Not really up to date on discussions ITT but maybe raising the rake at higher stakes would help? Doesn't make much sense for me to pay as much rake in a 10 dollar sng as high stakes players pay in a $40k pot. Also us regs should be doing whatever we can to keep fish happy. If they are chatty then you should try to chat back and be friendly to them. Always want our fish to be comfortable, and NEVER berate a fish for a bad play. No matter how dirty it is.

In an ideal world, which exists in my mind only, the following would hold true on nearly every legal online poker site throughout the world:
The RAKE should be set at a FIXED percentage (10%?), at all stake levels and all types of games: zoom, MTT's, cash pot rakes, etc.

The RAKEBACK percentage should vary by stake levels, solely on the fact that someone playing at nosebleed levels is coughing-up tons more of actual rake paid.

All types of cash players (NLHE, LHE, PLO, etc.) should be able to sit down with up to 200 BB's.

MTT's should begin with no less than 200 BB's.

MTT levels should be at LEAST 30 Minutes, but no longer than 55 Minutes.

A players reaction time (time alloted to make a hand decision) should be capped at 15 Seconds MAX! Anyone who goes beyond 15 Seconds three times within any tournament will be booted from the tournament/table and refunded a percentage of their buy-in (MTT's, S&G's) minus blinds, pot rake, antes paid and according to their stack size at the time at which they were bounced. In other words: they're never going to get a 100% refund and they'll be lucky to get even 60% back. Buy-in rake on MTT's/S&G's) is never refunded to bounced players. Cash game players will just be booted and possibly fined a percentage of their stack (1%?). Players should be able to bank their reaction time (decision time taken during a hand) and given FPP's (frequent player points) based on how fast they react (the faster you play the more reaction time you'll bank, resulting in more FPP's you qualify for). The poker sites could only benefit from faster play. Though I believe they've misread players, such as myself, that desire faster action by offering hyper-turbos. I'd NEVER want faster blind level escalation, I only desire faster action. Couldn't care less if they cordoned-off lethargic players and those with a spotty internet connection to rot on the wayside in Slothaments. Speaking of internet connections, upon sign-in the poker site operators should be required to test the speed quality and security of all players internet connections prior to the commencement of their play.

Tournament prize pay rates (as a percentage of total prize pool) should not vary between stake levels. 50% of total prize pool should go to the final table with at least half of that 50% going to the final 3 remaining players. I'm torn between the top 20% of the player pool receiving a prize or the top 10%. I'm leaning more towards 10%. Some of these sites run MTT's that attract 50K players, 5K getting paid isn't too bad.

My alarm clock went off, time to make sense of reality.

LOL at asking for ideal cash game rake at 10%

or just ban huds so to multitable you will have to be really good, and also fish wouldnt think that regs cheat on them with informative soft and stuff.

limiting the max # of tables to 6-8, hiding full tables, and make changing sn's every 2 weeks mandatory is the way to go + obv lowering the rake.

Could not see this being shared in here already.

For further discussions on the topic: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15.../#post37801722

Whatever the average rake is across all types of games. I just threw 10% out there hypothetically. Would the average be 7.5%, 6%? IDK.

10% would kill all the games

it needs to be less than 5%

The entire premise of this thread is extremely moronic. Do any of you seriously think that Stars has not thought out the long-term effects of various levels and structures of rake and already set it to whatever amount that will maximize their profits? Short of an organized strike of 90% of the player pool (which player greed and disunity obviously rules out ever happening), the only value this thread can possibly provide is that of coming up with an extremely elaborately crafted, out-of-the-box alternative solution that has a smidgen of a chance of not having already been brought up, number-crunched and tossed away in countless analyst meetings by professionals who do this for a living.

They have all the numbers. They have a near-monopoly on the market. They have a team of industry experts with a better handle on how players will respond than the players themselves. And they have inertia. What on earth is this 66-page thread for?

Anyone who actually wants to take this seriously should start buying as much data as he can find. I bet it still won't be enough.

Could anybody kindly answer what kind of winrate i need achieve ( before rakes) in order to beat $20 rake/ $5-10$ game??

Tom_0309 had actually one single good idea imbedded in all his nonsence:

This could be a very nice way for the sites to handle the problem with slow players multitabling too many tables, yet still letting the players play as many tables they want.

In short: If you can handle all your tables without taking too much time, you get your FPPs, but if you take too much time, your earning rate of FPPs will go down.

Creating threads that inform players of rake effects, importance of pricing on the future of the game, and that get google hits is not a waste of time. If more rake threads means less rigged/'games are dead' threads then these will make progress, however small individually.

I really do think other 'sustainability' issues need to be in a different thread though.

You provide neither a precedent nor a novel mechanism for such progress. However, I'm sure you're about to explain how if I don't like this thread then I don't need to post in it.

The core reason that I favor a FIXED rake percentage on all the tables is in order to give players on all stake levels a feeling that they aren't be charged a higher % due to economic restraints. PS could always change the rakeBACK up or down according to whatever promotions they're running. Yes, nosebleed stake players would cough-up a higher total in rake initially but if their rakeBACK was set to 50% as opposed to a much lower rakeBACK of 10% to much lower stake players where's the harm? If the appearance of fairness was given and YOU essentially pay the same rake as a result of much higher rakeBACK at nosebleed levels YOUR total rake actually paid situation hardly changes but lower level players PERCEIVE the rake structure as more fair. Understand now?

