Pokerstars Rake increase

[Poker Orifice]

Geez I didn't try GG Poker yet, but I only play online Poker.
PokerStars to me is the best.

For tournament play and cash games, GG is great.


This rake increase to SnG's is going to be the death of SnG's (imo). If anything, they should be doing the exact opposite. Make the rake/tourney fee set at 5% for all SnG's across the board. Players would flock to them. (along with the improved rewards system but add in some SNG Leaderboards as well).
Makes you wonder who in the f4ck are the decision makers on some of these sites. Over the past 15 years I've seen so many ridiculous business decisions it's mind boggling. (and I'm not referring to licensing/jurisdiction stuff that they don't have control over).

 

[fundiver199]

This rake increase to SnG's is going to be the death of SnG's (imo). If anything, they should be doing the exact opposite. Make the rake/tourney fee set at 5% for all SnG's across the board. Players would flock to them. (along with the improved rewards system but add in some SNG Leaderboards as well).

Completely agree. Or at least cap the rake for all SnGs at the 9%, which they charge for their On Demand games. Even with the old rake it has always been extremely weird, that we could play On Demand games (previously 45, 90 or 180 man) and pay just 9% in rake. But if we wanted to play a $1 9-man, then the rake was 12-14%. Even when I was completely new to tournament poker, it was obvious to me, that this made no sense, so I played way more 45, 90 and 180 man SnGs than 9-mans.

 

[KrazyKoo]

Basically that will make this format unbeatable below the $50 limit. So the simple message is: dont play this format on PokerStars any more.

Yeah unbelievable, the 6-man hyper-turbos both knockout and non-knockout were in such a health space, some good players spamming game after game but many players just having fun, filling up constantly, even at worst hours. This is taking advantage of those players who might not read rake figures, and a full on genocide of those games!

Everyone would just start to play the absolute minimum on the lowest stake possible in the fastest variant possible to trigger the pp chest. Nothing more.

Isn't the Power Path thing scam? Has anyone actually made it anywhere in real money from the $0,50 ticket? You can only turn it to real money after such a long path and the tourneys are hyper-turbo x5 speeds.

Power Path is just a marketing gimmick, a tool to misslead you from the fact that they are saving up on costs during this horrible economy... Not worth it to even pay $0,01 rake for that $0,50 ticket. I don't even play those when I gain them and the fact that they have been changing everything to Power Path is just taking money back away from real money pools and in the case of The Deal money pool it was full on theft from player funds.

Other sites have started to save up on costs too, they are just more transparent about it. Tough stage of the world we live in currently

 

[puzzlefish]

Yes, keep raising the rake on the addicts hooked on the platform. Really banking on that, poker stars..

 

[KrazyKoo]

Yes, keep raising the rake on the addicts hooked on the platform. Really banking on that, Poker Stars..

Keep 'em at those Power Path satellites so they can maybe win a $1000 from nothing. Chances are lotto-like and it's not really poker, but $1000 from nothing. Very generous.

All hail pokerstars!

 

[iwont20]

Well they have been consistent in their efforts to show the players what their priorities are, why be surprised now out of sudden 😀😀

 

[Suns of Beaches]

Isn't the Power Path thing scam? Has anyone actually made it anywhere in real money from the $0,50 ticket? You can only turn it to real money after such a long path and the tourneys are hyper-turbo x5 speeds.

Power Path is just a marketing gimmick, a tool to misslead you from the fact that they are saving up on costs during this horrible economy... Not worth it to even pay $0,01 rake for that $0,50 ticket. I don't even play those when I gain them and the fact that they have been changing everything to Power Path is just taking money back away from real money pools and in the case of The Deal money pool it was full on theft from player funds.

Now that is a surprising thing to read from such an experienced player like u.

How is it a scam when they give away 50 cent step satellite tickets basically 4 free? 😂

I play this offer since the beginning and won multiple times real money when busting on the ticket bubble (in the 1 dollar sat i try to do this intentionally when i reach the 4 handed ft).

I have 2 sunday million tickets in my account. over 10 11 dollar tickets and dozens of 1.50 tickets that are waiting to be used-all won from the 50 cent free pp chest. One time they even gave me a 5 dollar spin ticket instead of 50 cent pp (which i won 10 dollars off). 1 time the pricepool of the 50 cent pp was directly a sm ticket (which i won too with a lot of luck).

Im mean im not like the biggest fan of this system and yes it does probably take away money from other games. But to say this is a scam and not even worth one cent is completely wrong.

 

[Poker Orifice]

Yeah unbelievable, the 6-man hyper-turbos both knockout and non-knockout were in such a health space, some good players spamming game after game but many players just having fun, filling up constantly, even at worst hours. This is taking advantage of those players who might not read rake figures, and a full on genocide of those games!

Isn't the Power Path thing scam? Has anyone actually made it anywhere in real money from the $0,50 ticket? You can only turn it to real money after such a long path and the tourneys are hyper-turbo x5 speeds.

