Not saying they should do this and it's sure to be a controversial idea, but I think it's worthy of discussion while everybody is concentrating on the differences between WC, WTA, etc.

Why should micro-limit players get raked so much more in terms of BB/100? Some of the values of -10BB/100 and even -20BB/100 being posted in the rakeback method threads seem pretty obscene... Yes, a few years ago the players were so bad that it didn't really matter but now even the micro-limits are infested with tight players is seems crazy to be trying to rake so much from these small games.

Why should the cash game rake schedule be so different to to SNGs and MTTs? Tournaments are largely raked at the same % with very little drop as you move up the limits... Yes, you can argue that tournament players get more hands to wield their skill-edge, etc but if you just look at the amount the sites are taking compared to what a very good player can make it doesn't work like that in the current climate.

Would high-limit players think twice about making training site videos? Under the current rake schedule it's the low-limit players and below that get hurt the most when the skill-gap shrinks...

Juk

I agree with the premise of the idea but I don't forsee broad changes at the smaller stakes. Reduced edges are good for the sites, there will always be countries where micro stakes are big wages for grinders, and of course thousands of micro stakes TAGs will envision moving up and making serious money even though it's quite difficult and few will succeed. They will happily grind hundreds of thousands of hands chasing the dream

Delete thread please before Stars see it and in the interests of fairness raise the rake at the higher limits to even everything out!

Why rake is a percentage of the pot ? What is the idea behind this ? It should be more like a fixed fee for the service which players should pay for every dealt hand instead of it being percentage of the pot won. Poker room has the same costs running 100NL or 1NL table. It is the same cost per hand if pot is 200 BB or there is no flop at all. Why loose players should pay more rake ?

Because fish aren't going to pre pay hundreds of dollars of rake

because it's possible to beat the lower games for much higher bb/100 than it is for the higher games...

I wrote about it earlier. I agree. Maybe with the caveat that it's ok to have a bit higher % wise rake at lower stakes but they all should be more or less in the same ballpark.
These days high stakes games aren't that much harder wr wise than SSNL (it's not like in good old days when you were winning 10ptbb/100 at SSNL if you were good).
Anyway, if Stars for example is looking for good solution to make people happy they should surely rake higher games higher and make unplayable games playable again with the costs collected.

Here are the average top earn rates for a variety of stakes from 2011:

$5000NL: 10.66BB/100
$2000NL: 6.99BB/100
$1000NL: 3.64BB/100
$400NL: 2.4BB/100
$200NL: 2.63BB/100
$100NL: 3.15BB/100
$25NL: 2.63BB/100

Rake dictates earn rates.

And to answer OP the reason higher stakes are raked proportionally is because per-hand rake relies on deception. 5% to $3 sounds like nothing. I know I thought it was when I knew much less about poker. "You win a $400 pot and get raked $3, and you think that's a problem? Learn to play better." That sort of simply moronic logic is what allows the sites to charge thousands per month for offering a game with a fraction of the complexity of other games that are play-all-you-want for $15/month.

If you increase the rake to a proportional amount at higher stakes it suddenly looks like real money, even to 'less informed' individuals. At $50NL you pay up to 6bb per pot in rake. So imagine a rake at $2000NL of 5% to $120. All the sudden when the site grabs $120 out of that pot people, including recreational players, realize how much the sites are ripping us off for and wouldn't just idly stand by.

Isn't this mostly because of the sample sizes (more hands at the smaller stakes, so more variance in the higher stakes results) and the fact they bumhunt wayy more at the higher stakes?
If you just play vs fish yeh you're probably going to have a higher BB/100 at the higher stakes.

The problem with all this stuff is that the sites won't change something like the rake without netting a profit from it, as the rakeback switches over the years have proven. If they just upped it a bit on the higher stakes games in order to create some balanced thing, that'd be cool. But the problem is many more low stakes games run than high stakes, so the amount they'd have to take would be crippling to the economy of those games, making it not cool.

That said, the above stats are misleading, in that at 400nl you're paying like 3.5bb/100 in rake while at 25nl it's 9.5bb/100 in rake. If rake dictated earn rate then 400NL should be 5.63BB or whatever.

This made me chuckle.

You can extend the figures (they're from PTR -> top winners) to all-time and see a similar trend, but with lower earn rates for the reasons you mention. The reason I selected last year was not to be disingenuous but because the games have seriously started drying up even at small stakes over the past year. It seems like there are a dozen new reasonably solid Russian or various eastern bloc grinders coming into the games for every fish. A couple of years ago it became clear the 5BB/100 winners at small stakes were a thing of the past. It seems like it won't be long before the same is true of the 3BB/100 winners.

My point was that if rake did not dictate earn rates then earn rates would decrease you moved up the stakes, instead they increase. That is a direct result of excessively high rake at low stakes and practically 0 rake at high stakes.

1)supply and demand
2)not really sure why people think it costs sites nothing to operate

Your point is right, but your data is flawed.

Why should the rake charges be proportionally the same at all stakes? The costs of bandwidth, server usage, customer support, etc, do not scale linearly (or at all) with the stakes being played.

And it's not really in the site's interests to promote lower-stakes games over higher-stakes games anyway. Nor is it in the interests of a good player to setup a system where even the smallest game is full of nits that provide a boring environment for the fish who have little chance to survive long enough to get the urge to move up in stakes.

The costs of allowing us to play 10,000 hands does not scale linearly (or at all) with the cost allowing us to play 1 hand, yet we still get charged 10,000 times as much. I don't necessarily disagree with your point, but I think appealing to 'fair pricing' is a non-argument. Online poker is already extortionately and unfairly overpriced, a scheme that is only maintained through implicit agreements amongst the sites to refuse to compete on rake pricing.

rofl...

Def this

then why do they charge much more for high stakes sng's?

Been thinking about this and the only way to 'encourage' micro stakes players to move up stakes is to lower the amount of tables they can play at any one time. That way it isn't in anyones interest to 'nit it up' and mega table the micros, but they will move up as bankroll allows and take shots which is in everyones interest (including the sites)

As a micro stakes player, I am happy to pay 10bb/100 if it means that some day, I will be able to play mid stake, partially free of the high rake. Please don't kill my dream by introducing higher rake at higher stakes.

Definitely this!