The importance of rakeback for Low Volume/Micro Grinders

Problem is only site with rakeback that I would play on is full tilt ...ahem.

Yeah full tilt, 27% rakeback, great software, rush poker, lotsa tables. So good. Though pokerstars software is slightly better for multitablers, i would love to go back to FTP if they still had the 27% rb through pokerstrategy.

very interesting post, made me think a little bit about rake and rakeback, specially when player at the lower stakes!

Interesting post there, you clearly put in alot of effort!

I first thought "Oh no, A wall of Text..." But you surprised me, a very good read!

I've noticed this before in my stats, I have since deleted my Database, but i can remember, 30k Hands at NL6, I won $300ish and my rake was $250 or there abouts. You never notice it during play so much but damn, if only rake wasn't so much

I did get around $100 or so in rakeback though, so its not all bad ♦

my thought is, hourly rate is king. stop worrying about rake/rakeback, and starting thinking more globally about what affects your winrate, and how you can manipulate the situation so that it becomes more profitable for you.

All in all I think the worst decision you can currently make is to play 100k hands/month at 25NL. Even if it gives you a higher hourly you will struggle to improve your game at all, my bet would be to improve your game until you feel able to beat 100NL+ where the rake is much more reasonable.

Interesting post/thread tricky and great to see everyone really thinking about the wider concepts etc.

Just don't forget that without paying the rake you wouldn't have the profit or opportunity to make a profit at all

Poker rooms invest vast sums of money into drawing players in, players that (assuming you have an edge against them which is what PokerStrategy.com is all about ) provide you with the profit over time.

Everything in life comes at a cost, but most are worth paying

Keep up the impressive results & enjoy your poker.

Best regards,

Bart

Originally posted by trickybob
VIP/reward programmes are not set up to help Low Volume (less than 100k hands a month)/ Micro Grinders.

There's no VIP reward system that favours low volume players, because they are not paying much to the site.

Flat rakeback on the other hand does that which may seem better. However, what's the point of general flat rakeback?
Deception. It creates the illusion that you're getting paid by the site however it's just simply means that their rake is actually lower by the percentage of the rakeback (which might still be average or even higher). This works because while you're not noticing the deductions in each pot at the tables, you'll definetly notice when you're getting a piece of all what you've paid back in form of rakeback.

The rake on the micros is HUGE, that is true and should be reduced as much as possible, but I think way too many players are giving up or at least greatly reduce their opportunity of improvement by switching into high volume play to early (on the micros), where the rake reward is still not significant.

Low stakes players don't really have a better rake ratio. The rake is really high untill you get to nl200 where it gets down to 5bb/100 and it get way easier to get high VIP lvls and place on top of rake races and other promos that can easily get you up to 40-50% rakeback.

On nl100 and lower the cap doesn't really matter since unless its an all-in pot the cap doesnt have any effect so the rake is pretty much the same. You pretty much should aim to get to NL200 since the games are not that much tougher and with you paying much less rake it really evens out the toughness of the games.

Apologies for the slow response time. My daughter has informed me that if I start a thread, I should respond to those who take the time to post on it.

@ mallikarim & fractalsonfire

yes I totally agree, FT had it all - great software, rakeback, reasonable bonuses on top of the rakeback and plenty of choice - including Rush. Pity it was run by idiots/crooks.

@ Quadzzzzzzz & MattDenness & EagleStar88

Ty for feedback. Eagles, you are of course right, but I still think the amount we micro players pay is too high ... a different topic/thread perhaps.

@conall88

Whatever your hourly rate is, depending on where you play, you can add to the bottom line of gross income. By making an informed choice you could improve your effective hourly rate quite considerably by choice of site. There are many pros playing at low/medium stakes who do not obtain significant hourly rates, but make their living from rakeback and rake races. What I think counts most is the money in your account.

@ esuohdla

I agree, but it works for some. I have come to the conclusion, for me at present, that quality is more important than quantity - but this is more variance susceptible and that in turn makes it more difficult to maintain quality play. It's a tough balancing act.

@ Tarhonya & MatejM47

I think you both make valid points and demonstrates the need for more info/research into rates before making decisions.

Ty all for posting.

There are 2 things to look in micro stakes rake system. What is the rake percentage and cap? And what kind of rakeback you might get with rakeback, bonuses and promotions (rake races, iron man etc.).

Some players think that rakeback isn't a big deal, if you beat the games you beat the games. Clearly they have no idea of how big of an impact the rake does in micros.

I have played 9290 hands this year in PLO10. I have paid $302 in rake. That is 30 buy ins! So with 30% rakeback I would have get 10bin back. Now if one wants to move up in stakes, that is a lot of money. If my winrate was 10bb/100, I would have still won more from the rakeback.

Those hands were played with 6% rake. If the rake would have been 5%, I would have paid $251 in rake. So without any rakebacks, that 1% more in rake means $51 less winnings in 9290 hands. In other terms, it takes over 5bb/100 away from my winrate.

Now, if we think that rakeback is useless, here is an example. Those same hands, in network of 6% rake without any rakeback and then in 5% rake + 30% rakeback. Player has won 10bb/100 in those hands with 6% rake:

6% rake: winnings 10bb/100.
5% rake + 30% rakeback: 24bb/100

So there is a BIG difference.

Please also note that 6% rake with 45% rakeback is worse than a 3% rake without any rakeback.

But I also agree in that when playing at micros, you shouldn't be focused to only winnings. Good player will win even without rakeback, so focus on improving your game. If you barely beat NL10, don't rush to NL25 or higher.

micro PLO rake ~30 bb/100

I feel RB should be COMPLETELY disregarded at the micro stakes. This is for the simple reason that at those level your ONLY focus should be on improving your game, i.e. playing a low amount of tables and focusing intensely on each hand. Chasing RB leads to mindless grinding which will keep you from getting better. (also RK at micro is to low to even consider).

