Just one more thing...as far as how the higher rake should affect your game, I think Oink does a nice job on touching on it in his Danish Luckbox series as he talks about differences in his play from 5/T up to 15/30 and how the higher rake at the lower stakes forces him to tighten up a bit more than he does at the higher stakes.

A couple of % points on his vpip....just basically dropping out the very bottom of his range and passing on more marginal spots.

easy game on this question:

Stars +.56 winner with rake around 2.1BB/100
Merge -.79 loser with rake around 3.6BB/100

Rake data is from my database and both have 250k+ hands ..
Plus much better player now that 1 year ago .. but games are maybe? tougher on merge,

Rake just turns me to a loser, but with rakeback I make monies .. I miss stars very sad.

Does rake damage your game? ... yep it will drag down that win rate.

Good points on dropping the bottom of the range. I probably won't not yet anyways, but i totally understand. Maybe after like 20000 hands I'll stop and reevaluate.

It obviously matters if you want to grind and make money.

Indeed, it is, more than any other factor, why we don't see LHE multitable grinders on Merge like we did on Stars.

Look, I have fun playing poker. And because fun is +EV, I always played more live. But I also play in games with beatable drops. Because I want to make money over time.

Post-BF, I am unaware of any US facing online site that offers a rake structure that allows for someone to make significant money at the micros or smaller small stakes limit. And that's one of the great tragedies of BF, because it keeps a lot of capable players from playing the game they love.

If it keeps good players from playing, then i am more than happy with it. More fish for the rest of us.

Thats not a good way to look at it imo schupick. The only way we really have to fight back against these horrible rakes being put on LHE is forum complaints and by not supporting them.

With your attitude they can just raise the rake every 6 months and youll just keep playing and taking it ;/

These insane rakes are not good for fish either. Its literally killing the game

Wat? High rake means fish lose money faster but to the site instead of tags.

Sure, do whatever you can. OTOH, it also pays to realize how much impact you can or can't have. You also have to consider your own likely mistakes at a 6m table and your own poker leaks. How much mental energy are you spending being hyper-aware of rake, site considerations, and focusing on your own short term results? If you spent that time/energy focusing on your own play, improving your game, etc, would you be better off? Don't ignore prfsr_cain's advice and don't score forum points on him rather than considering what he's saying.
Is just great advice in general and especially to you. Stop focusing on anything else. Just play, find where your play could be better, fix that, and win. You don't have many (any) choices to improve your rake situation. Thus, it is in the things you can't fix column. Thus, move efforts to things you can fix, switch games, or stop playing. I think you can beat 6m LHE, so I suggest you pick choice (A) improving your game and beating it.

Also, Oink's advice/comments are spot on. You can't play as LAG with high rake as you could otherwise. However, are most FR players switching to 6m pushing the boundaries of profit as a sLAG? I'm guessing no. I'm guessing your natural mistake is to play too tight, probably even tighter than rake dictates. Thus, you could use rake as an excuse to compound a natural mistake. IMHO, even if you are a tiny loser before rakeback, you should focus first on winning poker, then think about adjustments to maximize based on rake.. Don't look for excuses to continue with your natural errors in hands.

I mean this in a completely not angry/critical way and I'm smiling when I say it... I almost wonder if you're more interested in being right here than in getting better a poker. Yes, you're right about the rake being too high. Yes, we shouldn't just accept it. Yes, as Oink pointed out (and others before) rake should affect our play. That said, you should do what prfsr_cain says, even though he's technically wrong. I'm totally following you around and beating you up for these posts because I think you're good enough to win and because I'm rooting for you to do better at the tables.

I get it and AM doing exactly what you say...I am just also choosing to try to lead a players effort to try to fix the rake structure on Merge for the good of the games.

I have opened my game up to the point where I am around 30/20 or so. i have been struggling when I have been pushing it further than that which means (to me at least) that I need to fix some postflop leaks. The drive to improve is not going away even as I talk about the rake issue.

One minor nit with your comments. I'm not sure what you mean about trying to score forum points on prfsr_cain. I honestly was just trying to share the point oink made in his vids. Interesting comment though about what may be the bottom of MY range not even being the portion we should be dropping based on me being too tight anyways.

All good stuff doug and I take it in the constructive way you offered it.

Just out of curiosity, was anyone ever SNE on Stars? And if so, what kind of rb% could you get there? (I'm currently Bronze status , and only get ~10% rb).

Talk to Eskimo but it helps the more years you get SNE, and then it's like 50% rakeback (not pure rakeback, but effectively that when you buy the biggest bonuses and such)

Well with 35% RB and if regs being gone adds say ~1 BB/100 to my winrate, I am doing better than I was on stars, at least according to the numbers thrown around here. So honestly, I stand behind it, and don't care if it's selfish to look at it that way.

Honestly, the more people play the game, the better. I guess, I'd rather have 10 tables with 4 regs each and a fish than only 1 table with only fish. Regs are overrated.

I would agree at somewhere like PStars, that has good rake, but with a worse rake situation, i want the extra BB/100 that fish provide for me. Though, i do agree to a large degree that they aren't as scary as some might believe.

thanks for the answer.