As of today, the High Stakes community will boycott 25/50+ games on GGpoker.
Ninety percent of the highest volume players at these stakes have already committed to the boycott.

GG rake historically has been far higher than the industry standard.
But it has gained a large amount of High Stakes action, due to game liquidity and the amount of recreational players playing on the network.

Particularly at 25/50, even with the old rake structure there, were a lot of unbeatable games and seats running.
The new rake structure has almost doubled, and will make the vast majority of 5k and 10k games impossible to beat, and make any battling between professionals completely unfeasible.


How much has the rake increased?


Why should you care?
When playing poker, we all do our best to win. In the new GG playing environment, that is virtually impossible.
It is no longer a game that involves skill and some luck, but instead has become more of a casino game.

Without High Stakes poker running, GG will also lose many customers who are currently playing lower stakes tables, hoping to win and play at High Stakes.
Instead, they may be find other networks on which the High Stakes dream can be achieved.

Assuming equal edge between all regulars, a recreational needs to lose 42.5 bb/100 for the average seat to break even!
The types of recreationals with these losing rates are rare.

In 3-handed battles, it’s impossible for even the most confident player to delude themselves that they can be winning, given the sheer volume of money leaving the table.

Furthermore, GG advertises very high rake back, which is supposed to offset the rake.
With up to 60% being offered in the client, these numbers are misleading and generally false.
We have contacted multiple players to check their rake back numbers.
Some players receive as little as 10%, and no winner receives more than 20%, due to the untransparant PVI system.
We should note that ACR, the main competitor gives 40% real rake back, after charging far less rake to begin with.

Why should GG care?
GG poker is within their rights to set the pricing to their games however they desire.
Prior to any organized action, they can see that there are no more heads-up matches or battles in the lobby whatsoever, and the volume of games, and empty seats with recreationals, has decreased dramatically.

Quite simply, they have pushed the rake to a level where professionals are aware that they cannot win. As a result, the volume of raked hands will significantly decrease, and recreational players will not have anybody to play against.
GGpoker will generate less revenue and action will move to other networks.

As a case study, one member of the High Stakes community raked 600k last year, battling all comers 3 handed and heads up.
This player has since moved all his action away from GG, calculating that less than 20% of his action last year would be in beatable games, under the new rake structure.

The High Stakes community is far more connected than it has ever been, as players attempt to work together to combat different threats to the game.
This boycott will showcase the negative effects of their changes quickly, so we can move back to a more sustainable equilibrium.

What do we want?
Our goal is to communicate with GG, and build a sustainable long term playing environment.
An environment in which it is possible for players to win money and enjoy themselves, as the network continues to generate enough revenue to profit.

We, a group of ninety long term High Stakes players on GGpoker, would like a far more reasonable and beatable rake structure, and transparent rake back, so players can make educated decisions about whether they would like to play.

If other networks would like to take advantage of these recent changes, we are more than happy to communicate with you about moving where we play.
We are a growing group of currently ninety players, including well known players.

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We understand that it is tempting to capture short term EV in soft games, but we will be better off playing with lower rake, and not being subject to further increases in the future.
If you see a friend continue to play 25/50+, please send that person a friendly message about the new rake structure, and ask them to support us. Thanks for the help.

If anyone at GG would like to talk to us, they can contact us via pm here, and we will you to our discord chat.

Who are "we"?

Virtually every single hsnl reg, as mentioned There is 90+ players in group on board of boycotting and som more guys on top of that aren't members of the group but are agreeing to boycott. People are still constantly trying to reach the less known/ lonewolf regs as well.

Lobbies have been empty pretty much since the idea came up. So could look for yourself as well.

It sucks, but it's been clear for a long time that GG Poker doesn't want winning players bashing the fish and withdrawing money from their site.

As an aside 7 bb/100 is the rake mid and low stakes games pay.

Security and deposit/withdrawal fees are higher at the high stakes games.

Thats quite stupid question to ask.

Thank you for the input OP, well written post and good luck to us!

The boycott is already working.
The table count has decreased to just one, and we are currently contacting the last few players who have not yet joined us.

effectively all of the biggest volume players on the website, and at HSNL overall.

As mentioned, there is little opportunity cost to joining the boycott as the games that might run are barely possible to win in anyway.

yes, it is very stupid to be interested in knowing if this is a boycott by the poster and his two best friends or something bigger

I'm struggling, where in the OP is it stated what the rake changes are? As in actual rake, not some magical bb/100 figure

Gl! I hope you all cashed out as that sends the clearest message and wouldn’t go unnoticed

At 25/50 they changed it from $25 cap (already insane) to $50 cap.

Greedstars tried this kind of short term profits grab, trying to take advantage of its dominant position. It didn't end well.