Power Path is just a marketing gimmick, a tool to misslead you from the fact that they are saving up on costs during this horrible economy... Not worth it to even pay $0,01 rake for that $0,50 ticket. I don't even play those when I gain them and the fact that they have been changing everything to Power Path is just taking money back away from real money pools and in the case of The Deal money pool it was full on theft from player funds.

Other sites have started to save up on costs too, they are just more transparent about it. Tough stage of the world we live in currently

They had lots of the PowerPath games with 'seats added'... now there are only a couple of them.
You could use the $109's for the Sun.Million. I won 5x $109 tickets for SM, from those PowerPath games.

You can also use the $11 for 18th SunMill Anniv. satellites.

 

[fundiver199]

Yeah unbelievable, the 6-man hyper-turbos both knockout and non-knockout were in such a health space, some good players spamming game after game but many players just having fun, filling up constantly, even at worst hours. This is taking advantage of those players who might not read rake figures, and a full on genocide of those games!

These games are a fairly new addition to my repertoire. But yes they do seem to be among the more popular SnGs on PokerStars, and the $5 games are often quite soft. Which just goes to show, that games dont need to be highly raked to attract recreational players and maintain a "healthy ecosystem".

 

[KrazyKoo]

Now that is a surprising thing to read from such an experienced player like u.

How is it a scam when they give away 50 cent step satellite tickets basically 4 free? 😂

I play this offer since the beginning and won multiple times real money when busting on the ticket bubble (in the 1 dollar sat i try to do this intentionally when i reach the 4 handed ft).

I have 2 sunday million tickets in my account. over 10 11 dollar tickets and dozens of 1.50 tickets that are waiting to be used-all won from the 50 cent free pp chest. One time they even gave me a 5 dollar spin ticket instead of 50 cent pp (which i won 10 dollars off). 1 time the pricepool of the 50 cent pp was directly a sm ticket (which i won too with a lot of luck).

Im mean im not like the biggest fan of this system and yes it does probably take away money from other games. But to say this is a scam and not even worth one cent is completely wrong.

Hmm yeah.... I think this is my personal limitation or error.

I have given up on anything megafield early on my poker life in 2015/2016, I play with real money and I just don't want to play if I can't make the top 3 in a MTT at least few times in a week and mincashes are such little money. I don't like the idea of losing money for even that period of time, tainted my megafield life and I never got over it.

Maybe Power Path could be way back into it, even mincash in Sunday Million gives you so much money so it's definitely worth it for practically nothing. I still don't wanna support the Power Path system but I guess I try it with my current tickets.

 

[John Burg]

Is the new rake applicable to US markets such as Michigan? I cannot not find specific detail some of the news mention only European markets.

 

[fundiver199]

Is the new rake applicable to US markets such as Michigan? I cannot not find specific detail some of the news mention only European markets.

The information from PokerStars say, that its for the .com markets AKA the international player pool. So for now it seems like, the US market will not be affected.

 

[evthealien]

Stars just deleted the one advantage they have over GG for micro cash games. Now Stars has the same rake % as GG, but with a higher cap.

No reason to stay on Stars really, unless you like their stupid rewards program over GGs stupid rewards program. GG has better rake, more players, softer games.

 

[antonis32123]

At the stakes that I play I do not care much for the rake . But I guess for higher buy in players or serious players, who want less rake or more rakeback , for them such a change would be not preferable .

 

[fundiver199]

No reason to stay on Stars really, unless you like their stupid rewards program over GGs stupid rewards program. GG has better rake, more players, softer games.

Except that GG Poker dont have any traditional SnGs at all. So that is a major reason to stay on PokerStars. But for MTTs and cash games GG Poker might be better. If you can get money out from there, which seem to be an issue in sweden, since they operate semi-illegally here.

At the stakes that I play I do not care much for the rake . But I guess for higher buy in players or serious players, who want less rake or more rakeback , for them such a change would be not preferable .

Sure. Maybe the rake does not matter so much, if you play $1-2 SnGs or even lower and mostly play for fun. But for the $5-10 games, I play, the rake quickly adds up. And since my winrate is currently a low single-digit number, if I continue to play them with the new higher rake, it will likely become negative or zero. Its less of a problem, if you can get a significant rakeback, because then you might make money from the rakeback if not at the tables.

But in Sweden we get no rakeback at all and also no powerpath chests or anything else. So for us it makes no sense to pay 12-14% rake for a turbo SnG, if we can play other similar games on another site with 8% rake or less. Or for that matter play the 18-mans on PokerStars, since for whatever reason they will not see a rake increase for now.

