I prefer 9/10 handed too and I agree with your points. However I do feel 8 handed is a perfect compromise for players who prefer to play 6-7 handed and others like me who prefer to play 9/10 handed.

Let us hope that 8-handed will play at full capacity most f the time and that we will not see 7-handed trend anytime soon.

If you're a winning player, you should want more hands per hour even if it means the house raking more, DUCY?

One of the biggest mistakes weak players make is to play too many hands. At 9/10 handed the correct strategy is to play fewer hands than at 8 handed. Weak players are playing way too many hands in early position at 9/10 handed. When going to 8 handed, they will be making fewer mistakes as now it is correct to play more hands in early position. So the edge pros have will be reduced. In addition, the higher rake 8 handed will reduce the pros edge, and the higher cost per hand in blinds 8 handed will reduce the pros edge. But it will make the house more profitable.

This is wrong. The increase in rake more than offsets playing more hands.



Let's say you win $15/hr 9 handed at 1-2 NL with $5 avg. rake per hand. This will put you in the top 1% of players. From the table above you see that 9 handed plays 33 hands per hour and takes $165/hr rake or 165/9=$18.33 per player. At 8 handed, the total rake is $180/8= $22.5 per player.

Winning $15/hr 9 handed at 33 hands per hour means you win 45.45 cents per hand. At 8 handed you will play 10% more hands so you will win 45.45cx36=$16.36 per hour. That is $1.36 higher. But your rake is 22.5-18.33= $4.17 higher. Thus, you will lose $2.81 more per hour net playing 8 handed vs 9 handed. That is a drop of -18.73% for a player making $15/hr 9 handed when he/she goes to 8 handed. Enjoy playing 18.73% more hours to make the same as you would 9 handed.

So will this would be good for big-winning players as they can still win but the more marginal nit types will get knocked out and thus the game will get better and the big winners will win even bigger?

You need to calculate cost per hand, not cost per hour. Cost per hour is meaningless if the hands per hour goes up. Also capping the rake means that the cost/dollar raked/hand will also go down. For many many reasons this model is flawed.

The cost per hand is there to calculate.


9 handed at 33 hands per hour at $5 avg. rake takes off $165/hr divide by 9 players is 165/9/33= 55 cents per hand. 8 handed at 36 hands per hour at $5 avg. takes off $180/hr divided by 8 players is 180/8/36=62.5 cents per hand. 62.5/55= 13.6% higher rake per hand per player. That is even worse than the 9.09% total rake increase per hour. So the stats are not meaningless. They actually understate the damage 8 handed does vs. 9 handed.

This is a very simplistic way of looking at it. Sure, preflop hand selection is important, but is only a small way in which a very skilled player can gain a big edge on the rest of the field.

By playing 10-handed, it actually knee-caps a good pro b/c there are simply too many players to wade thru making preflop hand selection too valuable. The pro won't be able to navigate trickier hands b/c 1 or 2 of the nits will be showing up w/big hole cards. That being said, the better player will still find spots to push around the nits and less skilled players, they will just be much rarer than playing a shorter table.

Once you get down to 8-handed, 6-handed, etc. then post-flop play becomes much more important and this is where the skilled pro will be printing money over the rest of the field and really be able to grow his edge and winrate. He'll be paying more rake per hand, but this will be more than offset by an increased edge over the field.

Sure, if your only assets as a poker player are disciplined preflop hand selection, patience, set mining, etc. (aka a nit), then a 10-handed table will be a much better option for you. But for a skilled player with a well rounded game looking to win the most money possible, the shorter the table gets, the better it will be for him.

No what I’m saying is that a $2000 pot on a table with a $5 up to 10% cap is wayyyyyy better than a 40 dollar pot that doesn’t reach max rake but is raked at the full 10%. DUCY?

Someone who wins $30/hr at 2/5 is making ~$1/hand so rake isn't increasing enough to offset their increase in WR due to getting more hands an hour. Even if they play in a time rake game that increases from $5/hh to $6/hh and you deduct the $2 from their hourly, they would still be making more playing 8handed than 9handed due to getting more hands.

Online, winrates are higher at HU, which are higher than 6m, which are higher than FR.

For similar reasons, someone who has bad preflop discipline will lose much faster at 8h than 10h. Everything fossilkid said was dead on.

what he said.

