RP, your argument that the casino makes no more in rake in a 10-25NL game compared to a 1-2 game is precisely why customers should want to play higher stakes. They are getting more value for their dollar. I understand that most of the recreational players don't know that.

As a customer, I want more players to play higher stakes so that game still remains an option. I know how to beat short-stacked 50BB 1-2 games and I can honestly tell you I would rather work at WalMart then play in that game.

You and other posters have made good points about keeping the games sustainable for the fish. I'm not sure anyone has addressed my question about why, people in general, are willing to gamble for less money today then they were 15, 20, 30 years ago. Adjusting for inflation, our dollar is worth less today then it was during that time, but it seems like people have not kept up with inflation. If you were a poker player in 2008 or 2009, then the 1-2 game was what the 2-5 game is today. All of us new players back in the day had to grab our balls and sit in wild, crazy loose games, but now people today are content with playing in smaller games. Why?

Your arguing that all of these break-even regs or slightly winning nits don't want to play 2-5 because of the "sharks", but I would argue that this is illogical. If they aren't making hardly any money from 1-2, and they have a job outside of poker that sustains their gambling budget then why not play higher? If you really hate the idea of losing a big pot so much and you just love giving your money to the rake, then why not just go play 4-8 limit?

If you are a pro that doesn't want to shot take at 2-5 because you have a tiny bankroll then you should just get a job and then play 2-5 exclusively.

The idea of grinding it up full-time at 1-2 to eventually shot take at 2-5 could take you years. If your goal is to stay at 1-2 forever, then why would you get into professional gambling to make 20-30k a year? With that kind of income and facotirng in life expenses, how much is your bankroll going to grow? 1-2k a year? Ofcourse, with inflation, this money will be worth even less in future years.

Look at poster mpthethybridge. He's probably got some posts in the stickies. Hes a very knowledgable player and was a coach for online poker back in the heyday. He became a full time live pro after black friday and was still playing 1-2 for 4 or 5 years due to running bad at the start. If it takes an online poker coach 4-5 years to run up a bankroll, that shows you how low your winrate is at that stake in the long run.

Long story short, 1-2NL is a waste of time unless you are playing the graveyard shift deep stack games. The more people realize that, the more there may be a larger market to play higher stakes. The 2-5 market is ok now in the large cities, but we will see 5 years from now. I'm not optimistic.

Cumulative inflation from 2008 until 2016 is only 12.3%. A 1/2 game is 2008 is nowhere near a 2/5 game today. That would be a 100-150% cumulative inflation rate.

FYP

We understand what you want, but the poker economy is not going to change in order to give you what you want.

Market saturation. Gambling used to be a special occasion thing that you could only do when you traveled somewhere with a casino, for most.

Also, No-Limit was a huge aberration and people didn't realize how big the game was at first. A lot of the sheep got shorn during the poker boom.

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that 30 years ago most poker games were limit. So comparing games now to then is pretty pointless.

Thanks for the replies. These were considerations I didn't account for.

No. No we don't. Not when wages are stagnant and inflation continues, such that most middle class people actually make *less* money now.

Totally irrelevant for a LLSNL game.

If that's why you think poker boomed, you're wrong. Poker boomed because a moron named Moneymaker won the main event from a $40 satellite. Then there were a plethora of online games where players could get in for basically zero money. Not because the guy that's never played before felt like putting a grand on the table.

This depends on the degen. The ones that are shipping with any A, or any K, or JTs, or any pair OTF, are easy to play against. You'll have to ride out some variance, yes. But you'll come out ahead. Especially if the moron stacks two other nit-morons first and then continues to GII because he doesn't know any better. Then most of the others play far too tight and limp-fold their money away. SS idiots are good for the game.

Like I said, because they don't want to punt $1000+ in an hour. They want to play for a little while and have fun. Maybe your definition of "whale" is "idiot that drops $5k in a night", but that's just not the case in most LLSNL games (are you sure you're in the right forum??). There are levels of whale.

That's true. But most players don't want to play that big. Period. Again, they want to have fun for an amount of money that makes sense to them.

Well, you're wrong and they don't. They're also not playing to earn $10/hr. They either don't give a **** what they're making, and are concerned more about how much/little they're risking and losing, OR they think they're actually winning a hell of a lot more than $10/hr because they only remember the big wins.

I want to play the game where the fish are. Not the game that some poster *think* is theoretically better. But if you want to move up to where they respect your raises, shame I on't take your money, but good luck.

No. Young people aren't playing because they're flat broke (and some ******* in the government decided that they should be forced to buy a product that they didn't want or need, at an insanely high price to subsidize old ****ers ready to die). If they had disposable income they *might* be interested in playing. But the casino environment isn't the primary problem. Also, the whole table isn't $100 stacks and premium hands. It's $50 stacks that are idiots and punting their chips, $100 stacks, and $200 stacks, and $400+ stacks that are bullying the table. There's a lot more variety than just short stacked nits.


So you have no experience with what you're talking about. That makes sense.

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This change would be ******ed in most parts of the country, because we have rational max buy ins. So you *can* play $1/2 for decent stacks. But the idiots that really want to buy in short can, and then lose.

A fish barely even knows that the rake exists. I'd rather have the fish at the poker table paying 3x rake than sitting at the BJ or craps table giving all his money to the house.

Again, no one cares about the rake. I look at the $2/5 game every time I walk into the room. Most of the time it's a bunch of wannabes that think they're hot **** and can "make more money at $2/5", but the $1/2 table next to them is filled with happy drunk donkeys. Where do you think you should sit?