Great initiative! The rake was already absurdly high to begin with and now they just went waaaaaay overboard. The only thing that the high stakes community needs to do is be patient and sit it out.

We have the power!

I think it was decided to display in bb/100 because most pros nowdays use bb/100 rake to assess game quality, it's a better reference point as you can directly assess how much in WR leaves the table and a singular number instead of the cap and % combo which can be harder to work out.

appreciate for live or app players it might not be as relevant, cap doubled at all stakes, these are the new numbers:

Thank you. People were paying this already insane rake why exactly?

So this will end the minute a whale sits in waiting to play. Nice idea though.

Before rakecap doubling, games were still still beatable, though 5k not for much, but now 5k basically unbeatable 10k close to so, 20k with good recreational, and only around 40k+ u can actually not worry too much about rake. Before rake increase you were actually able to battle 20k+, now battling just burning too much money basically at every stake.

OP and the group of 90, has it crossed your mind that GG don't want you playing on their network because you are sucking too much money out of it,
so what they are doing is a form of constructive dismissal.

For complete balance, and I appreciate it might be difficult for you to estimate, it would be interesting to know 3 figures:

A) Total profit after rake and rake back of the 90 players, during 2022:
B) Total loss of the recs and whales you all played against, plus rake, minus rake back, during 2022:
C) GG Poker's profit from the all of the above.

For argument's sake, if:

A) = $50M
B) = -$100M
C) = $50M

Then GG might be looking at this and saying that they are not prepared for you guys to win the same as them, so they are therefore
increasing the rake so that the numbers might look more like.

A) = $25M
B) = -$150M
C) = $125M

You are correct that you guys withdrawing your "labour" will kill a lot of the games, definitely short term, however, maybe not medium or long term.

If we look at the short term and a lot of games being killed, then maybe at the new rake structure the numbers look like this. (based on game volume short term dropping by 80%)

A) = $5M
B) = -$30M
C) = $25M

So even with an 80% short term drop in volume, GG will still make 50% of what they were making pre rake increase, pre you withdrawing your labour.

To get back to their previous 2022 +$50M profit they just need to increase the rec and whale pool by 100%.
Once they have done that they have proved that their business model is correct to increase rake, they have got rid of all the pros, and then it's onwards
and upwards with them growing the rec and whale player pool at high stakes, a skill which we know they are very good at, because it's why you guys are
playing there in the first place, to exploit in a poker sense recs and whales.

Regarding GG losing out at 10/25 and below because players want the dream of moving up higher, this is not such a strong argument by you because
players can just move up stake on another site after beating 10/25. Also, you've stated yourself that even at the old less high rake high stakes it has a lot of you
crushers in it, so it might not be great game selection anyway for someone who has just beaten 10/25.

I am gambling/guessing here of course, but I suspect that GG will say FU as it's my view a) that they don't want you playing there and b) that they are very confident
that they can attract 2x, 5x,10x the number of recs and whales that they currently have. This will naturally happen anyway once the sharks have all gone
because recs will be winning more often playing against other recs, so enjoy playing and play more often.

No, higher rake is not good for the poker eco system, not at all, but yes it makes total sense for GG as a business, as why should they share such a huge chunk
of their profits from recs and whales with you guys, if they can find a method of not doing so.

I may be wrong, they might negotiate a compromise with you, but my money is on a FU from them.

Don't rule out them either, using bots, prop players or house players to start/fill the games, to artificially build games that then evolve into all real player games.

Additionally, they also cross sell other gaming products and sports betting I believe, so money that you would have won from recs will now in part go into GGs
pockets on their other gaming products.

In short, they don't want you.

Hopefully it works out and it can trickle down to 1k / 500 aswell (though I highly doubt that). GL!

From GG pov they want as many games to run as possible with overall winrates being as low as possible.

If games arent beatable with 1 rec, games wont fill, this means when 2nd rec comes and there is a seat available, the 2nd rec will join the running table and now GG collects rake from only 1 table, when if rake was bit lower, first table would fill up, but 2nd rec still wants to play and now there would be two tables making rake for GG. And don't think recreationals loss rate change too much wheter they are playing with 5 regs or 4 regs + 1 rec.

From GG side it is obviously a balancing game, how high rake can you charge and make regs still play.

Just seems kind of odd that GG had higher rake than everyone before (at least that's how it reads in this thread), but everyone was seemingly happy to pay it rather than doing the rational thing, which would be taking your business elsewhere, and now it's suddenly too much. I have my suspicions why

They have the recs, so they essentially can do whatever they want and regs will keep playing as long as games are still beatable.

True, if they can't procure a lot more recs and whales than they currently have. But I think they can and they will and that this is their plan.

Link with all changes pls?