Time for Another Look -- More Rake is Better?

Hi everyone:

With the website https://morerakeisbetter.com/ and now the billboard, perhaps it's time to take another look at the proposals I made on 09-14-2016:

1. Limit multi-tabling.

2. End most of the bonuses for playing lots of hands.

3. At the smallest stakes, leave the rake the same.

4. At the next tier, but still small stakes, raise the rake.

5. At the next tier and all higher games (except perhaps the biggest games), lower the rake significantly.

6. At limit games, especially limit hold 'em and seven-card stud, lower the rake even more.

This was the thread from back then:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/ne...

I also added to this in my Sept. 2016 Publisher's Note for our Online Poker Magazine. This is what I wrote:

In the “2p2 legend ChicagoJoey PLO Podcasts (PLO and Poker Life episodes) thread” ChicagaJoey wrote the following (and the post can be found here [https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showp...

In some ways I can very much see where they (I will use they for DN/Pokerstars) are coming from with what DN is saying but I think it the truth is more on the side of WE WANT TO MAKE AS MUCH MONEY AS POSSIBLE AND ALLOW AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE TO WIN

Now I don’t know if this statement is true or not since I don’t have the ability to get into the heads of those people running the poker sites. But one thing is for sure. There is no reason for such a statement to even be made yet lots of people are thinking this exact same thing. So what am I talking about.

Well, it turns out, and this is something that those of us associated with Two Plus Two have been talking about for many years, is that when it comes to poker games, there is a sweet spot. And by this I mean a poker game where both the expert players and the recreational players will keep coming back and in many cases play for life.

Specifically, the following three things, which I mentioned in the thread, have to happen.

1. Poker works best when there is a proper balance of luck and skill. This means that the expert players will do well enough in the long run that they'll have a decent long term win rate, but it also means that the recreational players will have enough winning sessions that they’ll keep coming back.

2. Low stakes recreational players shouldn’t be playing in games that are mostly populated by pros. This will allow them to have more winning sessions which in turn will allow a few of them to graduate to higher stakes.

3. Expert players should have the opportunity to have good win rates. But this should be done by outplaying their opponents at medium and high limits, not by playing a huge amount of hands where their main emphasis is to collect bonuses. And, it will also mean that they won't be playing in games where they win most every time. (Thus I do agree that ending heads-up no-limit games is probably correct.)

Unfortunately, it also means one other thing which may not be very popular with most of you who read this, and that is that no-limit hold ’em is, in my opinion, a form of poker where the proper balance of luck and skill is just not there. The experts have too large of an advantage over the recreational players, and based on my limited observation, the no-limit hold ’em cash games are beginning to choke themselves off.

All comments welcome, and here is one well written response:

http://www.parttimepoker.com/mason-malmu...

Best wishes,
Mason