an illustrious list of Annette Obrestad, John Juanda, and Jeff Shulman to take down the highly attractive deep stacked event. Bord has previously only cropped up with some smaller cashes in the last few years of the WSOP, but now he definitely has the bankroll to continue to make more of a mark on the poker world. He is the final result:

1 James Bord £830,401
2 Fabrizio Baldassari £513,049
3 Ronald Lee £376,829
4 Roland “Last Big Name” De Wolfe £278,945
5 Nicolas Levi £208,119
6 Daniel Steinberg £156,530
7 Dan Fleyshman £118,643
8 Brian Powell £90,617
9 Marc Inizan £69,754
10 David Peters £54,114
11 Andrew Pantling £54,114
12 Arnaud Mattern £54,114
13 Barny “Hendon Mob” Boatman £42,454
14 Clint Coffee £42,454
15 Hoyt “Doyles Room” Corkins £42,454
16 Viktor “I wont confirm I’m Isildur1″ Blom £33,285
17 Bojan Gledovic £33,285
18 Anthony Newman £33,285
19 Phil “Probably the Best Player since Sliced Bread” Ivey £26,400
20 Thomas Bichon £26,400
21 Jani Sointula £26,400
22 Greg “FBT” Mueller £26,400
23 Barry “The Bear” Greenstein £26,400
24 Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko £26,400
25 Hoi Cheung £26,400
26 Alex Keating £26,400
27 John Eames £26,400
28 Michael Benvenuti £21,106
29 Bryn “I go deep in everything this week” Kenney £21,106
30 Freddy Deeb £21,106
31 James Mitchell £21,106
32 Jean Paul Seatelli £21,106
33 Matthew Waxman £21,106
34 Magnus Persson £21,106
35 Darren Woods £21,106
36 Mark Thurgood £21,106

tbvle recently won over $50,000 as the prize for being dealt the winning hand in the 50 Billionth hand on Pokerstars. He was playing at a 2c/5c table at the time, a level which was his normal stakes. He had never previously played any higher than 0.1/0.25.

As well as this prize money he also got a free ticket into the WCOOP $5200 Buy-in Main Event. Prior to that tournament he had only played 19 tournaments at Stars with an Average Buy-in of close to just $5. Quite a step up.

But that didnt phase him in the 2-day deep structured event and he went on to place 83rd out of 2443 in the $5200 event, winning $19,544. He largely did it by waiting for aces and kings and then launching. The cards seemed to keep arriving at appropriate moments and his stack would again recover from getting short. Sadly that luck did eventually run out, but not before 19.5K was secured. Here was his final hand:

 If you fancy trying your luck out at Pokerstars then signup and get a $600 bonus

PokerStars Game #50274474620: Tournament #2010090062, $5000+$200 USD Hold’em No Limit - Level XXVIII (6000/12000) - 2010/09/27 20:05:17 ET
Table ‘2010090062 34′ 9-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 1: MVPAT (313975 in chips)
Seat 2: FIREintheSUN (493464 in chips)
Seat 3: JabaTheFlop (531835 in chips)
Seat 4: MarkusG91 (1414841 in chips)
Seat 5: deoxyribo (593012 in chips)
Seat 6: Antoshka (407711 in chips)
Seat 7: pedmend (260705 in chips)
Seat 8: plumber922 (409055 in chips)
Seat 9: tbvle (126400 in chips)
MVPAT: posts the ante 1500
FIREintheSUN: posts the ante 1500
JabaTheFlop: posts the ante 1500
MarkusG91: posts the ante 1500
deoxyribo: posts the ante 1500
Antoshka: posts the ante 1500
pedmend: posts the ante 1500
plumber922: posts the ante 1500
tbvle: posts the ante 1500
MVPAT: posts small blind 6000
FIREintheSUN: posts big blind 12000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
JabaTheFlop: folds
MarkusG91: raises 18444 to 30444
deoxyribo: folds
Antoshka: folds
pedmend: calls 30444
plumber922: calls 30444
tbvle: raises 94456 to 124900 and is all-in
MVPAT: folds
FIREintheSUN: folds
MarkusG91: raises 379100 to 504000
pedmend: folds
plumber922: folds
Uncalled bet (379100) returned to MarkusG91
*** FLOP *** [6h As Qs]
*** TURN *** [6h As Qs] [2s]
*** RIVER *** [6h As Qs 2s] [5h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
MarkusG91: shows [Ad Qc] (two pair, Aces and Queens)
tbvle: shows [Kc Kd] (a pair of Kings)
MarkusG91 collected 342188 from pot
tbvle finished the tournament in 83rd place and received $19544.00.
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 342188 | Rake 0
Board [6h As Qs 2s 5h]
Seat 1: MVPAT (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: FIREintheSUN (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: JabaTheFlop folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 4: MarkusG91 showed [Ad Qc] and won (342188) with two pair, Aces and Queens
Seat 5: deoxyribo folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 6: Antoshka folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 7: pedmend folded before Flop
Seat 8: plumber922 folded before Flop
Seat 9: tbvle (button) showed [Kc Kd] and lost with a pair of Kings