 

[Pokerpoet2]

It's Sad, but That's the way of the World at the moment. With Wars in the Ukraine and Israel, plus the Ship raids in the Red Sea, everything is going up because of cost's rising in all sorts of different things.
One of my pet hates was When I was Taxi Driving, I would pick up people shortly after a budget and of course if Fuel prices were increased, You would get remarks like "Fuel Prices are going to hit guys like you really hard" and I would say "not really, It's You the Customers who will get charged more for their Taxi fares, to offset the Fuel Price rises" So they didn't worry me that much,
There was once, Talks from the Local Council to make all Taxi Drivers buy a new car every 3 years, and customers thought it Funny that it would effect me, Yet the car they were sat in was only 6 months old, and I changed my car usually every 5 years anyway So They were paying for my new Cars, Not Me!
Cost's are rising the World over, So get used to it because it will never change!

 

[fundiver199]

Maybe I am beating a dead horse now, but what really strike me is the lack of logic in the new SnG rakes and for that matter to some extend also the current ones. If we focus on low stakes, which is, what most people play, then the new rakes will be as follow:

Turbo 9-man: 10-12%
Turbo KO 9-man: 9-11%
Turbo 6-man: 12-14%

I mean.... why is a 9-man going to be more expensive, because it has no bounties? They are identical games in any other aspect, so why not just let people decide, which they prefer, without this decision being impacted by the rake? And why are 6-mans going to more expensive than 9-mans? If anything it should be the opposite. Or just do, what most sites do, and charge the same rake for both. And then the real killer:

Regular 9-man: 14-16%

I mean like WTF? They recently removed most of the regular speed SnGs, and if they dont want people to play them, why not just remove the last as well instead of charging this completely ridiculous rake? And then of course there are still the MTT SnGs, where the rake will remain:

Turbo 18-man: 7,8-9,6%
Turbo On-Demand: 9%

It looks like, they are trying to micro-manage, which variants of SnGs, people play, and the big question is why?

 

[puzzlefish]

It looks like, they are trying to micro-manage, which variants of SnGs, people play, and the big question is why?

Hmmmmmm......🤔

Spoiler

They want more 💰 and less winning players.

 

[fundiver199]

Hmmmmmm......🤔

Spoiler

They want more 💰 and less winning players.

But how are they achieving that by having such a bizarre rake structure for SnGs? Its the same as saying, that if we prefer 6-max cash games instead of full ring, then we will have to pay more rake. Or if we want to play an MTT, which is not a PKO, then the rake will be higher. It makes no sense, and as far as I know, no other poker site does anything similar.

 

[steve01991]

just like the government, keep raising taxes until its not worth it anymore.

 

[mr.fers_one]

pokerstars invented another stupid thing (( everything for himself and nothing for the users... with such successes, pokerstars will turn into a patipoker and completely die((

 

[puzzlefish]

But how are they achieving that by having such a bizarre rake structure for SnGs? Its the same as saying, that if we prefer 6-max cash games instead of full ring, then we will have to pay more rake. Or if we want to play an MTT, which is not a PKO, then the rake will be higher. It makes no sense, and as far as I know, no other poker site does anything similar.

Sounds like somebody did a supply demand analysis and is targeting more popular games. You pay more for what you prefer. Just wait until they try charging variable rake depending on demand, or something similar to that.

 

[fundiver199]

Sounds like somebody did a supply demand analysis and is targeting more popular games.

Maybe. Except that the regular speed SnGs are not very popular and rarely run. Which is why, most of them have been taken down "to reduce waiting times." Even like 3 years ago all STT SnG formats were available in regular speed, but now only the 9-mans are left. They are now going to get a 14-16% rake for $5-10 games instead of the current 9-11%. Which I cant imagine will make them any more popular.

 

[rhoudini]

That is very bad news. Little by little, SnGs offer will be reduced, and eventually these regular sit and gos will be dead. But they will not die naturally; they will be murdered by those companies.

Of course for them it is better that recreational players play tournaments: they probably demand a lot less resources for them. Probably SnGs have a high server cost, because you have to keep them always open expecting for players, but they exact number of SnGs ins unknown: some days people will play much, some days people will play less. MTTs are already scheduled, they are far more predictable.

Higher rakes for cash is bad, but there is no way of killing cash games, they are the heart of poker, where everything started. We have seen that high rake can not be avoided anymore, or we accept it and try to move up stakes as fast as possible, or we quit. But that's really bad. Rake is increasing and rakeback for micro players was reduced. It is quite difficult to generate $20 in 30 days if you don't play almost everyday (only to see $3.50 back).

 

[puzzlefish]

Maybe. Except that the regular speed SnGs are not very popular and rarely run. Which is why, most of them have been taken down "to reduce waiting times." Even like 3 years ago all STT SnG formats were available in regular speed, but now only the 9-mans are left. They are now going to get a 14-16% rake for $5-10 games instead of the current 9-11%. Which I cant imagine will make them any more popular.

These are professionals at work and the changes are often data-driven to have a particular effect based on some prediction from existing trends, with the intent of maximizing profit.

So the fact that regular speed games are being targeted and priced higher, means that the population will be pushed more towards the faster games which will be over quicker and this will generate more profit.

Whether the intended effect will be realized is a different story.