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2) The average amount of rake taken per hand in PLO is higher than in similar stakes NLHE games because there is more action in PLO.
This way of looking at the rake situation is flawed because a huge majority of the "action" in PLO games is illusory. In a small stakes PLO game for every thousand dollars the goes in the middle, probably ~250-300 is going in in situations where no player has an edge, and another ~300-400 is going in where any edge a player has is very small. If you are trying to look at the sustainability of a particular game WRT rake you MUST compare rake with potential win rates rather than pot size.
If you took a 50nl game and tweaked the RNG so that AK and QQ got dealt WAY more often than usual, the average pot size (and rake in bb/100) would go through the roof and profitable players win rates would go drop dramatically as a result of the increased rake. This would mean a little less action at 100nl, a little less action at 200nl, a little less at 400nl right on up the line.
If you guys want to just squeeze out as much rake per hand as you can right now rather than develop a healthy sustainable eco-system, you should just come out and say so. Don't try to argue the rake levels are comparable just because more money makes its way into the pots. Think about what would happen to your "action" and rake numbers if you gave small stakes PLO players the opportunity to equity chop every time they were all in and only raked the money that actually changed hands. If you go even further and apply a hand vs hand equity framework on ALL streets/situations it's pretty easy to see how low stakes PLO players get royally screwed on rake compared to NL Holdem players.
Last edited by Adebisi; 01-25-2013 at 12:33 AM.