I did the math for you. Pokerstars Rakeback

[MicroBob]

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you want as many hands to fall between 40c and $1 as possible, which they do if the average rake is 70c, corresponding to $14 - which is within the $12-15 range I posted.


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Your range is way too narrow.
You will not earn a VPP on a majority of your hands if the average pot is $14 at NL200.
I'm almost certain about this but you can check your own stats to be sure.

A lot of times you can have plenty of hands on a $14 average table that do NOT fall between the $0.40 - $1 rake you like so much.

Just look at the past hands on such a table.
Oftentimes the total pots won will be:
$2
$2.25
$4.75
$63
$6

You make it sound like a $14 avg-pot table at 1/2 NL is going to earn a VPP on practically every hand.
This just isn't the case.

You will earn about roughly 0.5 to 0.57 VPP's per hand at those stakes just going on the old stars-VPP/hand thread.
And a decent percentage of those hands will be $40 pots where you get double VPP's meaning that you almost certainly are playing more than half of your hands without earning a VPP at all.

[Uniqueuponhim]

Alright, I see your points, and can see that FPP/$ at those levels probably isn't better. In any case, the numbers above essentially represent the maximum rakeback, and depending on your stakes you'll probably make slightly less in a full ring, and around 2/3 of that in 6-max.

[MicroBob]

Glad you are seeing some of the mistakes there...but I think you just made another one but can't tell for sure.

Your effective rakeback should actually be a little higher in full-ring.
Every hand that is raked $0.40 at a 9-handed table means you had an MGR of 4.4 cents.
If you are Supernova you are getting back 5.25 cents worth of FPP's which takes you over the 100% mark for those hands.

On a 6-max table, when the rake is $0.40 then you paid 6.67 cents in MGR but you are still only getting back the same 5.25 cents so it's "only" 78% on those hands.


I don't know exactly what you mean by the "2/3 of that in 6-max" comment.
You already say that you make slightly less in full-ring...but then you make only 2/3 of that in 6-max?
Me confused.

Overall, the best way to figure it out is look at how many of the hands you ACTUALLY play earn 1 VPP or 2 VPP's and compare that with the amount of MGR you pay to get those.

Making estimates and assumptions always needs to include some actual numbers of how many VPP's you are REALLY going to get in those games. Something like that anyway.

[Uniqueuponhim]

Sorry, I wasn't clear in that last comment I made. That statement was in reference to games where the rake would typically exceed $2 on every hand. In that case, most hands would likely have $3 of rake, which would drop my numbers by about 1/3. However, in a 9-handed game the rake is divided among 9 people instead of 6, increasing the number of FPP/$ back to what I had originally calculated. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[MicroBob]

If I'm understanding you correctly...
yes, on a game where the rake is going to typically max-out on pretty much every raked-hand your effective RB% will be better with 9 players instead of 6.

This increased RB percentage along isn't enough to justify playing in those game however. The amount you make from that extra RB shouldn't be enough to make up for a potentially better game at 6-max.

IOW - at those stakes you should just be chasing the better games and not marginal increases in RB.

At other stakes there is some validity to the idea of preferring full-ring over 6-max for better RB% assuming you are really trying to crank out the points.
But that just means that doing so for your FPP accrual is not a terrible idea...doesn't mean that the 6-max players are making any kind of significant RB error or anything like that or are really losing out on THAT much.

[goofyballer]

I'm pretty sure there's entirely too much bad math in this thread, because I calculated this around 1 yr ago for 1/2 NL 6-max in SSNL using another 2+2er's data and Supernova was like 25% rb.

Assuming anyone wants to properly calculate it, do it like this:
- In PT, for a specific game level (MGR per hand will be different between different stakes and 6-max/non-6-max/HU so don't even bother), grab # of hands and MGR over that sample (MGR is in game notes)
- Figure out # of FPPs earned over that sample; you may have to do this manually, I don't play on Stars but if they do, like, 1 FPP for every hand over XX rake then you can filter out hands below XX rake in game notes and calculate how many FPPs you earned that way
- Figure out the $$ per FPP exchange rate (i.e. if you can trade 1000 FPPs for a $500 tournament entry (lol we wish) that's $0.50 per FPP)
- Take (FPPs / # hands) * ($$ per FPPs) / (MGR / # of hands)

Resulting number should be a decimal. Multiply by 100 and that's your rakeback percentage.

[MicroBob]

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I'm pretty sure there's entirely too much bad math in this thread, because I calculated this around 1 yr ago for 1/2 NL 6-max in SSNL using another 2+2er's data and Supernova was like 25% rb.

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Note that even this wouldn't be entirely accurate either as I assume you are just looking at FPP value.
if you choose to play the freerolls or if you play enough to make it to the 200k or 300k milestones because there is some extra value there.

It also can vary some on 6-max NL depending on playing-style and table-selection.
And I think this can be more exaggerated at NL then limit.
If you limp-along or cold-call a ton instead of always folding/re-raising then I would think that would lead to a lot more points. Although I'm hardly advocating playing a -EV style just to get a few more points.
Just saying that the RB% could bounce around some from player to player based on these things.

although for most TAG-type players from the SSNL forum I suspect the RB% will be pretty consistent.