High Rakes are Killing Limit Hold 'em

A successful poker room is like a pyramid. That is, there are more small games than large games and the regular small stakes players tend to feed into the larger games.

However, in small limit hold 'em games, the rake is now so large, that it's very difficult to develop regular players. (Thus, you don't have the players to start games and keep games going.) This result can lead to an upside down pyramid which in turn leads to less games in the future. And the answer to this is to reduce the rake in the small limit hold 'em games.

(In the small no-limit games, even though the rake is also high, it's still not high enough that a core of regular players can't develop.)

Right now we can see this in The Bellagio Poker Room where I usually play (which in general is well run). There are almost always more $30-$60 games than $15-$30, and no games of smaller size.

For more discussion, see my Cardrooms book where I address what I think are appropriate rake sizes for small limit hold 'em games:

https://www.amazon.com/Cardrooms-Everyth...

All comments are welcome.