# Should I become a Poker Prop? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 4, 2002, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-become-a-poker-prop/101788 "2002-04-04T15:41:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tr8rJake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/97f17d/32.png) [@Tr8rJake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tr8rJake)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-become-a-poker-prop/101788/1 "2002-04-04T15:41:18Z")
Anyone here ever prop for a cardroom? I’ve been thinking about propping for America’s Cardroom, online. I’m quite a strong player and have done my homework in terms of constant reading, serious study, computer simulation work and about a year of regular live action. The problem is the rake. Serious players know that it is horribly difficult (some say impossible) to beat the rake in low-stakes limit games. I never seemed able to consistently make a profit in the casino unless there were total fish at the table. (I almost always win in a kitchen game with no rake) Even decent players could bleed their cheques away to me slowly enough that I was losing them faster to the house. My only objective in propping would be to use the prop pay to negate the rake, thus playing in cash games for “free”. As a side note, anyone have a formula for how the rake affects your bottom line? I have lots of hours logged in a 3-6-12 Hold 'Em game with a 10%/$5max rake. The rake at America’s is only 5%. How is that going to affect my bottom line? For that matter anyone have a good book on advanced mathmatics of poker? Brian Alspach has an absolutely awesome column in Poker Digest but, he seems to be their only columnist who doesn’t plug a book at the end of his article. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-become-a-poker-prop/101788/2 "2002-04-04T18:56:02Z")
My cat has a fluffy tail. ---
**Author:** ![Krispy\_Original](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ec9cab/32.png) [@Krispy\_Original](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Krispy_Original)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-become-a-poker-prop/101788/3 "2002-04-04T19:37:14Z")
Seems to me that the way to go is to become a tournament only player. If you are as good as you say, then you shouldn’t hve any problem finishing in the money consistently. This seems to me to be the better way to go if considering playing for a living. You can avoid the rake of the ring games. Oh yeah…one other thing…I’m playing in a play money no-limit holdem tourney online at 3pm CST today…come join me and compete against me. I’m known as Player3. [pokerpages.com](http://pokerpages.com) ---
**Author:** ![Tr8rJake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/97f17d/32.png) [@Tr8rJake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tr8rJake)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-become-a-poker-prop/101788/4 "2002-04-04T21:47:01Z")
I’m not good enough to play professionally, yet. I was just hoping to be able to negate the rake by taking the prop position and was wondering if anyone had an informed opinion on it. I can’t really travel and the only regular tourney around here is a rebuy event in which there are guys who rebuy half a dozen times. I can’t keep pace with that. DAMMIT! Missed the tourney, had RL stuff to do. Thanks for the invite Krispy. Where do you play? Email me if you want. [deucelebrun@communicomm.com](mailto:deucelebrun@communicomm.com) ---
**Author:** ![Tr8rJake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/97f17d/32.png) [@Tr8rJake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tr8rJake)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-become-a-poker-prop/101788/5 "2002-04-04T21:50:15Z")
Just looked at the site better. Looks cool, thanks for the link. Hope to hear from you soon, Krispy. Oh and, Bryan: :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2002, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-become-a-poker-prop/101788/6 "2002-04-05T02:58:32Z")
Couldn’t help it. Your OP was so heavy on the jargon that I imagine very few people could understand it on the first reading (hence the large number of views but only one serious reply). I had to reread it four or five times myself before I got a hint of the gist. It may as well be written in Sanskrit. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2002, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-become-a-poker-prop/101788/7 "2002-04-05T18:27:07Z")
I gotta agree with **Bryan Ekers** ’ first post. So what’s a prop? Is it short for a longer word? ---
**Author:** ![scm1001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2002, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-become-a-poker-prop/101788/8 "2002-04-06T19:02:47Z")
not 100% sure what a prop does, but I imagine he keeps the table live at all times see [http://www.pokerprop.com/](http://www.pokerprop.com/) and see if you can make sense of it ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2002, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-become-a-poker-prop/101788/9 "2002-04-06T19:33:01Z")
I didn’t know what a prop is either, but I looked it up and found [this page](http://www.kimberg.com/poker/dictionary.html#prop): > [@](#): > > Proposition Player > A proposition player, or “prop,” is a player who is paid by a cardroom to play poker, usually in order to keep games going when they get shorthanded, or to get games started. Props are paid a salary, but they gamble with their own money. Props either learn how to play pretty solid poker or they run out of money. See also shill.