I did the math for you. Pokerstars Rakeback

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
Keep in mind though that those numbers can vary depending on a number of factors - items other than the Sunday Million buyin have different $/FPP rates (cash tops out at $0.015/FPP, electronics can vary significantly). Plus, those calculations only hold if you are playing high enough stakes that every hand that sees a flop has at least $40 in pot (ie, at least $10/$20) and I imagine very few bronze or silverstar players play at those levels. Furthermore, at 200NL and lower, the first FPP is awarded at $0.40 rake, so a table with an average pot of ~$12-15 might actually have a slightly higher effective rakeback.

Therefore, unless you actually are playing 10/20NL or higher and are spending your FPPs on buyins to the Sunday Mil, the numbers above won't be *exactly* the rakeback you get, but they should still be within 1-2% of the actual value.

[/ QUOTE ]



This entire post has mistakes as best I can tell.

At 10/20 you do not have every hand raked $2. Some will be raked $3 but you still get the same number of points.
You will also have some of your hands played with less than the table-max number of players.

Your point about 200NL appears to be backwards.
An NL hand that is higher than $8 still gets raked in nickel-increments.
So having a pot raked $15 means you are paying a higher MGR but to not get any more RB compared with an $8 pot.
Which means that on such hands you are actually getting a lower rakeback on the larger pots...which is the opposite of what you said.

[Uniqueuponhim]

Sorry, for some reason I had the impression that the maximum rake at 6-max was $2 not $3. Oops!

As for the 200NL, I am not wrong. If the average pot were $8 then the majority of them would have less than 40c rake, and therefore not give points, thereby lowering the number of points you get per dollar rake. However, as long as the amount of rake taken in a hand is between 40c and $1, you're making more points per dollar rake than you would at a higher table. Ideally, 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.

As for bumping it, this post was linked to in a more recent one, and I decided to reply without first looking at the date to see how old it was. Sorry.

[MicroBob]

" However, as long as the amount of rake taken in a hand is between 40c and $1"


Okay, this is all kind of weird and doesn't really help a whole lot.
Yes, if the rake is always between 40c and $1 then you will do better than on a table where the take is exactly $2 on every hand.

Unfortunately, this NEVER happens.
On the lower-stakes tables you will also have hands that are raked less than $0.40 in which you get zero VPP's but still had MGR.
And you will have hands that make it over $1 also.

Besides that, the general point that "RB is usually going to be better on .5/1 NL then on 10/20 NL is pretty meaningless to almost anyone.
If you switch from 10/20 to .5/1 because your rakeback is 3 points higher than you might be the stupidest poker player ever.

The only real question for most people is, "What is the RB at the stakes that I play...and what would the RB be if I played at a different site instead?"

[OnlinePro]

pokerstars is rigged- but you do get good rakeback..... you do the math

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
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.


[/ QUOTE ]

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.