+1, nothing more to add. Agree 100% with blopp and napsus.

Fast tables are horrible. It's a fact that tables tend to break bc of running out of timebank. Im one of the few regs that start tables with anyone from 2/4 to 10/20, but I NEVER start fast tables. Because of the time-to-act/timebank issue. Pokerstars better do something about it.


would be willing to do this aswell. whatever it takes

-DonkPredator

sitting out isnt a good idea , last time they just banned everyones account for a day or so.

i was just 13 tabling with 2 fast tables, had to leave the fast tables because i was playing too slow , if all the tables are gonna be like that my sne plans gone out the window

Mines are. Time to move on. After 4 x SNE. I needed a break from PS/PLO anyway. Just the kick in the butt I needed. I barely have 25k vpp right now and grinding is too much of a pain. It's way more difficult to play a lot of table than it once was. Tables are way tougher than 2-3 years ago, we now get 70%~ of the vpp we used to get and now the table speed is def going to affect the play.

This is an awesome thread and like everyone else I appreciate all the efforts everyone is putting on it.

I didnt have much to add either, so decided to do some "homework".

I compared the lobbies from both variants for four different stakes and calculated the average pot for the games running. Results you can see here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...WJnNkJCdTV3SXc

I obviously know thats no news for you guys. Wanted to do that more like out of curiosity (specially my own lol), but I really wanted to add something so thats what I could come up with to contribute So conclusions Ill leave up to you guys cause I gotta go to bed (and also because I had the post pretty much done and closed the window by mistake so have even less time now lol).

1 VERY important note tho. Please notice that for NL50 and 100 (check images below), the tables with the lowest average pot were not included in the spreadsheet cause I couldnt add them all in the print screen. So the average pots for those limits are actually significantly lower.

PS1: I might have missed some rows during the process, sorry about that

+1 to everything, by far the biggest issue is rake, particularly at low stakes. PLO sustainability measures need to catch up to its popularity.

I'd really love to see some hard data on stake mobility, how many players are able to beat micro PLO pre-RB. If the great majority of deposits are wasted on micro PLO rake, the economy is not sustainable.

Every couple weeks someone in our noob-thread asks how high he should start PLO. I generally answer: "as high as you can afford". I feel really bad for the players trying to get a feel for the game at PLO2-10 because they wanna apply some BRM.

PLO has great potential with the recreationals, surprisingly often my player searches on whales show them playing a $5 holdem SNG while 1-tabling PLO400. I think this illustrates the "fun factor" of PLO really well. Stars should tap into this with all their might, the Sunday PLO major would be a great start.

All the reasons Roy brought up for favoring stars are valid, but it's clear that the claim about the lowest rake in the industry is controversial.

If we wanna put pressure on Stars, we need to openly discuss migration, the where and the why of it. If we don't have an option, Stars will charge us the maximum cause we keep coming back. Sit-out strikes won't work, and frankly they amount to sabotaging a legit business that we happen to disagree with.

Roy, I disagree with your sentiments about which type of player Stars favours.

Deposits have high processing fees associated. I'd wager that the weekend rec player who deposits $500 to spin up but loses it within 200 hands, isn't profitable for stars.

So obviously, regular, break even grinders who rake nonstop are the favored player type.

Depositors are required to provide cash injections to the economy, but they don't necessarily generate profits for Stars.

Stars have a lower gross rake structure than places like Ipoker. 4.5% vs 5% raked and a lower rake cap as well.

However, since I have the patience of a dog with ADHD, I haven't looked at the rakeback equivalents of Ipoker skins contra the Stars VIP program. If anyone has those numbers, it would be interesting to see what the industry comparison is. My first-glance feeling is that Ipoker give back a good deal more than the Stars VIP program, even at relatively low volume.

I'm not sure if the disparity would be enough to warrant a move, for reasons of player pool, security, etc.

Just playing devils advocate but but lets compare 200NLHE with 100PLO (both 6m)
Expressed in $

SD: both about 180$/100h
Rake paid (minus 40% rb): both about 7$/100h
Winrate for the average skilled reg after rb: (assume 1bb/100 for NLHE, 2bb/100 for 100PLO): 6.5$/100h

Now how is PLO raked more than NLHE?

Comparing 100PLO to 100NLHE is like comparing NL to Limit. A PLO game with same blinds as NLHE is just a bigger game.

^
I don't see any evidence supporting that winrates are higher in PLO, in fact it could be quite the opposite. I don't know anyone with good sample sizes (500k hands or so) with >3ptbb/100 winrates at smallstakes PLO, but plenty of guys have done that in NL. Usually the "PLO winrates are higher" argument is based on results of 100-300k hands of biggest winners at certain stakes shown by tracking sites, and obviously on a game with ~200bb/100 SDs you'll have breakeven regs showing up with great winrates over sample sizes like that. There is plenty of proof that NL 6max is realistically beatable for >3ptbb/100 (you're one yourself, unless I'm confusing you with someone else), but there isn't really such evidence for smallstakes PLO.

Also PLO games have become much tougher in last year or two. Friend of mine has played SSPLO for years and had ~4ptbb/100 EV winrate a few years ago, last year he played about half a million hands with ~1ptbb/100 EV winrate. The games have definitely gotten tougher faster than NL in last 1-2 years, so if you're comparing samples collected in last few years you have to take that into account.