See above. No player cares. And the house wants to see the opposite of what you're suggesting. So it'll never happen.

The vast majority of players already have other jobs and are playing for fun. They don't want higher stakes.

Have you paid attention the the economy? That's your answer.

And I *really* don't think a $1/2 in 2008 is a $2/5 today inflation-wise .

*You're

Have you met poker players? They want to play a stake that they're comfortable with, that they think they can beat, without dealing with a whole table of "thinking" or "serious" players. Why play $2/5 for nearly the same money with higher variance? If they're slightly losing players moving up hurts them, regardless of their ability to supplement from life income. If they're slightly winning we're back to the question of "where are the fish playing".

99%+ of the players in the game aren't pros.

And a decent Rec player can put up $6k in a year without being a crusher. Then if they discount their losses as "run-bad" it's even easier to keep playing.

You really, *really* don't understand the reasons that people play poker. At all.

Angrist,

Thanks for taking the time to reply point by point. I have made my argument so I will let others chime in on the topic if they like. I especially agree with your assessment about today's poor economy and how it affects the games.

wrt rake, some of you guys have no idea how lucky we are. Casinos are basically sharing revenue with us. Do you know how insane that is?

If I ever worked for a casino the first thing I'd do is increase rake to $10. Nothing would change.

And if it did I'd be happy to get rid of that labor and put slots in its place.

We are so f***ing lucky rake is what it is...casinos owe us nothing.

wrt to why do people play high raked games? Have you met the human race? Why do casinos exist at all? People are idiots. The end.

The existence of Australia's lolrake is proof that we should certainly be thankful that many rooms rake $4-6

Granted, casinos in the US are likely deterred due to more competition, but they could likely easily all collectively double the rake in any given area. If you think people will stop playing because of the rake increase, then you obviously have never witnessed people playing 2/4 limit, the definition of an unbeatable game

I understand the glass half full mentality, but it's farfetched to suggest that players are "lucky" to be getting raked less than others.

True. But those people aren't thinking about beating the game, or win-rates at all. They're sitting in the card room, getting "free" drinks, having fun, and sometimes grinding out their promo hours.

Think about why this might also apply to 1/2 NL

My main counter to Ava is that people go where the games are in most metro areas, and if there are multiple rooms where action can float between, you do have to avoid pissing off too many players.

Why is it farfetched? It's very common for businesses to maximize profit, often at the expense of their customers.

Look at what Pokerstars has been doing over the years.

Right...

The only people who will get pissed off are grinders. Do you think casinos care if all the pro's leave and let the fish pass money back and forth until it eventually all goes to the house?

Ya, but how is anyone lucky? It's like all of us are lucky because we didn't die of horrific car accident.

I've witnessed a lot of poker being played and yet have never witnessed people playing 2/4 limit. That in itself is quite telling. Your example to showcase that people don't mind paying high rake is a game that is largely dead throughout the US.

Right now at Borgata there is a 2/4 limit game going (bare in mind it's Monday night and only 16 games are going, normally they are 40+ with multiple 2-4 tables)

Yes they would care.

1) Regs are a very necessary part of the ecosystem in a room. Without them games don't go at off peak times and less games go all the time. Regs are defacto props.

2) the mere presence of additional players (the regs) increases the rake. It's easy to see if you consider a time game. If 30% of the room stopped playing the room rakes 30% less time collection. it's less direct but in raked games less regs means less games or short handed games which create less pots that reach the rake cap.

So to say the casino doesn't care about the regs/grinders as a collective is not or at least should not be correct.

However the regs/grinders need fish to sustain them and the fish come to the poker room for poker so long as the room can be counted on to have games running. So the winning regs need the poker room too. somewhere exists some sort of equilibrium between maximized rake and player rake tolerance beyond which, purely from a market standpoint, the reg would become incentivized to quit or go elsewhere. Surely if rake was increased to 100% for example.

But beyond market forces there are gaming regulations which at least in my area make rake increases difficult and certainly ensure rake remains less than what would likely threaten that equilibrium.

Never said any of that, you said specifically you've never witnessed a 2/4 game and the 1st casino I opened on bravo has one running. Obv it's not a big draw, just like most limit games now a days, but they still do exist. Just looking at a few other casinos, MDL has a 4/8, Foxwoods has (2) 2/4, Sands PA has a 3/6. I haven't run the numbers, but 4/8 is probably barely beatable and 3/6 might not be

My room spreads 2/4/6 currently 6 total games, 5 NL and that one. An old nitty guy I know beats it for less than a big bet. He is without a doubt the tightest player in the game.

Regs are pros (assuming winning players) are not the same.

It would be in casino's best interest to create illusion (both to losing players and regs) that some regs are winning players, because it would keep the players coming back.

However, there should be no incentive to have actual winning players, especially crushers in these games, because they are competitor of sort, removing money from player pool and consequently remove customers from casino.

Because we are lucky we didn't die in a horrific car accident.

That's a more hyperbolic statement, but it would be very reasonable to state that we're lucky to live in first world countries, to be healthy, to not be wondering where our next meal comes from or if we'll even make it that long. More than 50% of the worlds population lives in poverty, so we basically won a pretty ****ing massive coinflip from birth.

Like I said, I understood the glass half full sentiment, but I would not describe the situation lucky just because we pay less rake.

That's when I used my "one time".

Gfirstwordsinwomb,wasalsowearingdoucheysunglassesa ndearphonesG

You're arguing that it's a matter of perspective, I'm arguing that we are objectively luckily, regardless of how you choose to view it.