Is this just a money grab by casinos since they will make more money in rake 8 handed cash games vs. 9 handed? Games used to be 10 handed, then they went to 9. Now 8. Really? Often with 1 or 2 players walking or waiting for a new player, games will actually be 7 or 6 handed a lot of the time. Often you could get a rake reduction 6 handed, now I wonder if it won't occur until 5 handed if at all. The fact that tournaments are remaining 9 handed is the tell. Pros might favor 8 handed as they feel it might give them an edge, but in the long run, more money will be drained from the poker economy via higher rake and fewer tourists wanting to play short-handed.

I really thought this required a dedicated thread, so thanks for doing so, hopefully this will get enough attention.

8 handed is a rake trap, and you can think of many reasons why it is bad:

1. More hands per hour per table, so more rake.
2. More hands per hour per player, i would consider this as balance.
3. More rake for the same number of players in the room: think of 40 players playing 1-3, on 10 handed tables, 4 tables with 25 hands per hour average, this is 100 hands per hour. On 8 handed, with 5 tables and 30 hands per hour, this is 150 hands (50% more rake, this is worst case for the casino!!).
4. Worst scenario happens when players start to leave at thee end of the night and tables start to break, with 8 handed you will have 4 tables going on with 5, 6, 7, 7 players! So you cannot break a table! These can fit into 3 9-handed tables! so the rake difference is huge here (more than 50%).
5. Less money on the table.
6. Faster loss for gamblers and recs.
7. Faster table break
8. Higher influence for empty seat: when a player leaves or walks out from the table on 10 ( or 9 handed), players do not feel much difference. However going from 8 handed to 7 handed, or to 6 handed out!!
You can list many other situations why this is bad.
9. More waiting time and longer lists, which will drive recreational away from the game.
10. ...

The worse is: when some manager asks floor why not seating more players, what would the floor answer: more comfort and space for players? Better open range for the pros? more hands on the button for the pros? No, floor will say it is more rake and more revenue for the casino, so the manager will ask why not adding more tables? or even why not making tables smaller and adding more tables !! and you know where will this end up:7 handed, and then 6 handed !!!

if you min/max rake to number of player. 8 is best spot for house.

at 7 handed the reduction in pot sizes start overtake the benefit of hands per hour. 6 gets worse. at

I think players will adjust to 8 and it will become norm over 9 for cash.

For tournaments... sardines in a can is best for house and only issue there is pushback by players. They'd deal 15 handed if they could .

My casino went to 7 handed. Only reason I been going.
9/10 handed just way too slow. Not enjoyable at all.

Went to a poker club in NH that was 6 handed. That was dope but the recs would get annoyed when a player was walking/there was an empty seat.

7 is perfect IMO, 8 is bearable.

I generally prefer short handed getting to play more hands, but in a $5+$1 rake game, if you go from 10 handed 25 hands/hr to 8 handed 30 hands/hr, you're paying on average $7.50 more per hour in rake, which means you need a win rate of ~$36/hr+ to have the higher hand volume compensate for the rake, so seems like it's generally bad for almost everyone but the house and the few crushers.

If you play time games though more hands are always welcome if you ask me

correction here. Heard from the 2nd ( ) smartest live poker operator I know. He did similar analysis in the past and 7 handed maximizes rake for house not 8 as I stated.

My data was from cruise ship only. His was land based poker room in US.

I agree with above posts that 9 and 10 handed cash is just too painful. I hope 8 becomes norm which will lead to many opportunities to play 7 or 6 as well.

I get people's point about 8 max being the worst for rake, but the better games and more opportunity to play makes 8 handed better for me. UTG 9 handed should be one of your least winning spots on the table, and you should win slightly more on the button in these spots.

One can only hope.

Is there anyone who isn't a super nit who voted for 10-handed over 8-handed?

What does it tell you about the viability of a format(live low stakes NLHE cash) that this is even an issue?

There's a bigger issue if playing 8 handed poker is a problem.

0% chance this takes hold though. No one is running 8 handed low stakes tournaments two years from now.

Waiting list length, smoke breaks and bathroom breaks are what instantly came to my mind. I just can't see how a popular casino that is already at a maximum table capacity for the room would want less players per table and more people on waiting lists waiting around to play that might leave. Also with a couple of jackass' at the table spending more time outside smoking instead of playing the games will be short handed more often especially with a player going to the bathroom. At my local poker room, even before Covid, at least every other hour there was an announcement for some table, "will the players at table 14 please return to your table." You would look over to table 14 and the dealer wasn't dealing the cards because the 5 players sitting there were waiting for the 3-4 people walking around to come back. Although online poker is popular at 6-max, I've seen clear signs that live short handed is extremely unpopular among recreational players.

Shorthanded is awesome, I wish people would play it more. Way more fun.

Mason just wrote a book called "Cardrooms:Everything Bad" about how to make poker rooms better. Even he says 8 handed is bad and 9 handed is better.

Why stop there? Let's go to 20-handed NLHE so the level 1 thinkers who only care about rake paid per player and not potential winrates can all congregate and happily earn their loyalty points and sip their free drinks.

Oh, no, what will we do without the position where I get to fold and watch other people play 90% of the time? Everyone knows the best part of poker is when you're not playing it.

and why stop there? Let's go to 2-handed NLHE so the level 10 thinkers who only care about position play the button every other hand. You can also have half of the table space for you so that you can order 5 Fiji waters with a single $ tip!!

Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia, home of the Aussie Millions, went 6-max since reopening.

Don't see that changing any time soon (not until 2022).

does crown still charge time AND rake?

What is rake on NL games?

Yes, this thing called Heads Up actually does exist and many people seek it out b/c they enjoy making money, but gasp! They pay much more in rake per hour than if they had been playing 10-handed, the horror!

I'm not certain that rake/hour is the best measure. If you wanted to minimize the tables collective hourly house drop simply ask for a set up every 30 minutes, hollywood over every decision, call the floor over trivial decisions etc. Personally, the faster pace of play, more hands/hour, more playable hands/hour would lead me to be more able to maintain focus for a longer stretch of time. I love those wee hours in the morning games where its just down to three or four players and the house only takes the jackpot drop.

So why don't you ask floor to open a Heads up table for you, sit there, and enjoy making money: it is more hands for you, more money for you, more rake for the casino and you don't even have to play UTG!!! Everyone is happy!!!

Do you know why or do you want me to tell you ??? I will give you a hint, if you are able to make money out of poker, you should play the game however whom you make money from seek!

I guess you are a 'more rake is better', hoody style, earbuds addict, anti-social, durr-style tanker reg-kid who beliefs by winning at 1-3 poker you do not have to work 8-5!! So enjoy it while it lasts.

LOL!!!

I'm not involved in this but god D*MN that is a lot of salt in one post.

If you make money from poker you don't just give in to everything the fish wants. It's a balance of how can I make the most money while they will still want to play.

Thanks!!! and most of the fish will stand up, or not sit at all when they see only 4 or 5 Fossilkids at the table, even slots can be more fun!

All this because someone wants to play 8 handed and you want to play 9 handed? lmao you sound like a nit, so why should anyone give a sh*t what you have to say?

Whatever I have said is less offensive than calling me a nit.
Someone wanted to play 8 handed, and someone wanted to play normal 9/10 poker handed, so what is the problem?

Things will return to normal 9 handed. Why would anyone think otherwise?