I remember this time and it was great.

Then they got greedy.

To realize what the rake is actually doing is to imagine a 7th player on 6 max table. One that is constantly winning, never losing. This 7th player is draining 100bb/100 from the table constantly at the lower stakes.¨

Given this 7th player, unless there is someone losing at the rate similar to chipdumping, its pretty impossible for the other players to win.

Unless they are on 100% rakeback like Scumbag Roy, who we pay in rake.

fwiw Roy is the polar opposite of a scumbag, and is not on a 100% rb on Pokerstars, as he has stated now a couple of times on this forum.

Yup +1.

Even if Roy were a scumbag, there's no need for that kind of incendiary language when we're trying to have a civilized discussion (albeit somewhat one-way at the moment) regarding the rake structure of PLO.

the best thing we can do is talk and talk and talk about it and be sure every low stake player know they cant beat that rake and stop playing those stake, when this arrive, now Ps will have to do something about it, these people dont move up stake anyways, so dont worry about drying up more the field, Ps is doing it. I talk a lot to newish player and many and many have quit playing knowing the rake is absurd, I hope Ps have a planning to catch back those people because they are losing them forever

I’m not going to repeat the same things anymore all over again, except for the fact that it’s insane for an organizing party which assumes virtually no financial risk to charge up 4.5% of the pot played. Anyone that thinks this is fine, has very little clue of finances. Yet it has to be accepted if you wanna play the game, so we play it…..until it can’t be played anymore. Supernovas (I’m not one) just recently received an email stating that there will be rake reductions in LHE at certain stakes, after the game has been declared dead and unbeatable for a while now. It’s like the coma patient’s heart has stopped by beating and doctors are trying to shock the heart back to normal rhythm. Even if they manage to get the heart beating, patient is still knocked out and might not ever wake up again or wakes up after 10 years because of some freak reaction in his/her body. I don’t wanna see PLO fall into this category, it’s just way too fun of a game to become unplayable.

A fact that was brought up by Borys313 in this thread was that micro stakes games used to be RAKE FREE a few years back, not they are being raked to death. That’s not really a smart long-term business plan. I don’t think any game should be rake free, I just think the rake should be considerably lower across the board, especially at PLO. I think that even NLHE rake is way too high. Once again referring to the fact that organizing party assumes zero financial risk (see FTP) for keeping up the games. Imagine stock broker or securities exchange charging you up to 5% of your trade size in commission. And no, it’s not any different at all. In fact exchanges and brokers should be charging more than poker sites since the operations take a lot more resources to maintain and develop

There are a few things that Pokerstars should consider when it comes to PLO rake:
-The next “big game”
-The re-opening of US market
-Existing grinders at the “eurosites”

PLO has been the next big thing for a while now and many people say that it’s more exciting than NLHE. Most of the nosebleeds action today is PLO. Yet PLO remains a small part of Pokerstars business (according to krmont22 who attended the Pokerstars meeting earlier), why is that? Shouldn’t that be a major selling argument for players to cross over to PLO. I see no marketing done for PLO, there are still no major Sunday PLO tournaments (nor a Pokerstars rep commenting about it) and very little effort to accommodate PLO to live a long, happy life. Pokerstars needs to make their profits, but the players AT EVERY STAKE need to have long term winners as well, not just a bunch of decent players who jump on to next stake to grind break-even and lose most of their money to rake. There is such a vast potential in PLO to become the main game, to bring it to larger audience. I don’t know why Pokerstars doesn’t realize this. I have a hunch, which I guess we all do, so no need to mention it again. All I’m saying is that the market leader, a monopoly almost, has a huge responsibility of the continuity and health of the games. It can ruin the games with greed or let them flourish and grow by thinking about these issues long-term.

I’m very optimistic that the US market will open its doors to online poker again. Pokerstars needs to position themselves to catch most of the PLO players that are eager to play. The “eurosites” will most certainly be throwing big signup bonuses etc at the new players when this happens, they already offer bonuses with 30% rakeback equivalent on top of their VIP programs. It will be a dog fight when US opens and I don’t think Pokerstars can just take it easy and think that players come flocking to their site with “eurosites” offering much, much lower net rake. Obviously they can count on their reputation and the fact that the recreational players have no clue of rake, but this is no ground to keep the game on a stranglehold and not let it grow, or players to advance in stakes taking more money up the PLO ladder.

Naturally by lowering rake Pokerstars would initally lose margin on their business, but long-term volume would very likely more than make up for it with players from other sites joining Pokerstars, players from NLHE crossing over to PLO (PLO rake 10% higher in bb/100 would already mean 10% increase in revenue per player crossing over, now they are getting very little since very few players make the transitions, many of them mentioning rake as the reason), new markets opening. The PLO grinders on eurosites should not be overlooked as revenue makers. Based on my experience the play on eurosites is more loose, players are not as talented as the top players on Pokerstars and they play A LOT. Many of them seem to be just grinding for rakeback with very lucrative deals. Getting these players to join Pokerstars would be a very nice boost in overall traffic, break-even players which is optimal for Pokerstars and much more action to the nitty games that I currently experience on Pokerstars. Everyone would win.