FWIW I do partially agree with what you're saying, it's not entirely fair to compare PLO and NLHE with same blinds levels like that. We're complaining about PS treating them as the same game, but in a way a lot of people in this thread are also doing the same (when they're demanding same bb/100 rake). If we're making such comparison, PLO100 should land somewhere in between of NL100 and NL200 in my opinion. Currently it's NL100 < NL200 < PLO100.

I feel the same way.

For me, the main focus of this thread is not about rake. It's about when a major decision about cash games and games in general is coming upon us, I want PLO to be discussed separately from NLHE and I want the specific differencies of the game to be acknowledged and taken into consideration when making the decision. Rake just happens to be the most painful topic in the PLO games nowadays. It's absolutely ridiculous at lower stakes and there's no way it doesn't come up in a thread about what's wrong with the PLO games.

But I'm sure that Stars don't even remotely realize how much they piss all over their multitabling PLO regulars with the "Time to act" changes, especially over the ones going for SNE in which group I'm trying to participate this year. I'm not a mass tabler, I currently play 9 tables only. This change is going to affect me a lot and it may very well lead to me dropping the SNE plans.

Dear Pokerstar,

I rake +/- $100k a year on other sites than yours (question of habit; player pool etc.; I play mostly on Ipoker). Know that if you were to listen to the arguments in this thread and do something about this godforsaken rake, I'll gladly give you my $100'000.

I know for a fact that I am not the only one that would transition from your competition to you if something meaningful were to be done. There would be NO argument convincing enough, or that outweighs the benefits of playing on stars, for anyone to play anywhere else than on Pokerstars.

By doing something about the rake, you will attract much more players like me, and thus their rake.

lol at the polling result. Does PS care?

Is there any way to obtain a recent and large dataset of ssplo hands? I'm willing to pay a few 100$ for one and i'm sure there will be other contributors.

edit; just realised it will be really really big if we want any meaningfull analysis, so i guess we need a data handling specialist as well... PTR where are thou :P

I'm very certain they do care, otherwise there would be no point discussing these issues by creating these threads. They also engage 2p2 forums on discussions in wide variety of topics, so I would refrain from all kinds of "**** yea, bring the rake down. **** this ****" comments, they are not helping our case at all, instead make us look like idiots.

Just wanted to point it out, like has been said, this thread was not created just to discuss rake although it will naturally be a part of discussion. We are hoping that the variety of topics that Pokerstars chooses to discuss with 2p2 community would be separated between different games, ie between PLO and NLHE.

I'm sure everyone here realises that Pokerstars is running a business and their job is to make their shareholders happy. Neither the players or Pokerstars want to create a predatory environment for recretional players. Pokerstars wants to make money of deposits, players want to make money from the money flowing upwards. One of the concerns at the moment is that the money is not currently flowing/will not flow (in the near future) upwards anymore because of the rake, so it's one reason why we are addressing these issues. These no proof the lowering rake would decrease Pokerstars revenue long-term. But like mentioned, it's just one of the issues. We also need more marketing efforts from Pokerstars regarding PLO, introduce PLO guaranteed prize pool tournaments etc to make the game more visible to a lot of players, since they already are charging quite an hefty amount from us to play the game.

So I would calm down with worries that Pokerstars are not listening or reading, I'm positive they are. Meanwhile we can keep throwing ideas around. They have always said that they are willing to jump on ideas stemming from 2p2/players if it makes sense for all parties.

Great thread and OP but I think this is a huge mistake. Why give PS the illusion that doing anything but fixing the rake will be acceptable?.

Discussing anything other than rake is a huge fail.

It allows them to ignore rake completely and still honestly say "We listened, we tried, and we made changes!" I do not believe there is a possible solution to the current state of PLO that doesn't address rake.

I propose the unified position of: "Yes we have many good ideas to improve PLO but until changes to the rake structure are made they are overshadowed to the point of insignificance."

What I meant "not only to discuss rake", but other issues too. Like I said, rake is a big part of the discussion as can be read itt. Furthermore rake is already heavily being discussed heavily on the petition thread, linked in OP.

I guess you didn't understand my post. I take the position that discussing anything else is just taking time and effort distracting from the real issue. Rake isn't just the largest issue; changing rake structure and creating a healthy PLO ecosystem are mutually inclusive IMO. It is possible I am wrong.

The one thing we know for sure is that the winrate for the whole playerbase at any given stakes is much lower at PLO than NLHE because of the rake. The winrate distribution have to be insanely skewed for regulars to have higher winrates at PLO on average than they do in NLHE.

I think everybody agrees with you, that rake is the most pressing/important matter regarding the health of the plo ecosystem.

However, saying:'plz don't discuss ratholing etc, because PS might only fix that and then we're still stuck with the high rake.' is just off.

There are a few points that need fixing and we should all be happy about any steps taken into the right direction.

^^^ very good point Jeff. I didn't look at it from that angle yet.

Huge +1, hope someone can break some numbers here.

Very good point Jeff.

Also due to less hands/hr dealt AND limitations in mass-tabling such a complicated game, a PLO reg would need a *way* higher winrate/100 to extract the same ammount of BB in any given time frame as the NLH reg.

Jeff W:
I should've pointed that out myself, obviously by "winrates" I meant something like winrates achievable for the top quarter of profitable players AKA achievable winrates for top regs.

Average non-recreational regular is probably around 0bb/100 at SSPLO, making money with bonuses. In NLHE there's probably less breakeven or slightly losing (pre rakeback) regs.