While its true casinos might make a little more 8 vs. 9handed , many players would also be willing to pay more to see/play more hands per hour.

So doesn't seem like a big deal.

Does anyone bother to do any math before just spouting off what they think is true without verification? A $30/hr winner at $2-5 9-handed wins 90.9 cents per hand. At 8 handed, he wins $32.72 per hour before account for increased rake. Rake (at avg. of $5/hand) goes from $18.33/hr 9-handed to $22.5/hr 8-handed or up by $4.16. 32.72-4.16=$28.56 win rate 8 handed vs $30 9 handed. A drop of 4.8%.

So go play a game where they fold everything except TT+ AJo+ ATs+ KQs... they'll pay barely any rake at all! Win rates must be massive in those games!

Seriously, I don't think your model is at all meaningful since you seem to be unwilling to engage with the idea that hitting the max rake every hand doesn't interact with your win rate as much as you think. Imagine a game where someone is straddling all in for $500 every hand at a 5/5 game. The rake will reach the max, but someone with a big bankroll could massively crush that game in the long run. But... oh no! They hit the max rake every hand! By your model, that means they'll be losing in the long run compared to a nitty game where max rake is never hit.

If your model doesn't work in a qualitative sense, it's probably time to re-evaluate if you're modeling reality correctly.

yes you are. stop championing 9-10 handed poker or at least admit you're a huge nit.

Your winnrate isn’t the same from every position. Players win far more on the btn vs utg. Switching from 9 to 8 handed removes the position outside of the blinds where winnrate is the lowest. You see more hands from the higher winnrate positions and more blinds. Your skill level determines if that is a net negative or a net positive.

Someone asked how it’s possible for 8 handed to be better for whales and pros (i.e. where is the money coming from). The money comes from decreasing the winnrate of nits. Their main edge comes from playing patiently preflop and waiting to cold deck the whales. Forcing them to play more hands even against whales exposes them. This is why they hate it even if they can’t articulate exactly why it’s bad.

you're making a massive mistake in not realizing his win rate per hand played is more 8 handed than 9 handed and he's getting more hands per hour. you think he's only increasing his win rate because he gets more hands.

When poker rooms opened up again everything by me was 7 handed and I was sure i'd have a much higher win rate 7 handed than I did 9 handed, put in a ton of hours because I knew this wouldn't last forever and did just that. Small sample size blah blah. Live players suck at poker, and suck even more the shorter you get. They still play way too many hands preflop and most of them fold way to much post flop (with a few really fun ones who don't fold nearly enough postflop.)

Anyone who makes more money playing 9 handed than 8/7 handed isn't remotely good at poker, but I admit these players do exist.

more nonsense.

casinos now know they can fill poker tables 7-8 handed and that they can't (based on past live experiments) any shorter than that. the casino can't force people to play.

I already laid it out for them clear as day why this is the case. They either choose to ignore it or are unable to get past level 1 thinking of focusing only on rake paid per hour. Seems pointless even engaging further.

In fact what you say is nonsense, otherwise, why didn't casinos do it from before if they knew they could fill 7-8. If all casinos decide to make it 4-handed tomorrow, they will till fill up. but if only one does, it will not go. So casinos found the perfect time not to go back to 9-handed.

The simplest explanation is this: anything better (more money) for the casinos is worse for players (more money taken from players)!

Even Mason himself listed it in his bad things topic!

Casinos make more money replacing poker tables with slot machines.

I am worried for the future of live poker in Australia where wages are high and companies/casinos are very greedy.

That would be an issue if seeing everything is difficult.
Also, it wouldnt fix my problem if they got bigger tables but then just sat more people at them.

Im glad to hear this being discussed. I might be in the minority here where my only concern is space, but seriously they sat me 10 handed in cash game in Tunica once and it was just too crowded to be any fun.

The only thing good about 10 handed tables is that it gives the fish a chance to play 56 sooted from super utg.

I wonder what percentage of poker rooms could afford to lose a larger percentage of rake-sensitive players?

Generally speaking and oversimplified, the majority of other players don’t like them for various reasons including them usually playing tight. Dealers don’t like them because they’re tipping below average. Casinos don’t like them because most of them don’t play table games, or spent a lot of money at restaurants and for whatever other entertainment the casino provides.

But they’re still a pretty important part of the eco-system at a lot of places and losing them might mean not having a game at all.