Hello All,

I have been playing on Poker Stars recently and it has become apparent that as a small stakes limit grinder ($0.50/$1.00) I need rake back to generate a decent profit. At the moment, I don’t play enough to take advantage of Poker Stars VIP rewards program.

Are there any online poker rooms that have decent traffic at $0.50/$1.00 or $1/$2 with rake back? I understand that Stars has a large share of the poker player market, but there must be some other options.

Thanks for the responses.

Nain

No, limit poker doesn't really exist any more. Its just a mirage fooling us to continue playing.

I advise you playing on multiple sites, all with RB deals.
iPoker, Ongame, Entraction, Merge.

Thanks for the info Corey.

Do you have a lot of experience playing on those sites you suggested? Is any one of them superior due to player traffic, soft games, cash out options, software, etc?

Not so much with playing, because I stick with PokerStars, but I have fairly good knowledge of poker sites in general.

FL traffic is pretty low on all these sites that's why I recommended joining everyone of them. This way you get "decent" player pool and you can actually do some tableselection.

Every site has multiple cashout options, so there shouldn't be any problem. But if you do not have an eWallet yet (MoneyBookers, Neteller), I would create one ASAP. That's really a must for a poker player.


The most soft of those four options above is definitely Ongame, but has a stupid rake distribution method called "Essence", where winners get less rakeback than losers (simplified explanation). But I think it's still worth it, because competition is really the worst.

Entraction is cool. OK rakeback, nice additional promotions, software nothing special, players bad, but the lowest traffic.

I think iPoker has the most traffic, but opponents are generally better. You get nice rakeback (55%-60%) tho. Software can be pretty demanding on your CPU, together with HUD and stuff like that.

Merge... Traffic - yes. Rakeback - yes. Software ... - yes :P
Rake - not the best.
100% secure... Probably not.
US players - yes.

Thanks for the help Corey. Much appreciated.

Party has the next best limit traffic but they have a similar rakeback system to Pokerstars (low rewards if they're not your main site). Games can be nitty too with lots of <20% VPIP types.

corey is right this is your best way to go - limit poker is rare these days and if you want to game select at least a little you will have to play more than 1 site. i heard ipoker has "good" traffic for limit though

good luck finding new homes

Games at ongame are wild but the traffic is really low. Avoid party, you can't get RB deals and the rake is a killer. The problem with all non-PS sites is that the rake is much higher. You can get really good RB through affiliates but may have to be content with making most of your money that way instead of at the table.

OP said he "doesn't play enough to take advantage of PokerStars VIP rewards program." So the same applies to Party, which also has his own VIP program (bit worse than PS).


All those sites/networks (Ongame, iPoker, Entraction, Merge) TOGETHER have less traffic than PokerStars alone. You shouldn't even compare

A good thing is that if you register on all these sites, you (almost) don't lose any value with "not-clearing" first deposit bonus in time.
Ongame, iPoker and Merge have either "deductible" SignUp bonus from rakeback, or % is the same. Only Entraction has FDB with no correlation to rakeback, but it releases in increments, so you don't lose much anyway.

That's why you can play on all these sites simultaneously. Even if you don't find a proper table for a week on Ongame, you don't lose any value.

Don't sign up to any sites until you've got an affiliate who can offer you a good RB deal.

Isn't that the whole point of these posts anyway?

I really appreciate everyones advice and thoughts.

I played limit poker way back when Party Poker was the premier online poker site (probaly 7 years ago, had a rakeback deal through party poker also). Limit poker was incredibly popular back then and the games were crammed with fish. So much has changed since then. I switched to NL and never paid attention to limit games.

I am guessing that sites must generate a ton more rake off limit tables vs no limit tables. I am surprised that they haven't started aggressivley marketing the game. Limit poker is better suited for the casual players.

Casual players like to go "all in" though for some reason.

Just a note on the rakeback make sure the sites rake less rakeback figure is still not higher than Stars rake figure or you are just wasting your time.