As many knows, some euro sites applies this rule, or maybe we can just say agents apply this rule.
Is very common to get 45/50% RB as a reg, it is also commont to have 60+ RB for a losing player who deposit many times...

Seems very clever and not obvious at all.

ty, I knew I am a genious

The article states that “The new Model will not directly affect rake taken, but will likely lead to indirectly lowering player rewards on iPoker Skins”.

Therefore it's just iPoker indirectly trying to reduce the amount of rewards that players receive. They tried to do this by banning rakeback but then the skins just gave the same amount in the vip rewards such as Betfair 50%. This is more of a Microgaming True Value concept than Ongame's essence.

More info here http://www.pokerstrategy.com/forum/t...63#post1961863

All right, so rake distribution is officially going to be a mix of the old (w.c./fee-based) model and SBR rake in some proportion. That's a good news - not all net withdrawers are going to be -EV for the room: those who withdraw less than some unknown % of their rake are still going to be slightly +EV, though not as +EV as casual players.

Well apparently your assumption is wrong, as per this post on PokerStrategy the decision was already made back in July and is not tied to the most recent changes on PokerStars.

We all know 60% rb at ipoker equals a normal Supernova Status at Stars (37-41%) cause rake is much higher at ipoker.

What will happen if the new rewards offered by the big skins to the break-evenish or slightly winning/loosing regs will be worth only 40% ?
(no rake races any more, no extra bonuses for regs, cancel flat deals)

The overwhelming success of Essence at Ongame should be a hint.

Traffic will go down dramatically at ipoker. And no traffic means also no recs to deposit.

It's not much higher in cash (5% vs 4.5%), so the SN equivalent is 50%, not 60%. The situation is different for SnGs, but their midstake grinders get top levels on iPoker easily and, as of now, pay about the same net fees as SNEs at Stars. I expect SnG regs to be more rewarded under the new system as well because they're more likely to be losing pre-rewards (sustain zero virtual balances in the long run) with such big nominal fees.

As for Cash games NL50 or higher don't forget the CAP which is €3 at ipoker and €2.15 at Stars. Ipoker raised the rake substantially by skipping the $ tables.
That CAP factor makes the real difference.

The iPoker rep at Pokerstrategy cleared everything up.

The way VIP points are allocated will be the same as before but the new rake structure just affects the skins + affiliates. Tbh i think that the worse case scenario is that they slightly reduce VIP benefits which won't be that bad where you can get up 90% RB depending where you look and at best nothing going to change. If it does make games softer + VIP rewards are hardly affected than this only a positive thing.

Also the Rep says that Skins have been adjusting to the change that was known about in July, if you look at the amount of rake races done on the site level this has reduced. For example, Will Hill used to have a monthly site rake race that they got rid of.

Yeah the skins/affiliates might know this since July, but they will not get punished before the new year by the new system. So that really does not mean a thing. We`ll see what the skins do after January 1st.

Last person out..

Do you play mainly € tables at Stars? I though they almost don't run, while at $ tables, the cap is $2.80, so iPoker NL€100 has a 3 bb cap, as opposed to a 2.8 cap at Stars NL$100. Whether the currency is $ or € doesn't make much difference to any player, hence the quality of the opposition should be similar at $ and € tables with the same big blind in currency units.

why you think Stars has €2.15 cap and $2.80 cap ? Is it because currency exchange rate does not matter ? Go to school, read some math books

not sure what you're saying, but if you're saying capping tables at €3 is the same as $3, it isn't, that's a common misconception, this thread explains it:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...erally-954239/

My argument is based on the fact that the player pool is about the same at $X and €X tables. Of course €X tables are less accessible to a player with a limited bankroll; but I think that, in the current poker environment, more and more players are becoming 'overrolled' anyway because they have to stick to stakes that they yet can beat.

Another consideration is that a recreational player's bankroll will last less long at a €X table than at a $X one, which would make € tables less soft a priori (note that this argument is applicable to stake levels in general, e.g. NL50 vs NL100); but it's somewhat compensated by the fact that casual players hitting iPoker € tables are richer on average than those hitting Stars $ ones because iPoker is making a conscious effort to promote itself more to 'sustainable markets' - rich European countries - than to poor territories with a grey legal status of gambling.

You could argue that iPoker did have $ and £ tables in the past; but I think that deposit-to-rake conversion factors didn't differ much at $X and €X tables on the same network - exactly because the rake structure in bb was the same - in other words, regulars got about the same portion of casuals' deposits regardless of the currency.

Empirically, when iPoker yet had PLO£50 and PLO$100 tables, the former were much softer than the latter, which more than compensated for the fact that the cap was 1.6 times bigger at the former than at the latter and was hit less often. That was partly because £50 tables were filtered out by some $100 regs, partly because they were frequented by British players, partly because $50 feels closer to £50 than £20 despite in fact being closer to £20, and someone who was ready to spend $50 would rather spend a bit more and sit at a £50 table if no active $50 tables had vacant seats.

