Cap 50 and Cap 100 have a very high rake too, i have like 7bb/100 rake at Cap 50, please take a look too

I really like this suggestion. Especialy if you add the idea of eldodo of allowing x ratholes a day, so that you don't disturb the pure recreationals. Only problem with this is that it becomes a bit complicated and hence hard to explain in simple terms. But your post implies that you left the easy sollutions already.

With variance 2,5 times higher, and rake about double; it seems obvious to me that 1-2 nlh is not comparable to 1-2 plo at all.

Interesting to look at for sure!

Jeah. PLO variance is very often overlooked. Looking at results of supernova's is a huge selection bias (because the ones attaining SN are likely the lucky ones). Looking at results of Supernova's after they reached the SN level is a valid analysis. If the results indeed show 100plo is beatable by reasonable amounts, that would strongly suggest there is not much wrong with the current PLO rake system. I would however like to know:
- are the winrates decreasing over time? There is a general consensus that plo games have been weak for a while, but get increasingly though lately. If this is true you would expect the winrates of SN's to decline. And if they do, at what point does PS suggest to intervene and adjust the current rake system?
- 100 plo is beatable? Fine... What about 25plo? 10plo?

I think it is fair to assume that the plo skill level will converge to nlh skill level in the long run. Regs will get used to the game, and plo strategy training is getting more and more common. As rake pressure is roughly double the nlh pressure in the same limit; plo will become unbeatable in the long run*. I hope we (players + PS) act before this happens.

* IF nlh has 8bb/100 rake pressure on a certain limit and plo has 16bb/100, and the rakeback level is 40%. A post-rakeback return of 3bb/100 requires actually beating the game for (-8bb+(0.4*8bb))+x=3bb/100 = 7.8bb/100 for nlh. So making 3bb/100 in nlh in this setting, requires beating the game for 7.8bb/100 pre rake. Solving the same for the plo case : (-16bb+(0.4*16bb)+x=3bb/100 = 12.6bb/100.

So beating the plo game for the same 3bb/100 amount requires a 12.6bb/100 pre rake winrate for PLO versus a 7.8bb/100 winrate for NLH. And this even neglecs things like "a plo reg can play fewer tables simulatainiously", "plo tables deal less hands/hour", "Plo has a way higher risk level then nlh on the same level, so the expected return should be higher if you want it to be economically viable" ...

IF the level of play of plo reaches similar levels as nlh play --> Plo will die...

Zoom cap is 8 so it means 2 times only?

I'm pretty sure he means 8 times. the 3 is the ratio between zoom table cap and normal table cap.

Also, I fully support everything in joeri's last post. Except I think that even if Supernovas are beating PLO100 by a nice margin, some care should still be given to making sure that players of the same skill level but without SN can still beat the games by a reasonable margin.

any chance we could get a basic idea of how this might work? or why it needs to wait til june?

sure would be great to discuss it with a large plo community, like that here on 2+2

Have we heard from the reps re their point of view abut the plo rake issue.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using 2+2 Forums

I am pretty sure I know the answer to this, but I'll ask Nick to double check the tables we shared at those meetings and post here with the answer with 100% certainty.

i hope i understood the suggestion right. i boiled it down to:

a - if you leave a table and join another you have to buy in with max BBs

..won't work because you can always join a new table before leaving an old one

b - if you add new table you can buy in min. as new table counts any table more than your current sessions maximum number of tables played.

..already covered by stars solution (disclaimer: i haven't read the 18 pages :-)

Could you clarify zoom changes regarding ratholing?

Pretty sure they're just leaving it as it is. Which is dumb. They should have a 20h timer for ratholing zoom

^^ you're wrong. Steve clearly wrote that zoom is included in their ratholing solution:

So players would be able to rathole 24 times per 18-hour period in normal tables, and an additional 8 times per 18 hours in zoom tables.

To be clear: taking stacks larger than 100bb off the table is not considered as ratholing: you'll always be able to buy in at 100bb, unless you're coming back to the exact same table

point a) is a good point indeed. But players can exploit this only one time while leaving a table.

So we have 2 distinct situations:
1) Payer joins a new table after he leaves.
2) Payer joins a new table before he leaves.


1) Player doubles up to 80bb. He leaves the table and when joining a new one he must enter with the same stack.

2) Is just a variation of 1). Lets see: He doubles up but he joins a new table before leaving. Perfectly fair, he enters the new table with 40bb and he can safely leave the old table (the one where he had 80bb)... or can he?? lol, he leaves the table so now we are on situation 1) again. When joining a new table he must buy-in for 80bb.

This I believe could be used for the already talked "free pass to rathole for x times" situation. He can only exploit this until he reache the maximum tables allowed. After that he has no escape, he always will be required to join with the # of blinds from the tables he left.

A problem I see here is that they are forced to artificially increase their number of tables, which can have a number of annoying effects. If they simply play more tables they slow down the games, which is not wanted. Also they would always sit out and not leave the table until they are kicked which blocks a seat for 3 rounds every time they double up. And they probably find a lot more annoying creative ways

How about different reset times, e.g.,
identities 1-12 reset after 20 hours
13-18 after 48 hours
19-24 after 72 hours
>24 1 week

This would reduce ratholing but shouldn't restrict rec players who buy in short.

