Poker heaven Poker hell

So I have taken awhile to get back to writing this post. Since all of you know my obsession w/ poker and I know it can be a bit boring to hear of, I have been debating going into great detail here. I've opted for the short version.
Poker in France and Switzerland is a new phenomenon. Texas Hold 'Em has only been legal for about 6 months, and poker is not all over the TV here like it is in the states. Combine this with the fact that ALL of the players at my table the other night were casino gamblers and not poker players, and you've got what I can only describe as a situation just like you hear old-time pros (like Doyle Brunson or Bobby Baldwin) describe when they talk about the golden years of Vegas poker in the 1960's.
I didn't realize when I sat down how big the game was (in terms of money) and I bought in for only 400 in a game with blinds of 10-20. After the first half hour or so I almost started to panic because I really felt like I needed about 2000 to play well in this game. Why? Well for one, there was a combined total of about 20,000 dollars in play. Two players in particular were betting thousands of dollars every few hands with hands like KJ or 44... preflop! Not only that, but they would put all their money in after the flop w/ 2 undercards, and no draw. It was truly unbelieveable, and a golden opportunity, but I remained card-dead for the first 4 hours of play. I seriously tightened up my game, folding pocket queens before the flop, limping with kings, etc. I knew that if I could just hit a flop hard it would be paydirt. The problem was in the huge bets preflop; almost every hand was brought in for somewhere between 80 and 500 dollars, so I just kept folding, folding, folding. During that 1st four hours I only won 2 pots. Only 2, out of about 160 hands played! (statitically, I was due about 16.) So I got down to 160 and went all in preflop w/ pocket 2's, got called by a K7 and an A8, and I won the hand. A few rounds later I bought in an additional 500 (for a grand-total of 900) and was blinded down to 240 when my 4th winning hand of the night came up.
I called a 5 way pot w/ pocket 5's for 120 before the flop; a desperate call, but the odds were great, and if I missed the flop, I had one more all-in that could keep me floating. Well, on the flop I hit a set, and before the action got to me, the original bettor bet 300 and 2 others called. I of course called, and in the end, my set held and I was up to around 1200.
To make a longer story not so long, by the end of the night the cards balanced out and I started getting some playable hands. I would up walking away w/ 4000 Swiss Francs, 3100 profit, which translates to about 2600 dollars.
That game was a player's dream, because that kind of play simply doesn't exist in the States anymore. I suspect it won't last long over here, but I am extremely glad I got to get a taste of what it must have been like in the old days playing poker for thousands of dollars against players who simply do not understand how to play.
Aside from the great action, a few other things were different here. For one, the player w/ the dealer button actually cuts the cards. Also, they make you dress up; it's slacks and a tie on the weekends, or it's a no-go. And the biggest difference, and probably the thing that will keep poker from being a big success here until they change it, is the rake.
For those of you who don't know, rake is the term used for the house's cut from a pot. Since the house doesn't make money off the players in poker the same way it does in other games, they take a percentage out of each pot. In Vegas, the standard is 10% of the pot, up to 4$. In big games (30$-60$ and higher)they will charge a time fee, usually 20$ an hour per player. Here, the rake never maxes out... it keeps getting bigger the bigger the pot gets.
We had about 20,000 on the table at one point. by the end, only 9,000 was cashed out. That means that during our 7 hours of play, the house took 11,000 dollars off the table in rake. They had a chart posted with the house take listed by the size of the pot. For the largest pot in our game that night, the rake was 240$. I watched them raking so much money and got a laugh at some of the players I know who bitch about the rake in Vegas having gone from a 3$ max per pot to 4$ max in the last few years. They'd have heart attacks if they played here.
Honestly though, I think the casinos are going to find pretty quickly that they can't sustain their poker games in the long run when they keep taking so much money from the players. In our game, very nearly 50% of the money that was put on the table went to the house, and if we'd played another 8 hours at that rate with no one leaving, ALL the money would have disappeared and we'd all have left losers, whether we ever lost a hand or not. I don't think the casinos realize that their locals will eventually go broke to the rake, but I suppose the casinos will have to experience that for themselves.
OK, I've said enough. I could go on a lot longer, but I'll save it for others who truly find poker interesting. :)

T