I just asked a friend of mine who played 440k hands last year on Pokerstars to run some numbers for me, here they are:

1) 440k hands played by him
2)-$252,730 are the total $ amount won for all players during these 440k hands: (this is rake!!)
3) -17.37bb/100 is overall winrate

->no player with over 7000 hands was a winner

These numbers are absolutely mind-blowing. You can check your by going to HEM tab “Players” and run the report for a certain period of time, minimun hands =1, VPIP 0 to 100 and run the report.

Prepare to get shocked how much money is taken out of the economy to run the games by an organizer who assumes no financial risk of your funds even though the hold your funds.

I would be more than happy to promote Pokerstars any way I can as player and as a moderator on 2p2 should Pokerstars realise the current, worsening state of the games and reduce the PLO rake. I would be the first one recommending players to join Pokerstars games…and since many people pass by 2p2 SSPLO, it might be a substancial, additive effect when 2p2 SSPLO forums get a consensus that Pokerstars is the place to be. At the moment I don’t feel confident sending new players to essential rake traps with poor rewards.

Again, Pokerstars has done wonderful things for the game of Poker and I hope it continues to the same path now with PLO. Players have come to all these Pokerstars threads that I started expressing their views, taken their time to discuss these issues. The ball is now on Pokerstars’ court and players are waiting for the next move.

The rake reductions are a fact for some time now. LHE has different rake structure and the rake has been lowered due to player feedback. I don't see a reason why this is not happening for PLO as well.

Good times.

My god, this is a disgrace. PLO needs serious help...

Just received today from the "2013 Poker Room Confidential: VIP Club"

"Supernova+ rewards are not changing this year and are not expected to increase in the foreseeable future..."

Then later the following. I kinda read it feeling like adding "although" before this sentence:

"Supernova VIPs attending PCA were picked up from the airport and driven to the PCA in style, relaxing in limousines while sipping champagne"

Bread and circuses?

I know VIP rewards is not the issue here but felt like sharing..

napsus, 57 cent/hand wow, but your example must be HS, right?
The highest level I have data of is 2/4, where the average Rake is "only" like 22 c/hd...

ah sorry forgot to mention that the sample is from plo50-plo100. so small stakes.

This is for ALL players in the database, so assuming 5.5 players at the table on average (at least I get this number for 6-max) it's a little over 10c/hand per person.

For 2/4 it's $1,11/hand going to rake at a 6-max table, which is ridiculous.

right antchev, my bad, this is so sick...
Just filtered my *HUGE* DB for plo100 and exactly 6 players at the table and came up w/ $ 0,78/hand going to rake.

Great discussion lately, keep up the great work!



I just received an email from Pokerstars support and they said that they forwarded my mail about PLO rake to“Poker Room Management Team”. Do think they will ignore it, but whatever, I tried. Hope as many of you also send emails to their support.



One of the problems is also that only a small portion of ssplo players actually now that they have no chance on winning while playing at stars. When most of Pokerstars clients don’t now that they are being robbed, there’s no reason for Pokerstars to react. We need to somehow connect to connect to as many ssplo players as possible, so that they are aware of the problem.



One radical solution would be that someone would start messaging at the cashgame tables about how much rake Pokerstars take. A massive spam attack, but that is maybe to drastic.

I don’t think I have seen at small stakes plo thread nobody talking about this? Only here and at NVG. Maybe you Napsus could do a thread there?
If somebody has connections to pokermedias, PLEASE tell them to write about this problem.

It's great to see thread like this !

I think that biggest problem is that players at overraked stakes don't know how much they pay to site per hand. Look at FT (http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/poker/rake). And yea, people still play micro PLO there.

Ran the report myself --> 2012 Jan-Dec
Nr of hands: 1.4M
Total amount won: -1.228M (yes million)
bb/100: - 14.41

These stats are from a variety of stakes: roughly: 25% <plo100, 50% plo200 and 25% >plo400

How do you run that report?

i coach a few guys playing small/mid-stakes and just wanted to chime in and agree that the rake there is insane as far as bb/100 goes!

In Napsus post you can find a discription, but just for you joeri

Hem1 go to the players tab (high nr with everybody you've played below tourneys), there you can set parameters: min hands: 1
vpip 0-100
uncheck the stakes you want to exclude
players 2-10
site pokerstars
choose the period you want to see and press 'run report'

Elglado,

can you please post more statistics ? Like how many players with xxxx hands are winning pre/post RB ?

the rake @ PS PLO games is too my knowledge even the lowest of the industry can you imagine?!

Yeah sure np, maybe wise to filter on stakes, will do a report on 200 and 100 plo later tonight (as i'm playing now). With all stakes included only winners are the 'usual suspects', the good solid regs you see playing daily.

Ahh well was curious myself so here we go: All pre rb as i cannot calculate people VIP status

PLO200: Total hands 600K
Total Rake paid 565K
Total winrate: -10.24bb/100

20K< hands - 1 winner out of 7 --> av -5bb/100
10K-20K hands about 50% is winning this is the group consisting of the best players

When I scroll down the lower nr of hands I have on people the lower the winning % is. Which makes perfectly sense because the less hands the higher chance it is a recreational player. Don't rly know how to interpret this data any furher and i can only set a min nr of hands, so can't make groups to see between xxxx and yyyy hands