I was thinking about this today while grinding on 888. Sure the games are great but when only 1/2 is running it feels a little dirty without rb.

I remember the days when rakeback grinders were looked down upon. Now that's everyone.

It's strange to me that no real progress has been made in the PLO rake debate with Stars. Perhaps, Stars do not grasp the enormity of the problem to lower stakes PLO players?

Maybe it would help if a few high profile high stakes PLO players were recruited to put forward the argument to Stars? Maybe, Isildur, Hastings, Gus Hansen etc. Surely, if they took a look at this shocking data they would instantly understand the urgent need for Stars to sort out the rake for the long-term health of the games. Battering the lowest part of the food chain into submission doesn't help the player pool size at medium or high stakes either......

The main problem is that there's no real reason for Stars to lower their rake. Not enough competition among the sites. In a free market online poker would probably be as cheap as netflix.

While I agree competition between sites would help I'm not sure you are correct in saying there is no incentive for Stars to reduce rake. From Stars point of view obviously they want to maximise rake but at the same time they do not want to alienate recreational players from staying in the game..... so a balance needs to be struck. There comes a tipping point where the rake is set to a level that hurts not just the players but also Stars as if its set to high it shrinks the player pool of low-high stakes games.

Put it this way if competent regs are complaining that the games are unbeatable due to the exorbitant rake, then what on earth do you think recreational players are telling their friends(and potential customers) about the state of the games?! This represents terrible advertising for Pokerstars and for poker in general!

Fish aren't thinking about the rake.

Of course they're not. But my point is that they will notice the speed with which they are losing. They may notice for instance that their money goes faster playing PLO than holdem! Which may turn them off PLO - which is a great shame because the PLO economy should be growing.

It is growing.

To anywhere near its potential? The data from the OP doesn't look like a healthy PLO poker economy to me. Stars are now the dominant player in the market for many reasons. Does that mean their rake structure for PLO is right? I dont think so.

It's confirmed growing by Steve and Stars predicts that it will take over NLHE with or without rake reduction, but they are aware of the rake issue and are looking into what the best option is. Also don't forget that Stars has already reduced the rake in the micros.

The amount of rake currently being charged is already reduced from the point at which people get fed up and stop playing. That's how PS determines what to set it at, it's a balancing act to achieve the highest profit. Real reduction will come if government gets the **** out of banking and online poker. What is a poker site? It's software, it should be cheap as hell to play online poker. It won't do any good, but the conversation to reduce rake should be directed at government getting out of the way to allow competition. Paying thousands of dollars to a pokersite is ludicrous, imagine paying this amount to play world of warcraft. There's no difference between WoW and online poker besides the fact that pokersites are regulated (to the point of illegality) compared to video game companies. If Blizzard was the only video game company that people had access to they could get away with charging a lot more per customer. That's the truth of the matter.

Pokerstars is "looking into the matter" while laughing all the way to the bank.

Really? I know tons of former online grinders who are in agreement that low stakes omaha is still unbeatable due to the rake. When did pokerstars reduce the rake and how much was it reduced by?

I'm saying that if it were higher more people would get fed up and it wouldn't be as profitable for them.

Sick but its been this situation and a lot worse for fixed limit players, I guess most of us have abandoned the 2+2forum though and thus we are less vocal.

Anyways, I am trying to switch to PLO but obviously I will intend to do so at sites with decent vip-schedules. I thought everyone at 2+2 already knew this before this thread but apparently not.

PLO200 is looking healthy as well.
No need for an improvement, should be happy with the <5% microstakes fix .

^^What is this site?

some underground tracking site which will soon come with costs.

can't tell the name since the 1st & 2nd rule is to not talk about it lol :x

hmm more shady things is def what poker needs.... Smart to post a screenshot too...

Yea, I mean this is clearly cheating as it is a clear violation of Stars TnC.

Rules and Russians? Never happened, never will.

LOOL everybody knows this site today its better then PTR imo, and 100% free and work fine with P*

Splitting hair. Buying HHs is against the rules as well.
I think it's ok if you're doing rake analysis only with it (which was the actual point of the post), but that's just my opinion and it's still against their rules.

Besides I'm obv not using the site, just had the screenshot .

ohhh... so your using the site for rake analys.... ahh that makes sense.

Nah I'm not using it at all but I'm also not here to defend myself vs some idiotic arguments while 90% of sng/mtt regs are using sharkscope etc. which is doing the same like that site just for donkaments instead.

Also not going to discuss this further, the point was the PLO200 screenshot and it's results, not the site or me

Seriously, this is another argument for Zoom IMO.

Am I at a serious disadvantage because I don't use these sites or seating scripts, don't multi-account or use whatever other tools I'm not aware of, have no interest in doing so and just want to play poker? I'm at a big enough disadvantage anyway cos I'm crap... Some of you need to get your priorities right. It's not Zoom that's killing the games, it's shady behaviour like this.

/rant