Hi there! Tell me please what is wrong with ratholing at zoom tables? Dont you worry about zoom traffic decrease? It could touch 2.5/5 especially.

so a player would be forced to always buy in with the maximum BBs he is currently seated.

whatever effects this has, it is a pretty arbitrary notion of what a player is in the context of multi-tabling. is he the biggest of his stacks at the tables, the sum of all or some average? i found no convincing answer to the question so i dropped the idea altogether. maybe someone else wants to take a shot?

Player Communications 2
I realized this morning that I'd left one thing out of the section on player communications.

We did at one point have a special forum set up for communication with a panel of players who had signed NDAs. If players want us to reactivate this forum, we are happy to do so.

Our preference would be for the participants on the forum to be those who have been elected and attended player meetings in the past. We have been very pleased with the quality of discussion with player representatives thusfar and would be happy to continue it between meetings.

If there is a strong community desire for additional participants on the forum, we can discuss and consider this. One possible reason to want additional participants is to ensure maximum coverage of all of the different game types. My initial thought about this is that this may not be necessary, but if it is, the extra participants could perhaps be chosen by the other representatives.

LHE probably isn't represented yet, right?
I mean, Hood was at the first meeting, but he's not really involved in LHE anymore.

I've thought about this whole stack identity idea and I'm trying to define it better and this is my suggestion:

Every player on the site has 6 initial saved stack identities, A, B, C, D, E and F. Each stack identity saves at the point when the player leaves the table. These all last individually for 20 hours.

Now a 40bb player starts a session, he buys in at 4 tables with a 40bb stack size.

After 30 minutes, he has 87bb's, 45bb's, 50bb's and 42bb's. He quits all four tables.

He now has a saved stack identity portfolio of A:87, B:45, C:50, D:42, E:N/A, F:N/A for this player. The saved stack identity stops at 100bb's so if a player leaves with 140bb's, the identity gets saved as 100bb's in order to not force players to have to buy-in for higher than the table maximum where they may be uncomfortable playing super deep.

This same player then buys in at four new tables and the system forces the player to have the stack sizes which are the highest of all his saved stack identities, once all 6 slots have been saved.

The player clicks the min-buy in as he sits down at these four new tables.

Now buying in at 40bb's works for him at the first two new tables he sits down at, since he has identity E and identity F which are still spare and take precedent over the other saved identities. However the other two tables he sits down at automatically buy him in for 87bb's and 50bb's as these are his highest two saved identities.

He plays a bit longer and quits all four tables at 93bb's, 70bb's, 61bb's and 41bb's for identities E, F, A and C respectively.

The player's portfolio of identities now stands at A:61, B:45, C:41, D:42, E:93, F:70.

The player buys in at four new tables, and he is forced to buy-in at 93bb's, 70bb's, 61bb's and 45bb's as these are the highest four. If the player wants to open any additional tables, these are all set at his highest current identity, so if the player wanted to buy-in at eight tables all of a sudden, then his tables would be 93bb's, 70bb's, 61bb's, 45bb's, 42bb's, 41bb's, 93bb's and 93bb's in that order.

If he then plays at eight tables, and quits them all, then additional identities are saved as identity G and identity H, but when the player then buys back in at four new tables, then the highest four identities from A to H are used as his new buy-in levels.

After 20 hours of inactivity for an identity, that identity resets to N/A and now takes precedent as the players default stack size at a new table and the player is free to choose what he wants to buy-in at. These identities apply across all limits to stop a player getting 6 identities at $200NL and another 6 new identities at $100NL etc.

Having a limit of 6 initial identities means that the 40bb rakeback pros are forced to play deeper if they want to get in lots of volume, and it is high enough that the recreational players that only play a couple of tables at a time, won't notice anything and it won't effect how they want to play if they want to play short.

I'm really happy to see some positive attitudes from PLO players that I respect. Having Stars admit there was a problem and that action needed to be taken was the first step. This has been accomplished and they re willing to meet with PLO players. With just 1 6max and 1 HU PLO player at the past meetings I'm happy this was accomplished. I think something quite positive can come out of the planned PLO meeting. There will be plenty of time and some great minds to help tackle the situation and work with Stars to find a solution that is beneficial to both parties.

I think this PLO meeting will also be beneficial to the other game types that also have some rake issues.

That's great but no one is a supernova at the stakes where the rake is the highest.

Not like I expected anything good to come out of that meeting anyway.

+1 want

Still play every day But yeah, a LHE player who's active on dot-com on this forum would be good.

Solve this situation please, i am a plo player, played several years full stack 2009-2010 but now because of harder games and cruel rake policy i mix it with some short stack, especially higher limits. So i want to play 5 hours full stack 1/2 to 3/6, and then make a shot with 40bb to 25/50. I would be prohibited to open several tables 40bb because i played 100bb all day and have stack identity 100bb? I didnt make any rathols and wont be able to play a few high limits with short stack? It's unfair.
Even 50/100 a lot of games are shorstacked so what are you doing? You want to kill high stakes, nobody could watch 200/400 battles? You will kill a game if you kill highstakes. Think about amateurs who mix limits, Pokerstars what are you doing?

No, if you buy in for the table maximum, you aren't creating an identity.

i think its time to boycott stars until they fix this plo rake thingy! even if they plan on fixing it which i doubt it will only give them incentive to do it or do it quicker.