Hi,

I been playing poker a long time, mainly Fixed Limit and tournaments online, albeit, not as much recently.

Rakeback has a huge effect on limit poker. I see on forums that people say that you need to be playing $3/$6 and above to really be worth it. What is the difference in rakeback on say $0.5/$1, $1/$2 and $3/6, $5/$10 and above ?

Also, pokerstars has changed hugely with the awful chests - is it really worth playing limit poker at all on Pokerstars with these "rewards" ? - what are the better sites ?

1-2.5% https://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/rake/

Internet micros are only worth it if you know how to properly exploit the weakest players.

I just had a sit today where I played some guy heads up on a site with bad rake, and this issue was illustrated perfectly.

He was a very persistent aggro who wouldn't let it go, so instead of my usual phase 1 fight maniac with calling station to break him, I had to turn it on hard on him. We were capping preflop. Then I spread it to the turn.

The pots were so high that we were maxing the rake frequently, a vast majority preflop. After an hour or so, I was even, but he was down 30 or so big bets. I was running so-so, but he was so bad, and the pots were so big.

In this case, to be profitable, preflop pots need to be better controlled, or the mania needs to infect all streets.

it's always a trade-off between soft games with low rewards, and tougher games with higher rewards. unfortunately, the online poker landscape hasn't been moving in a very useful direction in either of those categories: lhe games have been getting tougher for years, and sites (notably stars) have been lowering rewards.

if stars lower stakes games are still soft (multiple limpers or coldcallers per hand), then they're probably still beatable for a bit, even with low rakeback/rewards. bovada/bodog/ignition (all same network) follows a similar pattern of low rewards, but i think their rake is higher. i believe only above 4/8 or 5/10 is that site really beatable. acr/bcp/true (all same network) has higher rewards (flat 27% rb) and perhaps still some softer games at the lower stakes. they might be worth looking into.

The boom is long over and I suspect this pattern is just the natural progression toward long term high value business models.

Assuming (players that quit poker this year) is roughly equivalent to (new players that just turned 21), total rake paid by online poker players is no longer a function of a growing game, but instead total rake paid may actually be under a reduction phase, both as a total and per player(if games don't run as often as they used to, rake paid per player/time will be a smaller value than it was when more games ran).

Yeah that's the best you can do right now without a special rakeback deal or having qualified for exclusive rewards as an established player.

Tldr

Highstakes > Rakeback at lower stakes

UNLESS

You can get 100% rakeback as a prop or via bonuses.

Dont think prop option is available anymore but nothing better than HUHU and 2 tables of 6max LHE w 100% rake back

However, that's not necessarily the best effective rake rate. For example:

I play on swcpoker and I pay immediate rake of 2.5% per pot that I win, capped at a reasonably standard value(I forget but it's normal). I qualify for 20% rakeback(new players get 5% rakeback and this progresses as you play more) paid daily. 80% of 2.5% = 2% effective rake paid per pot that I win.

This is quite competitive.