Kind of an age old topic on TwoPlusTwo, and something that if we're honest we have no effect on, but nevertheless, still worth a chat every now and again.

Here's the Rake Table for PLO8 and NLO8 Cash Games up to $3/6 (Apologies for the crude paint job, I had to splice together two tables)



With those absurd rake caps, both full and short-handed, I really can't see how a beginning player can make it out of the micros without having a huge win-rate. My journey up to mid-stakes began at $0.02/0.05 and I've spent a good amount of time grinding each stake on that list but nowadays I don't think it's possible for someone to emulate this.

For reference, here's what MPN are charging:



What does everyone think?

Unbeatably high.

I used to grind 0.25/0.5 and 0.5/1 but now I've had to transition to more tourneys and basically bumhunting 0.5/1 and 1/2 'cause it feels like that's the only way to beat the rake.

There was a mention of rake being too high in a specific game during one of the last player meetings (with Chuck Bass iirc). I am pretty sure big bet O8 was the game in question...Stars just hasn't made any changes due to us not making enough noise or them not prioritizing this, or a combination or both.

The 3/6 capped games used to be borderline +EV for those with SNE, but are definitely not playable now.

There was a Stars rep that started a thread in here and was extremely inactive.

just sick how much the rake is yes. Normally stars always say we are still best place to play and i kind of think it was vallid point. At this point the are rake wise the worst option possible without even rakeback 5/10+ and huge capps and huge % of pot directly on flop

old system is was 0.50 cap hu now if you minraise Hu on 3/6 and get called they already take 0.90 on flop.
It just insane and problem is that not lot of people understand how sick it is.
Playing hu 10/20 cost way more in rake then having an expensive hooker it just sick for running some software and dealing 60 hands hour.

It definitely means that for grinders, it's unfeasible to grind out games vs other regs (generating rake for the site) and instead bum-hunting the recreational players at higher stakes. Recreational players lose money faster, site loses revenue.

Yeah we definitely should have caused more of a stink.
To be honest though, the 3/6 games are definitely attractive to recreational players, and it's such a rake churner for Stars, but the variance is such a killer that I can't see how grinders can beat it. I know I certainly can't.

It means that there's almost no incentive to play higher than 3/6. Literally the only reason if is the recreational player wants to play higher, which leads to them losing money faster, and again the site loses revenue. Stars needs some other way to incentivize grinders to play higher.

Games seem to be somewhat healthy (but not great) up to .10/.25, and then it just drops off. I've been testing my luck at these stakes for a couple months and am up a little, but most of it is rakeback.

But then I scroll up to consider moving up, and there is like one table going... Maybe if Stars saw that the volume was dropping off, they would understand the problem. They should love having O8 cash games running strong, right? Lots of all-in split pots = more rake.

Exactly! It's like Stars don't even realise this.

Instead, their promotions these days are all about hold'em cash games...

To point out the obvious for the guys starting medium/high -stakes tables: Rather make it 3/6 than 5/10. I'm sure it attracts more recreational players, too.

but isn't the problem (or at least a problem) with 08 rake the fact that split pots get raked such that as a consequence when the rake exceeds the dead$ in the pot both players that showdown winners and split the pot lose $ on the hand.

I would think changing how rake is applied so that you can't showdown a winning hand and lose $ on the hand would help tremendously at the lower stakes where the rake on a single pot can be many bbs.


at the higher stakes, where the cap is fractions less then half a big blind I think its the stacksizes being played and therefore the average size of pots that has a great impact.

That is not to say that I don't think $1.50 rake cap isn't HIGH. at stakes exceeding 1/2 that might be rake of $100/100 hands or even $150/100 ?? is pokerstar's overhead for a table that much that it must rake that much to make its profit?.

Is there a way to have the rake cap/structure differ for a chopped pot vs an unchopped pot? Grim's table in OP would have a 2nd group which indicates chopped pots.

There are spots in PLO where a board is the nuts (i.e. AKQJT without a flush possible) and players dont get all their stack in with the nuts (broadway straight) because they know the other guy has it and would pay max rake.

ties happen. in holdem and as you say in PLO, ties happen. but i think we can make a distinction between ties and split pots. because in 08 , we can call when getting 1/4'd or 1/6th ties making a distinction between when a half of the pot is split from when splitting the pot in half(for high and low).

just fundamentally, i think its wrong to lose money with a winning hand. I think since the frequency of ties are small, that tieing and losing money to rake is acceptable. Having the sole winning hand for half the pot and losing seems contrary to the spirit of the game(and of poker).


back in the day, i think it was back when there were player meetings with Pokerstars and they seemed maybe receptive to suggestions i gave it more thought. What i thought then was the simplest of solutions, was that O8 when played with 4 players or more should be played with antes. the antes would be sized, relative to stakes such that the antes and blinds provide enough to cover the rake of a split pot.

stakes 1/2 and higher the ante would be .25bb. lower stakes had bigger relative antes. the antes had to be greater as the stakes got lower, .5bb, 1bb, 1.5bb, because the rake cap was more bbs.
i think at 4 player tables, when HU pots are split, there was still some loss, but with 6 players, even HU, sb vs. bb, the rake was covered by the antes.


anyway, i think i might be digressing from the spirit of the OP, so I'm sorry .

Doubt Stars would ever consider an option to reduce rake on split pots, especially the new regime who try to squeeze every last cent out of any situation.

What they really should be doing is taking advantage of the fact that these games are serious rake churners and start promoting the game better. There's been a ton of promos recently directed towards getting recreational players to play 10NL and under, so clearly these are succeeding and are somewhat proof that Stars can drive traffic to games they desire.