Doesnt make completely sense to me, sorry.
Its true i get less vpp since the switch to contributed model. But this is due to stacksize(shortstaking) imo, what didnt make any diff b4 at standard model.
The models just switched the way of counting of the rakecontribution, not the number of vpps paid for a special amount of rake paid. So in my small head there cant be a diff in the paid vpps in total, just prolly that the nitty SNEs get less vpps and due to them having the bigger accumulator into fpps stars has to pay less rb? So far so good but why do the rec/fishes in your statistic come to so much higher rb in contributed than b4 in standard? Just cause you give them a higher vpip in general/bigger stacks?

Sounds like it shouldn't be that hard for you to make SNE. How many hands are you averaging per month?

I believe SN+ is meant to refer to the people who earn anywhere from 100k - 999,999 VPPs during a calendar year, not SN = Supernova and SN+ = SNE. I agree getting SNE at PLO is a sick task due to how much harder it is to multitable than NLH and you don't always have 18+ tables to play for the players who are actually able to profitably play that many.


The number of VPPs paid out is directly proportional to how much rake that person has paid. For every $1 in rake that you have contributed you will get 5.5 VPPs at a shorthanded table and 6VPPs at a FullRing table which is why it take less overall rake to achieve SNE and all the other VIP levels at FR tables than 6max.

So when $6 is taken off the table with the old model it is assigned as $1 in rake paid each. With the contributed model, you can see that I assigned $1.40 on rake being attributed to the 1 - 2 tabling recreational fish, and $.75 in rake to the SNE grinder who as you mentioned earlier is playing a much more systematic robotic style.

VPPs are just PokerStars' way of trying to remove the $ value assigned to how much they have raked, I think for their business model it looks a lot better saying you get Supernova Elite at 1,000,000 VPPs rather than saying that you have to rake over $181,818 during a calendar year to achieve SNE.

the main problem seems to be the close-running equities in PLO, which result in smaller edges. No one complains about MTTs getting raked ~ 10 percent, because the edge of the professional grinder compared to the average player is rather high.

Let alone for the fact of the small attainable edges, we need a rake reduction for the future sake of the PLO player pool.

And whoever goes to the Isle of Man should point out that PLO is more and more becoming Pokerstars' cashcow and stress that it won´t be very anticipatory to slaughter this cashcow for short-term profit!

Everybody knows that poker is SO MUCH harder to beat nowadays than a few years ago, so the margins are obv much smaller. Why is it that the players are the ones absorbing 100% of this downward trend? We take a huge "pay cut" because the industry matured skill-wise, yet we're still being charged the same rake!

Why wouldn't the poker sites realize that in order to not cripple the industry, they have to lower the rake, in general, across the board or else everyone will go broke? Including them.

A more competitive player pool these days makes variance increase and profits decrease for a reg...so without stars reducing the rake, many players are going to be forced to quit poker altogether and find a real job. I'm sure this has happened a ton already.

Bottom line...if regs can't make money, there won't be regs and therefore won't be volume. Everybody loses!!!! Including Stars!!!

Stars' whole business is poker...if regulars can't beat the game (regardless of the reason) they'll be forced to quit poker.

So the big question is "What's better for Stars"?

Option 1) Charge a lower rake which will allow higher volume traffic (and allow regs to sustain a living)?

Option 2) Keep rake the same on a diminishing player pool (the regs are forced to quit poker because they can't make money anymore)?

In my mind, they both suck for Stars, but at least option 1 keeps their business a little more sustainable because you can't make money without a player pool!!!!

Oops, sorry, I read SNE instead of SN+, so you are right ofc

When I play online the whole month I am able to get 100k vpps (70-80k hands), but I cant do that the whole year. Besides playing also other sides due to gameselection (lots of times the plo-games at ps are really useless), I also play lot of live for a change in between (wsop etc) and obv need some off-poker-time aswell, I guess 10months/year onlinegrind solely at PS would be 2 much 4 me, SNE is not worth it imo...
Not to forget the breaks it always takes when i smashed my notebook due to one of those lovely unreal downswings

Its obv that the new ****ributed model gives less vpps for same play if you play low vpip or/and are a shortstacker. So it makes a lot of sense to me that PS save hills of rakeback due to thats the style of most of the massgrinders, who get much more value on their vpps than the recreational players, which are mostly bronze-platinum-vips.
And thats imo the only reason why PS changed the rakemodel, due to make more money, what is ofc the target of every company.
Thats why I dont have much hope they will ever lower the rake in plo as long the games are going and they have the monopoly anyways, they also lowered the rakeback at FTP compared to b4 black friday.

Why this dumb software ***** the word contributed???

maybe it was a typo and you wrote an u instead of an o

Well, it just depends how you look at it. I usually play about 5 - 6 hours during weektime and about 2-3 in weekends. I usually play 10-16 tables. That's about 32 hours of play a week. And that without any travel time. That sounds like a ****load of free time, especially if i compare that to when i had a job. I usually also make 90k-130k Vpp's a month, so i can actually take 2-3 months off a year. You don't have to be an "internet nerd" guy to make SNE with plo imo.

If you want to do it-->
- Try to play close to daily. Its better to have 1 session during your "free days" and 2 on a normal day, compared too playing to many hands a day.
- You need to play a wide arrangement of stakes, if games are slow you should drop down (or set an alternative session time for the day).

