[Benjamin]

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Again for you WSEX shills and apologists. Rake free means I get all of MY rake back or it is never collected in the first place. It does NOT mean I share in a community pot of collected rake.

Nits and grinders love to share in a community pot so that they can defray the costs of waiting and waiting and waiting for a premium hand.

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Poker at WPEX is a positive sum game, because of the Aces Never Lose promotion. All tournament fees are returned as part of the rakeback. They run a bunch of tournaments every day with guarantees which are seldom met, so every tournament has an overlay with no entry fee.
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You also seriously overestimate how much a tight player benefits from the dealt rakeback, compared to just receiving what he has actually paid in rake.

In my case, after 3673 hands of $1/$2, $2/4, and $3/$6 limit holdem, Poker Tracker shows my total rake paid as $168.75. My MGR is $250.29.

Poker Tracker shows my VP$IP = 12.93% and my PFR = 7.30%. I don't think too many people play tighter than that.


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Actually, David, your stats prove Tuff's point quite forcefully. You have received 148% of your rake back! That is a huge deviation from 'rakefree'. That extra 48% came directly out of the pockets of the loosest players.

If the stats are reversed for a very loose player such that he receives only 52% of the rake he paid back on Monday, then this is obviously a very powerful factor in the earnings for these two extremes.

And, for the loose player, it's unlikely that the Aces Never Lose promotion is enough to overcome the disadvantage of his rake being redistributed, so the site is not likely a positive sum game for him.

If WSEX truly wants to run their poker site for the casual recreational player, then they should switch to a contributed rakeback scheme of some sort.

It will definitely cause looser play and better games:

1) Loose players will get more money back on Monday, so they will play more.

2) Pros and semi-pros will have an incentive to loosen up, so the typical game filled with a majority of those types will play looser.

Looser games = more fun games = player population growth.

WSEX GM, I seriously think you should chang the rakeback calculation so that it does not favor the ultra tight grinder so much.

You will not find many proponents of this change on this site, which is dominated by those tight pros and semi-pros that benefit from the current calculation. But the casual sports-bettor who wanders over to the poker game will get a better deal and will find more loose and fun games if you make the change.

I personally have benefited from the current calculation to the tune of an extra $2,000 rakeback in 2007 over what I paid, which works out to 115% rakeback for me. I play a pretty standard TAG game. But, I'd rather see looser games and a growing player base than pocket that money.