While I am in complete agreement that the majority of games on Pokerstars are over-raked, I am firmly of the opinion that the huge amount of discussion on this issue (and others regarding the extra levels at the micros) has completely missed the point.

Why are games so unprofitable these days?

While the high rake is an issue, it is not the biggest issue with regards to the quality of the games today. Were players this vocal about rake in 2006 when they were beating the midstakes for 5ptbb+? No they weren't. They might have made a few complaints but no-one was really that bothered. What has changed to make rake such a burning issue? Has the rake been raised year on year to a point where it's now unacceptable? Well I might be wrong here but as far as I'm aware, the rake has barely changed over the years. The rake is not the reason that the games are now so unprofitable, the real reason is the proliferation of multi-tabling regs that are taking up so many seats on the site, and the fish:reg ratio is at it's lowest level and will only continue to fall.

What can be done about it?

Well as soon as Stars announced that they were going to make the change to WC, the regs were up in arms because they were having a percentage of their rakeback taken away from them. Instead of looking at the long-term, nearly everybody acted in an extremely short-sighted way by immediately demanding more rakeback, higher multipliers, lower rake, lower caps and so on. While these things may help the grinders in the short term, it will do nothing about the future of the game. What happens if Stars lower the rake, and then in another 2 years time the games have deteriorated even further? We demand they lower the rake even further?

In my opinion the only way to improve the quality of the games is to improve the fish:reg ratio. The recruitment and retention of recreational players is by far the most important thing when it comes to the long term health of the games. Instead of demanding rake reductions, I would have been much happier if people had demanded that Stars use the money they had "stolen" to fund incentives for recreational players to come to and stay on the site.

There is the opinion out there that lower rake would make the site more attractive to fish, but I can say with confidence that fish don't care in the slightest about the rake. "Oh they rake the pots?.... but only off pots I win?.... well that's fine cos every time I win a big pot I won't care about a few cents going off the top".

We all see how the cash tables get massively better when the milestone hands are running. Everybody loves a chance to win something for nothing - more along the lines of this promotion would be amazing.

There was a promo last year where the VPP level requirements were slashed. For about a month after there were tons of fish proudly showing off their silver or gold stars at the tables. These guys no doubt played a bit more than usual to gain their status, then would have played more to take advantage of their higher VPP multiplier. I'm sure the Stellar rewards have a similar effect. These are easy to earn and are realistic for even the lowest level of player to aim for. Again, more promos along these lines would be great. Fish love free stuff.

There are many other ways to reward the lower volume players, and these methods reward the grinders both directly (they can get the bonuses/win milestones themselves) and indirectly (more recreational players at the tables = healthier games).

I would be more than happy if my missing rakeback went into funding this type of long-sighted scheme rather than just being put towards lowering the rake and other things to pander to the short-term demands of the grinders.

I would be very interested to hear the opinions of others on this. Everyone I have personally put this opinion to has wholeheartedly agreed with me, but when I have made posts in the discussion threads I have been largely ignored as people just continue to debate rake/rakeback changes.

Cliffs:
- Recruitment/retention of fish is way more important than any rake/rakeback changes
- Money should be being spent on improving the health of the games by bringing more recreational players in rather than pandering to grinders

Cant argue with any of that. Stars have started the year with some really decent promotional ideas and lets hope that they can push a few more over the coming months. No one has a problem if Stars slashes the rewards scheme if the money re-enters the poker economy in other ways.

Provided they follow through on ongoing programs.

The goal of lower rake isn't, that fish play more because they are happy about the low rake. The goal is, that fish in micro and low stakes don't go broke as quickly and move up with their money and lose it at higher stakes.

Besides that, I agree with most of the stuff you said.

Winrates are tighter today which makes the effects of rake more readily apparent.

You'll have an easier time getting the rake lower than finding all these fish from 2005 that don't play any longer (nor have any interest).

Isn't it possible that these ideas are necessary in addition to rake reductions? Since when were they mutually exclusive?

BTW...the fish still show up; they just get crushed so fast they never come back. With rake at 10bb/100 and players breaking even, that means that poor fish loses 20bb/100 or more and has virtually zero chance of winning. The difference between now and before is that the skill level of the regular at EVERY level has improved so much. So, rake reduction is a major form of fish retention...much easier to get repeat customers from recreational players when they get better value for their money.

Lack of promos isn't the problem. Lack of disposable income is.

no one complained about rake few years ago when 200nl was EZ game. I agree qith your post ron, bringing more recreational players should be the main focus of pokerstars/pokerplayers.

For the most part, fish don't move up with their money. They deposit, choose a stake to play at and play there (or move around stakes) until they bust. The only reason a fish makes money and moves up stakes is when they run hot and win a few stacks at a lower stake, and I don't believe rake will have any effect on this.

I agree with you 100% on putting the rake back in to funding more rewards and incentives for recreational players, giving them something to get excited about playing for, it's a great way to make the games healthier before the sites become 95% reg infested. My flatm8, father and best m8 are all recreational players and are quite competent live players but are all losing players online and always will be, they don't put in the volume needed and understand the difference between the live and online world. After all playing for a couple of years now they have all but given it away, sick of running the 2nd nuts in to a regs nuts everytime their having a winning session and the only reward and incentive they have is a $10 green light at the top of the lobby that they get at most twice a month, which is defenately not enough to keep them coming back and enthused about playing.

I've often made the case for more rewards rather than lower rake. Lower rake can't be targeted to casual players; rewards can.

Famous concept in business is that 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your customers. It suggests focusing the vast majority of your time attracting and keeping that 20%. And that's what Pokerstars does; it works.

Everybody else is trying different policies to benefit only casual players, and yet they fail. Nobody else is even challenging Stars' dominance. Ironically, if a site did succeed in bringing super soft games by keeping fish longer and attracting new ones, the regs would move to those games because it would increase their win rate. That's why some sites have gone so far as to discourage winners from playing on their site. The logical conclusion is that poker sites become like sportsbooks and simply ban the big winners. Sound like a good solution to you?

I believe there must be hope for an average player to win. There must be the illusion that luck is the main factor. Online poker has no illusions because the rake is churned so fast. There is no hiding how quickly people are going broke. And nothing you do (with promotions) will change one simple fact: Huge amounts of money are taken off the table every hour, and somebody has to pay. At $5/10 LHE 6max, $150+ is taken off the table per hour!!! At many micro games, the ratio is even worse even if the amounts are smaller.

The fish to reg issue will never be at a good number unless they limit the amount of tables regs can play.

At $5/10 LHE 6max, I break even. With a rake of 5bb/100, that means I'd win 5bb/100 if the game were not raked. So, the other 5 players at the table would need to pay 1bb/100 to play against me.

Now, against the same 5 players with current rake, I break even, but now they need to pay 7bb/100. So, why in the world would you believe a reg is the dominant factor here?

Your winrate would obviously be different if the other players were fish rather than regs. If you're break-even against 5 other regs, you might be winning at 10bb/100 if against 5 fish, or 3bb/100 against 2 fish and 3 regs.

Let's say that before rake, you're 5bb/100 on a reggy table and 8bb/100 on a fishy table. With the rake at 5bb/100, you'll still be +3bb/100 on the fishy table. Reduce the rake by 20% but continue playing on the reggy table and you'll be +1bb/100. The standard of your competition has a much greater effect than the rake you pay.