epic fail at my math...........to be fair it should say that my Stars win rate adjusted for the increased rake on Merge would be -.97 BB/100 since Merge is raking an extra 1.97 BB/100 over what Stars is raking.

so I would basically go from 1BB/100 to -1BB/100 just on Merges rake structure alone. Now when you factor in the fact that the games are MUCH tougher than they were you arrive at my present -1.25 BB/100 that I am running at on Merge.

I liked it better with my original math when I though for a second I had grown as a poker player

Well said

Could be why there's only 5 tables going in the low, mid, and high stakes combined at present. Other than the singles sitting at the HUHU tables

If you are the low limit type of player who earns 60 VIP's daily and 600 VIPs weekly, play on Hero, rake will not be an issue any longer. The Chosen Ones promotions have made limit rake issues a non-issue for the low limit guys. When I play limit split games and I'm HU knowing that one of us for sure has the high and one of us for sure has the low I will raise continuously just to get the rake to max, because I know I will get it all back and more with the new Chosen Ones promotions. The more I pay in rake the quicker I can get to 600 VIP's! With rakeback and the Chosen Ones you'd have to be very unlucky not to get 100% rakeback. Even just using Hero's VIP program it's not that much less of a return. I think that if the numbers grow it will lower the effective return, but I bet a monthly might be added in the future if it's a success, so it could actually be a plus in the long term. So join and take advantage even if it's -EV for me in the short term. I want to see the numbers grow so a monthly can one day be feasible to offer also.

Mainly though, I pity the small stakes limit players who don't understand the games are unbeatable with the present rake system. I pity them more though for not at least playing on Hero so they get it all back.

That's a great idea and I wish I could play on Hero. Some of us live in states where we're stuck with the original Merge skin we signed up on. The network as a whole needs to fix the limit rake structure. It's great what Dave is doing the network should think the same way. If I move to another state I would switch in a minute

+1

This is all nice, but we need an actual fix to the structure if the games are going to improve and the pyramid is going to be sustainable. Merge can either go for long term revenue growth or a quick money hit and run. I am hoping they will choose the long term view.

Sorry I didn't realize there were states that could no longer join a merge skin. I guess then you are stuck with what you got. I feel sorry for those players who can't join Hero for the great limit promotions because of what state they live in. Which states are those anyways?

NY,MO, MD and I think several more. We were able to join for several mos after BF, now people from those states can't join any skin. Land of the Free!

bumpity bumpity...........

anything new to report Kahn? Sadly it seems my RPM reps are not going to jump into this discussion.

bump....only cause antneye shouldn't be the only one any word?

David and I had a nice conversation about this just yesterday. He is having similar issues insofar as getting this approved. That said, in our information swap, we both learned new things that may help our cause.

We are still trying to make this happen guys, I promise ya

--
Kahn

I can't even find a limit game to join most of the time. Seems like there's one game in my range and the wait list is 2 or 3, so I wait half an hour sometimes. Try starting a new game and if one person does joins in you feel special. I don't want to play HU with the rake structure so I stop after five minutes if nobody else comes.

Limit games are getting bad. I don't really think there's time to save them at this point.. Once the players are gone it's going to be hard to get them back. I play late late or early morning for the most part and there are zero games going on most of the time. Zero. I can't even get my 600 vips this month for the Chosen Ones. I tried though. Just limit games have been decimated by the fleeing of players to different networks is my guess. Or Lock had half of them? I don't know where they all went. It's bad, very bad.

Most of my action is on other sites right now because of the rake.

Also the traffic is not great - particularly full ring games.

So what is the best site for limit right now?

If you have a time machine at your disposal, Poker Stars in 2010 or so was the most recent. Go back to 2003-2004 and Party Poker was the best.