Ok, so I've looked at this chart many times before. Never really thought about it too much. Below is average rake paid per 100 hands across a variety of networks, courtesy of pokertableratings.
First thing to note is that there are some errors with the chart. For example Ipoker might appear to have some of the cheapest 25nl games on the net, but these are really 20nl games. Party appears to have the cheapest 5nl games on the net, but these are really 4nl games.
The second general observation is that, the higher up in stakes you go, the less important nitpicking over rake amounts is because we are dealing with much a much smaller decrease in winrate across sites. For example 25nl pokerstars you will pay rake at a rate of ~6bb/100 hands while at 1000nl pokerstars you will pay rake at 1.5bb/100. 25nl party-poker on the other hand charges a whopping 10bb/100 hands in rake - a 66% increase over stars. 1000nl party (which doesn't exist anymore) is not as good as 1000nl stars, but the difference is proportionally smaller.
This means if you are breaking even at 25nl on party poker you are essentially winning at 10bb/100 but just not seeing any profit for it. If you played the exact same game on pokerstars you'd be beating the games for 4bb/100. Might be a low winrate, but it is profit and certainly not to be sniffed at.
I want to think specifically about what this means for 2 deals that a lot of you currently have, specifically looking at micro-stakes where it makes the biggest difference. And please note I'm not trying to sway you from one deal/site to another, I'm just highlighting the facts. Many of you have a 30% deal on party right now (27% + I heard the extra points might add up to 3% for a micro-stakes grinder). Many of you also have a deal-me-in bonus at full-tilt which I was told adds up to 47% (40% dmi + additional 7% through points etc). These RB figures may not be completely accurate but you can always adjust them depending on your actual RB%.
So first party. If you play 25nl on party you are paying $2.64/100 in rake. You receive 30% of that back. Total Rake paid after RB is therefore $1.84/100. The default rake you pay at pokerstars (and this not including any rakeback whatsoever) is $1.59/100. So hold on, with 0% rakeback at stars you are still paying less rake than at party with a 30% deal.
Ok full tilt. If you play 10nl on full-tilt, Default rake is $1.11/100. (It's possible this has changed under new ownership, PTR had to stop tracking after all). Assuming 47% of this is returned (and this is only the case for 3 weeks, afterward it will be 25% max RB under edge deal) we are paying $0.58/100. With 0% rakeback at stars you'd pay $0.66/100. That's pretty close - and given that even with the lowest VIP level at stars you'd still get 12% or so RakeBack, once again stars is the better deal even with 47% RB at full tilt
I've seen in the forums that FTP is bit of a reg fest at the moment. Everyone is in a mad rush to grind at a room that gives them the best rakeback deal. Ironically they might have been better off at the room they came from - since obviously a higher percentage of rake back does not automatically mean your net-rake paid is going to be less.
Anyway, this wasn't supposed to be a long thread. Apologies if it's hard to read and/or contains errors, I've had several drinks but this was bugging me and I wanted to post.