Originally posted by Jehryn
I feel RB should be COMPLETELY disregarded at the micro stakes. This is for the simple reason that at those level your ONLY focus should be on improving your game, i.e. playing a low amount of tables and focusing intensely on each hand. Chasing RB leads to mindless grinding which will keep you from getting better. (also RK at micro is to low to even consider).

I disagree with this post. Yes we should focus on improving in order to move up but rakeback can move you up a lot faster. As Kyberi pointed out, the rake at the micros is huge, I mean, to even beat PLO20 you need a 22bb/100+ edge over the opposition, which is huge in my opinion. Players who improve their game regularly will achieve this, but the rake makes a huge dent in your winrate when you as a player are already beating the game, so with a nice 50% rakeback deal or something you can move up much quicker and therefore get to a point where rake isn't completely crushing you.

Imo rakeback is vital to micro stakes players who are striving to move up. If we say the difference in skill level between PLO10 and PLO50 isn't that big (Which I don't believe it it) then the effect of the difference in rake is huge, since PLO10 rake is over 25bb/100 and I think PLO50 rake is about 15bb/100. This means that a very good PLO10 player could probably beat PLO50, but without rakeback it makes it a very slow process to build your bankroll up enough to reach PLO50, even though you could well be good enough to beat it.

Bit of a rambling post I know but i'm in a rush ♦

Originally posted by Wriggers

Originally posted by Jehryn
I feel RB should be COMPLETELY disregarded at the micro stakes. This is for the simple reason that at those level your ONLY focus should be on improving your game, i.e. playing a low amount of tables and focusing intensely on each hand. Chasing RB leads to mindless grinding which will keep you from getting better. (also RK at micro is to low to even consider).

I disagree with this post. Yes we should focus on improving in order to move up but rakeback can move you up a lot faster. As Kyberi pointed out, the rake at the micros is huge, I mean, to even beat PLO20 you need a 22bb/100+ edge over the opposition, which is huge in my opinion. Players who improve their game regularly will achieve this, but the rake makes a huge dent in your winrate when you as a player are already beating the game, so with a nice 50% rakeback deal or something you can move up much quicker and therefore get to a point where rake isn't completely crushing you.

Imo rakeback is vital to micro stakes players who are striving to move up. If we say the difference in skill level between PLO10 and PLO50 isn't that big (Which I don't believe it it) then the effect of the difference in rake is huge, since PLO10 rake is over 25bb/100 and I think PLO50 rake is about 15bb/100. This means that a very good PLO10 player could probably beat PLO50, but without rakeback it makes it a very slow process to build your bankroll up enough to reach PLO50, even though you could well be good enough to beat it.

Bit of a rambling post I know but i'm in a rush ♦

The focus on moving up as fast as possible in itself is wrong imho.

Regardless whether you play PLO10 or PLO50, the focus should always be to improve as a poker player. The rake at PLO10 is indeed massive, but that also means that when you beat PLO10 consistently, you know you are ready for the higher limits. Simply playing a higher limit in the hopes that the decreased rake is more than the decreased profits from playing against better players is shortsighted and most likely unsuccesfull. Also, what will you do if a downswing forces your BR below a safe level for PLO50? Moving down isn't exactly an option since you can't beat the rake and playing PLO under BRM is a certain road to disaster.

Since the mental state of a player is also Incredibly important with PLO, I believe it is important to build a solid foundation at a low level to build confidence, poker skills and to have a place to return to when/if a massive downswing crushes your BR.

The faster you try to run, the more painful the fall ♦

What i'm saying is that if someone already has the skill level to beat PLO10, and is beating it for, let's say 4bb/100, this actually means he has ~30bb/100 edge over his opponents, and with a 50% rakeback deal he will be beating it for more like 16bb/100. Which will mean he can move up to a level that isn't much different skill wise, but has much lower rake 4 times faster than if he was playing without rakeback.

I'm obviously not condoning being a rakeback whore and getting a 70% rakeback deal, not improving and playing breakeven poker in order to build a bankroll to move up, but I am saying that a rakeback deal significantly speeds up the process of moving through the limits if you're already a winning player.

I feel RB should be COMPLETELY disregarded at the micro stakes. This is for the simple reason that at those level your ONLY focus should be on improving your game, i.e. playing a low amount of tables and focusing intensely on each hand. Chasing RB leads to mindless grinding which will keep you from getting better. (also RK at micro is to low to even consider).

when i was learning STT on cake poker i was playing ones with 1 $ buy in and was getting ~20 $ rakeback per month. 20 buyins! on FTP when i was playing cash at nl2 i was getting 5-6 $ per weak with is almost 3 buyins. So your post makes absolutely no sense

@Vygantas

Don't misunderstand me, obviously getting RB is fun since getting $ is always fun, But the real question you need to answer is: Do I Beat My Level? If yes, then RK is a nice bonus but it isn't required since you already make money just playing at your level.

@Wriggers

"If you're already a winning player"

When you are consistently winning then sure focus on RK deals to improve your $/100h, but becoming a winning player come before that.

Originally posted by Jehryn
@Vygantas

Don't misunderstand me, obviously getting RB is fun since getting $ is always fun, But the real question you need to answer is: Do I Beat My Level? If yes, then RK is a nice bonus but it isn't required since you already make money just playing at your level.

@Wriggers

"If you're already a winning player"

When you are consistently winning then sure focus on RK deals to improve your $/100h, but becoming a winning player come before that.

holy shit, that's new