Hopefully this is the right place for posting this, i'm looking for some guidance on the sites which are around these days but specifically towards the more micro levels.

I've been thinking of hitting the 'deposit' button again and getting back into some games. For background: i'm based in Europe and looking to mainly play cash games. I haven't decided whether I will stick to PLO or go back to NLH. Either way, it would be good be able to have the option jump into either game. From my last experience on the sites I played there was plenty of NLH action and a lot less PLO games.

My criteria to consider would be:

Rake - As low effective rake as possible (obviously)
Rewards - Realistically, due to life and priorities etc. i'm not going to be grinding 50 hour weeks to take advantage of some of the loyalty schemes out there. If I put in ~10 hours of play over a week I need to consider whether i'll get anything back.
Software - Good UI, stable software which doesn't crash and can multi-table. I've played on a bunch of sites and know multi-tabling lots of games is somewhat a thing of the past and table caps have been implemented.
Bots / Security - Understand that some sites are bot infested and have read some horror stories of people having their funds seized / accounts closed. Also don't want to play on dodgy app games.
HUDs - Traditionally I didn't play with a HUD but understand if others at the table are using it i'm potentially putting myself in a worse position so will probably need to play with one if the site allows. Otherwise, my preference is to probably play without one.
Game difficulty - Obviously playing in games against weak opponents and able to churn out a huge winrate is what most people would hope to achieve.

From what I know, the shortlist would be: Pokerstars, Partypoker, GG, ipoker

Pokerstars
I used to play on Stars but I remember rake went up, Stars messed around with their complex reward scheme. But they do have a good variety of games. Good software. Do allow HUDs? (not really of interest). What's their rake structure and rewards like these days? If I grind 10 hours / week am I really going to get anything much from the chests?

Partypoker
I used to play on fastforward PLO games on Party and then it sort of became dead for PLO. The regular tables didn't have many PLO games - maybe things are different now. The software was reasonable and I was able to get a little from the weekly rakeback. They did used to do a leaderboard too but I think that disappeared + with my potential volume i'm not sure I will be able to take advantage of it. HUDs not allowed.

ipoker
Their software was not so great and i've heard ipoker is bot infested (not sure if still the case?). I think HUDs were allowed too. I did have a 40% rakeback deal (hopefully still active) which means I can convert my points to cash whenever without having to worry about volume. I haven't checked on a tracker but remember running so bad on there and rarely winning when ahead - not even exaggerating! Not loads of PLO action there either and seems a bit dead at times with a lot of short stackers in the games.

GG
I finally upgraded my operating system and GG is an option to play. I have heard horror stories of accounts being closed - not sure if that happens often? Also seen comments about high rake but softer games? I have had a look at different times and seen a good selection of games running for PLO / NLH. They do offer a 100% deposit bonus although I may not grind through it and there's no RB scheme as such. The software looks ok and has some fun features.

I would really be grateful for any opinions on the above sites and whether I should be considering any others.

I'm leaning a little to GG for trying out something different. I've never split my action between sites - mainly because they lock you into reward schemes but maybe it could be a possibility.

You should be able to find the actual rake structures on the site websites with a bit of googling.

Off the top of my head, I would recommend gg for micros. It should be soft, the rakeback scheme is decent for casual players and new accounts, and I believe their micro rake is quite competitive. They should have decent traffic both at nl and plo. Their rake gets much worse at lowstakes+ though, so if you're looking to play higher than 10 or 25 I think you'd have better options elsewhere.

Thanks for the response on this

Rake is a surprisingly complex topic and they don't make it easy to understand. Also you have to look at rake caps etc. I will spend a bit of time to try have a comparison between the sites but it's only half the story. Reward schemes can help to offset rake but some reward schemes heavily favour those willing to put in huge volume and not the players who log in more casually.

Effective rake is the true measure and that's not really well publicised.

I think for now i'm leaning towards GG and then if things go well and want to play higher will have to reassess.

GG's reward scheme in general favors recreational, non-reg, and losing players, and their rake caps are very reasonable at micros (but terrible at low and midstakes). You're right in general that net rake is often a bit opaque and GG is a pretty bad offender.

Stars for example ties a bunch of rb to the "monthly poker challenge" boxes, which vary month-to-month based on previous play. I don't know much about ipoker or party reward schemes offhand, though I think (?) party is just a flat rb model.

Party is a flat rb model. I think it runs Monday - Sunday and then they reset the points for the week. You earn points and they pay rakeback in 10pt increments until you get to 100 points and then next payment is at 150 points. So if you get to Sunday and have 100 points, unless you put in a 50 point grind you're not going to be rewarded any extra. They used to have a daily leaderboard which I sometimes won a little from but have a feeling they stopped doing it.

My ipoker deal I believe should work out to be around 40% cashback. But it obviously comes down to how much rake i'm paying in the first place.

888 if you are in Europe. Pretty much every 6max cash NL2 game has at least three players with VPIP 40 or over. Who cares if its 1% more rake than any other if the pool is always soft. Sometimes every player on the table has VPIP over 40. It usually makes me laugh.

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