I have lots of PokerStars data, hardly any Full Tilt data. If you play at FT, please share your data. Also, FT changed their microstakes rake a while back (it used to be an absurd 10%). Be sure to say if your FT data is from the old 10% rake days or the new scheme.

Full Tilt
New rake system. I'm guessing cause can't be bothered checking but i think its like 1/15.

10NL
22880 hands, 218.44 rake, 229.68 MGR

25NL
58865 hands, 978.28 rake, 1084.25 MGR

And i play close enough to 15/12/5.5 if that helps you draw any conclusions.

Thanks. Your 10NL numbers are in line with others and support the hypothesis that PS 10NL is equal to or better than FT 10NL with rakeback.

spreadsheet updated.

More data for PokerStars in the spreadsheet (link above). Thanks McAvoy!

Still need more Full Tilt data.

When I started I was a very bad player, only recently have I improved. If I post a graph you will understand (not at home right now so cant access my database). So Im guessing my foolishness when I started meant alot of all-ins and big pots making my rake sky rocket. Im sure over my later set of hands there will be a much lower rake. I can show you a graph and you can request to see rake over certain periods if interested.

NL10/PL10 @ FTP
Hands: 26335
Rake: 396.47$

Thanks, is that MGR or rake paid? If you can provide the other stat that would be helpful. I'll assume MGR for now. Having "actual rake paid" is nice but not essential.

HEM users tell me the "rake" column is the summary report is 'MGR'.

Off the cuff (assuming your numbers are MGR) this works out to 15.05bb/100 rake before rakeback and 10.99bb/100 rake after rakeback is accounted for.

Numbers taken from HEM so that would be MGR. I don't know how to get the 'actual rake paid'.

I don't know if the OP stopped chasing this or not, but I wanted to bump this to get more results, as this is all pretty interesting to me. I'm poker copilot atm so I don't have any rake statistics, otherwise I'd be contributing.

Missed this the first time around. Would love to see more data added.

Methodologically I question leaving out your single biggest sample as an outlier.

Am I reading it correctly... the "rake" column in HEM is actually MGR????

Will check HEM tonight for some more FTP data hopefully.

I use PT3 and don't know the details of what HEM stats really mean. Nobody I asked to tell me which HEM stat was "actual rake paid" and which was "MGR".

Some folks only reported one number and they didn't know whether HEM was giving them rake paid or MGR so I guessed MGR. When folks only reported 1 number I put that number (assumed to be MGR) in both the actual rake paid and MGR columns. I.e. I am using one as an estimate for the other when that other stat is missing.

The evidence is pretty clear though: you shouldn't be chosing to play 5NL and 2NL at FTP rather than PS because "FTP has rakeback and PS does not". If you like FTP better for other reasons, fine, but PS is either equivalent or better than FTP in terms of effective rake at the lowest microstakes.

For the low stakes a lot of this effort will become obsolete as PokerStars is apparently changing their rewards/VPP system.

I hear you on the outlier ... the data is there for you to look at yourself though. The best solution is to get more data. right now the sample sizes (in terms of players) is excrutiatingly small.

Kurt, could you write a guide that tells HEM players where to find "actual rake paid" and "MGR"? That would allow us our methodology. It is important to have these two different numbers as the differential between actual rake paid vs MGR can have a significant impact on effective rake.

lol I don't know how to use HEM!

I'll take a look tonight though, and if I figure it out I'll post how to along with my data.

2nl stars

80,72 hands
$114.90 rake paid
$124.88 MGR

For HEM, go to cash games, then click on the "sessions" tab. You'll get all the different sessions you've played (you can use filters for stakes, dates, all that stuff) On the right hand side, it'll tell you how much rake you've paid. It seems to correspond pretty well with RBP's stats.

Like what your doing here. I'd be interested too to see data from 25NL and 50NL where the rake is more variable given caps. I also play fairly lag stats in (),

5NL, 19102 hands $81.02 rake paid, $72.02MGR (20/16)
10NL, 26318 hands $212.75 rake paid, $206.86MGR (20/16)

25NL, 45066 hands, $1014.40 rake paid, $872.97 MGR (23/18)
50NL, 12376 hands, $588.25 rake paid, 497.13 MGR (29/23)

Stars
2NL - 13015 hands - 20.85 rake - 24.45 MGR
5NL - 10366 hands - 41.15 rake - 43.60 MGR
10NL - 20367 hands - 125.05 rake - 141.35 MGR
25NL - 27362 hands - 327.65 rake - 458.17 MGR
50NL - 31130 hands - 659.52 rake - 969.63 MGR

Fulltilt
25NL - 76070 hands - 1059.05 rake - 1195.28 MGR
50NL - 56204 hands - 1505.60 rake - 1891.48 MGR

My hands on fulltilt happened mostly from Dec 08-Mar 09.

On a related note: I've been playing on FTP for a few months(mostly 50NL) here is some data:

50NL 23.9k hands, 549.95 rake, 790.43 MGR, ==> actual rake in ptbb/100 2.3
50NL Rush, 10.8k hands, 302.05 rake, 347.73 MGR ==> rake in ptbb/100 2.78

2NL 8.2k hands, 16.89 rake, $22.23 MGR, ==> rake in ptbb/100 5.12

I've been getting rakeback and working off a deposit bonus in this period. Between these two I've earned about $602 (202 in rakeback, 400 in cleared bonus) in rakeback which translates to:

66.87% true rakeback (rakeback/actual rake paid), 50.48% of MGR (rakeback/MGR)

My actual rake paid is about 75% of MGR so I'm getting a bit of a freeroll on rakeback for being a NIT.

I'll report back when I have 10k hands with no deposit bonus clearing.

I assume you play a fairly tight style given your actual rake / MGR ratio.

If the stats correspond with what your rakeback provider is telling you then it must be MGR and not actual rake. From what I hear, HEM only shows you one of these stats (MGR or actual rake).

If you guys are still looking for data:

FTP 10NL Hands 25321 Rake $192.01 MGR $258.95
FTP 5NL Hands 53449 Rake $208.46 MGR $245.03
FTP 2NL Hands 21733 Rake $51.14 MGR $54.87

Most of my 10NL hands were played in early 2008; I've been playing that limit again for about the past week.

2008 10NL 25533 hands 391.80 rake 440.56 MGR FTP
2010 10NL 9850 hands 140.29 rake 130.32 MGR FTP

PS 5NL 16027 hands 61.15 rake 53.01 MGR
PS 2NL 5075 hands 10.30 rake 6.93 MGR

I added more data but the results are pretty clear: if you play 10NL or below, PS >= FTP unless perhaps you are very LAG.

at 25NL and above, FTP + rakeback > PS, unless you are working off PS deposit bonuses most of the time (you must be low but not to low for this to work).

So FTP had a lower effective rake than PS in every single case?