I'm a BSc in math and am aware that €2.15 was about equal to $2.80 when these caps were set. But the fact is that Stars are unique in applying x-rates to rake caps at all. Every other network that has tables in different currencies for which I've checked rake caps has them set as a fixed number of table currency units independent of the currency. That has a good reason - deposit-to-rake conversion stays the same regardless of the currency this way.

Given that a reg's $/hand winrate at a €X table is 1.25 times higher than at a $X table, how is it not justified that rake (incl. the cap) can also be 1.25 (or at least 1.2) times bigger?

When these Stars' caps were set, their policy was to cater to regs who do care at all about rake. And Stars consciously accepted that they would collect a smaller share of recs' deposits at € tables than at $ ones, but that sacrifice was small in comparison with the hard-earned image of 'a winner-friendly poker site' they wished to sustain. That was also the reason for setting the $ caps at $2.80 and the base rate at 4.5%, i.e. blatantly 'lower' than on 'euro networks', though not that lower.

Under Amaya's ownership, I actually wouldn't be surprised to see the 5-6-player caps at € tables (0.5/1 and above) raised to €2.80 at some point. Or they can just remove € tables altogether 'to make the offering look less confusing to a casual player'.

Anyways, the facts now are

1. ipoker raised the rake a few months ago by skipping the $ tables and keeping the €3 cap for the € tables

2. Now ipoker raises the rake by forcing the skins to lower the rb substantially

3. ipoker network is nearly unplayable (not talking about fun/enjoyment)

This week I was in a big pot with QQ on a 99QQ board. Then this f...ing ipoker network f..cked up again and I timed out again.

So goodbye to everyone following ipoker threads. This was my last hand at ipoker.

in view of all said above, i would also like to add that my acc got frozen on NetBet,

under a pretense that my address of residence is in a country where corrupt politicians adopted a law that bans poker play unless a poker room pays 460.000+ Euros for a one time license and a hefty annual profit % after that! that's a legal extortion!

ofc, for my small country no poker room is going to pay this money, so now as a reg im thrown over-board, is that it?

It is amazing how players can think such systems could be good for them. They are designed to increase returns of the network under bull****ing about "improving poker economy". Those systems are never transparent and usually even poker magners of biggest skins don't have whole idea how total rake and commisions are being calculated. The truth is that the only result of them no matter how it is constructed (essence on ongame, true value on micro or w/e) players are the only one to pay for it in the end. All talk about improving poker econonmy is just to cover the whole thing up based on most players unawareness and ignorance. Algorithms are complicated so noone could understand them correctly, but end math is simple someone has to lose so they can maximize their profits.

I can't believe also that Ipoker chose this timing for implementation of such system. Players are already leaving network because totally trashy software. Over last 3 months they were unable to fix serious technicals problems resulting in players losing lots of money, but now they introduce super advanced rake redistribution system. You can imagine how well prepared it has to be and of course it is for "longterm well-being of poker economy". It is a total joke for anyone playing recently on ipoker.

Lots of poker players (especially recrecional ones)have little idea how this business really operates, beacuse they are unaware or simply don't care. It is being exploited by the networks and skins, there are non stop examples of skins scuming players, networks closing etc. Introduction of all those rake redistribution system are exactly the same thing longterm. All skin's and network's reps can explain it as much as they want to calm down few players who care. See how little attention those changes have on this forum and pokersites relatively to the amount of people affected. Ipoker is 3rd biggest network atm.

Players have to be aware that interest of networks are competely opposite to the interest of players. Improving poker economy means improving thier business environment and maximizing their returns, never making poker more profitable for players.

^ Seems a little overboard to me. Sure they want to increase there own profitability. That doesnt necessarily mean they are "exploiting" everyone". Thats how business works. Fro what I read its just a slightly different business model in order to boost flow of new recreational players.

They are redistributing rake to the skins that bring in the new players. I don't think it is going to have much of an effect on the rackback. At least not yet although they talked about cutting back on VIUP perks and boosting promotions, but that hasnt been done yet.

As far as the whole rant about them just in it for themselves and not trying to make the poker economy better. That arguement makes no sense at all. Of course they are trying to make more money, they are a business. In order to make more money they are trying ways to bring in new business (boosting the poker economy) by supporting the skins that bring inmore recreational players.

Never making it more profitable for players? Is bringing in more recreatonal players not profitable? I certainly would be happy to see more fish even if it meant a 5% drop in RB or so.

I'm not totally sure about it myself but these crazy speels about sites trying to screw everyone make me lol. It doesn't seem all that drastic to me. If the lower the RB too significantly I will just move to another site.

1. The more rake u pay, the more money u make.

2. U can eat the fish only once.

3. Be ur opponent.

Anyone have numbers on how this is affecting them by now?

I am only getting ~43% rakeback now. i am on 57% rakeback deal. Changed ipoker skin and deposited so new deposit will count as source. Hopefully next week my rakeback will increase.