Offcourse its a totally legit idea to play less tables, less hours a day, or play different sites on the side. But I think its fairly do-able to go for SNE as a fulltime plo midstakes+ prof. Offcourse you do have to have the multitabling skill.

Bottom line is:

Dude, your company is rich as ****. All of you bigwigs are rolling in money. You're company has done so well because of us players. Even regardless of this fact, why not Robin Hood the wealth around to a bunch of grinders trying to make it in this world by giving each of them a little extra value that is exponentially more important than it is to you.

^ Gosh golly, I bet they just didn't think about it this way! If you just put it to them this way, there's no chance they'll refuse to lower the rake!

To put some content in this clusterdung: no, that is not the point. To get stars to decrease the rake we have to make arguments based on how money flows in the poker economy. Does anyone have any understanding of this subject?

I guess the change of the playerpool since the start of the pokerboom is the mainargument to reduce the rake.
Its so obvious that within the last years most of the fish died, and nowadays if you look at it - live and online - its very hard to find some still alive.
A short look at the PLO-lobby makes clear that the games are close to unplayable due to just regulars around and nearly no fishes. But there has to be 1 fish minimum at every table to be able to beat the rake, i.e. at 1-2 rake is about 60bb/100 at a 6max table, so after rb still about 35bb to beat left, someone has to lose it. In further times the bunch of fish did this job nicely, nowadays the only solution is to reduce rake to make these games playable, otherwise obv plo will die and no rake at all and PS will lose even more cash...
STARS SIMPLY HAS TO ADJUST THE RAKESTRUCTURE DUE TO THE CHANGES IN THE PLAYERPOOL. FULL STOP.

Ok I have now only really the time to put alot of hands in, and after reading a few threads about how its unbeatable to rise from micro to mid/high stakes I was extremely worried, so decided to look for a backer to start at plo100 and hopefully move up if I beat that over a large sample.
Now after reading this thread it seems no one is winning at a decent amount at midstakes because of the rake, I mean wtf is going on, should everyone just quit playing plo, I cant because I hate nlh and Im sure Id be awful.
I could happily survive playing plo50 and even lower making $50k a year after rb but thats not what Im really looking for, Im looking to rise tru the stakes and compete.
So what is the lowest plo stake that someone can grind and the impossible rake not be a factor?

I know this is HSPLO and Im micro but I hope its ok if get involved in the discussion.
Id be very surprised if stars reduce the rake, its going to take a tremendous effort for the guys meeting with them to convince them its in their interest to.
I have posted my plo50/plo25 results on stars, which is another reason why Im so confused, everyone is saying its unbeatable but Im doing ok. I know Im running good and ist only 100k hands but I also know Im an average player with so many leaks and have only started studying plo.

that's a huge heater right there

Agree to disagree. I don't think my argument is logicless, or contentless. While it would certainly help to show them it would benefit them financially, we're all people here and capable of compassion and understanding as well. Yes, sometimes people go out of the way to do nice things for other people, and that has real content to it too. I am arguing for this side of the "equation", which I feel everyone can understand too.

+1

I'm no kid (38), 400PLO is usually my max limit, I live with my gf, have a social life and do a decent amount of self-employed web development work on the side too and I've made SNE last 4 years.

So it's not impossible... but yeah it's hard and I'm capable of playing a lot of tables that maybe not everyone is, and to be honest last 5 years I've been
marginal winner/loser (-1.00bb/100 - +1.0bb/100) so the swings are ridiculous.

It's a trade-off between my winrate and rakeback imo.

Cromghlinn,

Your stDEV is 190 and your sample is less than 100k hands.

I will concede that you w/r is strong, but it's hard to overcome the high stDEV and low sample size for looking at something statistically significant.

There is fancy math I don't have access to that can give you confidence intervals of your true winrate, you could dive into that. I would imagine your stDEV is gonna still make the ranges bonkers though.

Maybe, buts thats only stars hands which I have really only started playing last 2/3 months, ipoker over 400k hands is same with 60%rb up to plo100 but thats not the point.
Im sure theres loads of decent winners at micro/small stakes that stars will provide to prove its beatable. What Im looking to find out is it possible with hard work and grind to reach hsplo starting at plo50/100....99% of posters seem to think it is impossible.

You have a 400k hand sample of beating micros on ipoker at approx. 20bb/100?

I'm not sure how you concluded that 99% of posters believe what you described not to be possible. I would think the opposite to be true. One of the points people are trying to make ITT is that not enough money is currently flowing up through the stakes to higher games and that this could lead to a gradual decline in the overall PLO economy. Whether this is true or not remains to be proven.

190/sqrt(1000) = 6.

He's more than 3.5 std error away from zero. There is 99.9767% probability he was a true winner with >0bb/100 true winrate.

I'm not disputing him being a winning player, I'm saying with stDEV of 190 it's awfully easy for a marginal winner to sunrun for 100k hands

In the context of no money PLO everyone raked, I don't think the post really serves any purpose.

No its 15bb/100 over 490k hands plo20-plo100 but evbb/100 is same.
I exaggerated by stating 99% ofc and also didnt mean posters in this thread. I am happy that I concluded wrong but theres many threads in ssplo stating micro/small stakes plo is very hard to beat on stars because of the rake.
Ok best of luck fighting the good fight with stars, gl.