I don't think you understand cash game rake. The % is important, but the maximum rake amount is just as important. Unlike a tournament with a set buy-in, cash game pots vary wildly from 0 big blinds to 200+ big blinds.

The % is usually fixed across all stakes OR lower at micros. See: http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/rake/

I was wrong. I didn't realize that rake percentages were pretty much fixed at cash tables in all stake levels. Though from a marketing standpoint if PS made the rake % a fixed amount in cash and tourneys they could easily advertise that rake % amount on their TV commercials as well as their other forms of advertisements. For example: On PokerStars our rake rate, cash or tourneys, is fixed at: 5%. Disclaimer: RakeBACK varies according to stake levels you choose to play. Compare the current rate you're paying on your current poker site to ours. Come play on PS and keep more of what's yours! Simplicity is much easier to promote than complexity. I'm a newbie so the more knowledge you offer the more i'll learn. Thank you.

Net depositors do not understand rake. Rake makes the game unbeatable today for normal people. If folks would start to understand rake they would all run away.

The status quo where people think poker is a skill game (even though it is not due to the rake for the ones that are being advertised) is exactly what is good for stars and every other site. So this is why rake will never be a marketing thing. Except on a site like this where a few might actually understand.

Our rake structure at every site today turns poker into a slot machine.

Also event though the rake might be lower at stars it is probably effectively higher than everywhere else as their games are harder to beat.

You have to look at rake relative to you win rate:

I.e. stars winrate = 10 rake = 6 >>> real winrate = 4
ie. other site winrate 15 rake 8 >>> real winrate 7

Where do u think rake is higher.

If u go thru the thread u will find that very strong players have real winrates of 3 and pay 6-9 bb/100 in rake rendering a large majority losers (that are natural winners).

So advertising rake would be a dumb move. Rake is to hard to understand for the normal customer. Its better to ignore it an hope they never find out.

Yes you will have a hard enough time finding the rake chart on most sites. There is a reason for that...

Personally I prefer to play on one particular poker site over another due to the fact that a different sun warms the earth there. Variance varies... constantly.

More fair-play bullsh** being rolled out on FT, another pay-cut for grinders and the dumba55 sites get to keep prices the same for another year.

This system will be applied in (near) future....when rec players disappeared and 99% of players know how to play poker properly. Until then, no incentive for the system.

Strong bump. I've been reading some of this thread. It's very interesting.

This is a very good point. The player who wins the pot loses out on the rake paid by the losing player, but that rake does not count towards any rakeback payments for the player who won the pot.

I'm beginning to come to terms with the truly devastating and crushing effect rake has on today's online games. I'd like to think I'm in the 10% of 2+2ers and 1% of all players that understands rake.

Just to give some perspective, if you sit down at a 6-max microstakes table and play against the same opponents, all the money on the table will be taken by the poker site within 24 hours. That's a disgusting fact and makes you see why so few players win. If you're playing at a table full of 5 other grinders, you stand no chance of winning, given that everyone gets dealt the same cards in the long run. Even at a table with 3 other grinders and 2 semi-weak players, you stand very little chance of making money. Literally the only way of winning is if there's someone at your table giving away their money by making huge mistakes, and they need to give it away sooner rather than later. Even getting a good rakeback deal will not help. The money will still all be taken by the site on that particular microstakes table, just at a slightly slower rate.

You need to be playing at 400nl+ for rake to not such a devastating effect. But then you run into other problems, such as very few tables running and extremely skilled opponents.

This post someone else quoted is also disgusting. All those players would be in profit with zero rake. Everything just gets taken by the poker sites.

With rakeback even the losing players can break even. If they additionally would play less tables, add a couple of hands more where profitable. Soul read. Get better. The best players here still win the maximum allowed.

At lower limits one can even play bad at stars and still win the same as they balance the results where ever someone is winning too much, e.g. 20 to 30 big blinds minus the rake is very standard, then balanced down to about 7 big blinds on green. But at tougher games where the rake is major, balancing generally doesnt happen at plo, nor limit poker though some boomers so to say get to 3 big bets per 100 till balanced.

Nothing really matters at these limits but the need to play better. It cant be that all multitabling abc players should get to profits.

Limit holdem is very similar, except that its maybe unbeatable for profits at low limits below 2 4, but plo avoids that, just runs into same tough vs. rake problam as low and medium limit holdem. These are the standards and wont be lowered but maybe at low limit poker where its possible no winners exist, counting out new players.

Most sites are still harded on their rake, tightness and or balancing system and the stars next year or so rates to follow, and that in mind i am, as always, preparing other sites already now and they are one way or the other still harder to beat than the current stars, thats a childs play as the rake generally is lower and the cards tend to run normally.

yes u can win. thats not the point.

the point is that the game is distorted or ****ed up if thats easier to understand.

like taking a basketball game and starting every team with a -100 score.

Poker sites/casinos don't care if you win or lose. If you want to beat the rake, you pretty much have to play 2/4 or higher. IMO if you are serious about poker and want to actually make a decent living from it, you shouldn't be playing any lower than 2/4 and even that level is probably too low to make a good living.

Casinos/online rooms are sustainable only if new players are attracted to the game or consistent losers have jobs and $ to lose playing. It also helps to have rich guys who aren't very good spew millions which then get spread around to many different people (see guy laliberte).