Gus Hansen has just won his first WSOP bracelet, in the $10K Heads-up Highroller event at the WSOP Europe in London. Hansen triumphed in an epic 3-part heads-up batttle to secure the long awaited wrist bling.

1 Gus Hansen £288,409
2 Jim Collopy £178,211
3 Ram Vaswani £96,212
4 Andrew Feldman £96,212
5 Daniel Negreanu £47,045
6 Kevin Eyster £47,045
7 Huck Seed £47,045
8 Neil Channing £47,045
9 Howard Lederer £22,847
10 Martin Kabrhel £22,847
11 McLean Karr £22,847
12 Saar Wilf £22,847
13 Andrew Robl £22,847
14 Phil Ivey £22,847
15 Marius Skoglund Torbergsen £22,847
16 Sondre Svanevik £22,847

Day 3 of the WSOPE has concluded and Viktor Blom is stil leading it out. Phil Ivey and many other big names are in hot pursuit.

Chip leaders

1 Viktor Blom 443,200
2 Bojan Gledovic 442,300
3 Darren Woods 372,500
4 Andrew Pantling 344,000
5 David Peters 309,300
6 Phil Ivey 289,300
7 Arnaud Mattern 280,900
8 Nicolas Levi 272,300
9 Dan Fleyshman 269,000
10 Brian Powell 266,100
11 Daniel Steinberg 265,700
12 Thomas Bichon 257,700
13 Yevgeniy Timoshenko 222,900
14 Dan Shak 214,800
15 David Baker 207,000
16 Magnus Persson 197,200
17 James Bord 195,000
18 Nick Schulman 190,000
19 Rob Akery 176,900
20 Barry Greenstein 175,300

Notables Others

Roland de Wolfe 166K
Huck Seed 147K
Daniel Negreanu 142K
Eli Elezra 117K
Barny Boatman 110K
Freddy Deeb 107K

There were 346 entrants in total, of which 69 players remain. 36 players get paid. The top prizes are:

1st £830,401 ($1.3 million)
2nd £513,049
3rd £376,829
4th £278,945
5th £208,119
6th £156,530
7th £118,643
8th £90,617
9th £69,754

This interesting hand cropped up a couple of days ago on Full Tilt

durrrr on button $200 (SB)
harrington $400 (BB)
durrrr raises to 1K, harrington calls.
harrington checks flop of 9s Td Qs,  durrrr checks behind.
harrington bet 2140 on the turn card of 3d, durrrr flat calls.
harrington bets 4400 (into 6280) on the river card of 9h, durrrr flats.

In summary: 9 T Q 3 9 Board
durrrr flatted river bet with Q9xx
harrington25 shows TT2K to win

harrington25 seems a little annoyed that durrrr just called with the boat.  The boat however was the 3rd nuts and this was Omaha we should state.  I assume the line of check, bet, bet 70% of pot, looks like he connected and is value betting.  Anyway here is the chat that followed the hand:

harrington25: nice just call on riv
harrington25: i would have raised if i were u
durrrr: to bluff?
durrrr: didnt think ud fold
harrington25: value
durrrr: rly?
durrrr: << sarcasm
durrrr: obv
harrington25: idk man something is werid
harrington25: wierd
harrington25: idk how in the world u just call that river
durrrr: lol
durrrr: i hav a video setup to see ur cards obv
durrrr: most likely explanation
harrington25: obv not but im gonna show that hand to few ppl
harrington25: urin david etc
harrington25: see wht they say
durrrr: lol ok
harrington25: i mean ur very good but not that good to just call that river
durrrr: i guess not
durrrr: damn
durrrr: =(
harrington25: seriously
harrington25: can u explain ur reasoning for the acll
harrington25: the way the hand played out
durrrr: i jus click buttons buddy
durrrr: i thought thts y u play me

At the conclusion of Day 1B of the 2010 WSOPE Main Event many big names have emerged with very good stacks. Former winner Barry Shulamn has 94K. Massive WPT winner Carlos Mortensen has 99K. Event 1 winner Phil Laak has 80K, and his other half Jennifer Tilly has 91K, and his good friend The Magician has 130K. The player with the highest lifetime winnings of all time, Phil Ivey, has 94K. Viktor Blom has slipped a little but is still well placed with 90K. High Stakes Poker regular Eli Elezra has 100K.

