I would be interested in hearing what reduction (if any) in VPP's you guys are seeing so far.
Myself, I am surprised to see a mere 5-10% reduction compared to last year, I expected worse
I initially saw a much larger reduction, but I opened up my game, which was long overdue anyway, and playing a 20/15 style now I am still getting decent VPP.

Please state average Vpip and Pfr to gauge the impact on different playing styles.

I'm seeing +10% reduction, but playing SH.

Bump, because Inxu is cluttering up the first page with necro-threads (although good ones) and I would really like to have more input on this.

Still a small sample size, but here goes:

So far I have played 9219 hands of FR 1/2 with a 19/14 style. Those 9k hands made up 73.1% of my total hands. 73.1% of my VPP's this month would be 1764.58 VPP.

That would mean 0,191 VPP / Hand.
Last year I got 0,197 VPP / Hand (although there are a few 100 6max hands in there, total 1/2 hands last year was 150k, so that shouldn't matter)

FPPpro lists 0.198 VPP/Hand for 1/2

This indicates that I am getting 96.9% of my VPP / Hands from last year.
So the changes are not that bad (but I still have no idea if the effective rake has gone down or up, waiting for HEM1 update on that.

I'm curious to see what the rake impact has been. Has the rake gone down? Is it just the WC that is crushing you? While FPP's are fine/good, if you're getting less RB because you're paying a lot less rake, it should be a net benefit to a lot of people. Once people start to rack up decent samples, I'd love to see if the player meeting was a big benefit to the micros.

Ill try to answer that as soon as my sample size is bigger+the HEM1 update is out. Curious about it as well.

Edit: Does anyone know if the Rake stat in HEM is still accurate? I.e. does it simply read out the rake in the HH's or is it based on the (outdated) dealt formula?

The rake only went down like 0.5% right? I'm not noticing a huge diff yet, though I don't use a HUD to track that kind of thing; maybe it's more significant than I'm giving credit.

To answer OP: I seem to be accruing FPP's at more like a 30-50% reduced rate under the new VPP system (FR player, btw).

Wow, thats no fun. What kind of average stats are you playing?

yep, something like 5-10% VPP reduction.
It was 6% in January, but small sample size. February has been a more consistent 8-9%.
I play 2/4 6max usually, which unfortunately has not seen much rake reduction at those stakes (since the 20$ trigger didn't hit that often before). But game starting has been fine in terms of rake.

the rake has been increased at 1/2 and 2/4 fr limit, this is from Steves figures, there has been a big reduction at 0.25/0.50 and a lesser reduction at 0.50/1

Yeah I am still confused by that table.
First I heard for days that rake was reduced at FR LHE and then Steve shows up and posts that.
If this turns out to be accurate, FR 1/2 will be hit hardest. It was a rake trap before the changes, why they thought increasing rake at that specific stake is totally beyond me.
2/4 I believe was the first non-nano stake where the impact of rake was a bit softer under the old system.

From what I see, there are hardly any 3/6 FR tables going these days.
If these increases are accurate, even fewer players will be able to move up.

Christ, there are already a bunch of players that have been grinding .25/.50 and .5/1 for years for a living.
I doubt they don't want to move up, most simply can't due to rake.

Before the meetings we heard that Stars would pay special attention to LHE, I guess we found out what special means

Fergastra

I totally agree with everything you just said. I know Hood our rep put in some provision specifically for 1/2 and 2/4 players to avoid this scenario but here it is. I agree 1/2 was a rake trap before, god help us now. I think the problem lies that the 2/4 before wasn't being raked below a $20 pot, now every pot is getting raked

Frankly I don't want to see rake decreases as stakes like 10/20 ffs, it's isn't proportionate and once again an own goal from stars.

To add to this why is it that whenever Stars make changes to VPP's or rake they always punish FR LHE. 3 years ago they really kicked in the nuts the 0.50/1 and 1/2 games and now this with the 1/2 and 2/4 people.

What they did 3 years ago vastly reduced low limit full ring players and now this. I'm wondering if they want to kill off the games for good.

I used to need 1500 hands at 0.25 FR to get 100 VPPs, now I need 1800

Maybe I've over-stated how much of a VPP reduction I'm seeing. I'll pay closer attention for the next few sessions and get back to you. But seemed like before I'd get ~15-17 VPP/100 hands of 0.5/1 FR; now it seems more like 8-10.

EDIT: And if 1/2 FR is now that much harder to beat, maybe I won't make the transition after all, and instead do what Xylo had suggested: move to 0.5/1 6M.