1 James Mitchell 178,850
2 John Dolan 173,700
3 Antonio Esfandiari 130,000
4 Brian Powell 111,000
5 Yann Dion 110,000
6 Eli Elezra 100,000
7 Carlos Mortensen 99,000
8 Phil Ivey 94,350
9 Barry Shulman 94,000
10 David Peters 92,000
11 Jennifer Tilly 91,000
12 Viktor Blom 90,000
13 John Racener 90,000
14 Sam Trickett 84,000
15 Dan Shak 83,000
16 Dag Palovic 81,000
17 Phil Laak 80,000
18 Andrew Pantling 80,000
19 Marc Inizan 80,000
20 Steven van Zadelhoff 78,000

Swedish pro Viktor Blom (highly suspected to be the infamous Isidur1) is leading the WSOPE Main Event in London. Here are the latest chip counts:

1 Viktor Blom 132,000
2 Antonio Esfandiari 130,000
3 Yann Dion 110,000
4 Phil Laak 103,000
5 Sam Trickett 97,000
6 JP Kelly 96,000
7 Carlos Mortensen 93,000
8 Brian Powell 90,000
9 John Dolan 85,000
10 Ludovic Lacay 80,000

Grolongo on Stars is widely suspected to be one and the same as Isildur1 on Full Tilt. He has a very similar style and will take on all-comers all at the same time on lots of different tables. His location is also listed as Gothenburg, Sweden.

He made an appearance in the $25,500 WCOOP Heads-up Event yesterday. Yes that is $25,500 Buy-in not prizepool. He didn’t fair so well though with his trip nines running into a turned boat:

PokerStars Game #49862385079: Tournament #2010090039, $25000+$500 USD Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level I (25/50) - 2010/09/19 15:22:03 ET
Table ‘2010090039 9′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: grolongo (2350 in chips)
Seat 2: philivey2694 (17650 in chips)
grolongo: posts small blind 25
philivey2694: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
grolongo: raises 50 to 100
philivey2694: calls 50
*** FLOP *** [9d Ah 9s]
philivey2694: checks
grolongo: bets 100
philivey2694: calls 100
*** TURN *** [9d Ah 9s] [3c]
philivey2694: checks
grolongo: bets 250
philivey2694: calls 250
*** RIVER *** [9d Ah 9s 3c] [Jh]
philivey2694: checks
grolongo: bets 750
philivey2694: raises 16450 to 17200 and is all-in
grolongo: calls 1150 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (15300) returned to philivey2694
*** SHOW DOWN ***
philivey2694: shows [3s 3d] (a full house, Threes full of Nines)
grolongo: shows [9c 6c] (three of a kind, Nines)
philivey2694 collected 4700 from pot
grolongo finished the tournament in 27th place
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 4700 | Rake 0
Board [9d Ah 9s 3c Jh]
Seat 1: grolongo (button) (small blind) showed [9c 6c] and lost with three of a kind, Nines
Seat 2: philivey2694 (big blind) showed [3s 3d] and won (4700) with a full house, Threes full of Nines

For those interested, philivey2694 is Issac Haxton a big winner in tournaments around the globe.

Event 1
Tuesday Sep 14th 12:00 PM BST 3-Day Event   
Six Handed No Limit Hold’em
£2,650 Buy-in

Event 2
Thursday Sep 16th 5:00 PM BST 3-Day Event
Pot Limit Omaha
£5,250 Buy-in 

Event 3
Friday Sep 17th 12:00 PM BST 5-Day Event
No Limit Hold’em
£1,075 Buy-in

Event 4
Tueday Sep 21st 5:00 PM BST 3-Day Event
No Limit Holdem High Roller Heads-Up
£10,350 Buy-in

Event 5  
Thursday Sep 23rd 12:00 PM BST 6-Day Event
WSOPE Main Event - No Limit Holdem
£10,350 Buy-in

All events times are local time in London. The buy-ins are in pounds sterling. The venue is The Empire Casino at Leicester Square, London. Closest tube Leicester Square. Loads of hotels within walking distance.