I'm also interested to know Chicknmelt whats your ultimate reason for the post ...is it because you are concerned that the rake will kill off the recs or the rake hits the profit margins of a marginally successfull player ?
The ultimate reason for my post is because I feel a bit cheated by sky. I feel like they should offer games for a similar price to their competitors.
I also thik the games that have too high rake will slowly die
I don't actually play turbo dyms very often btw, so it doesn't really effect me.
This post is a level right ? ...If you make your money at poker , then you have to play against people who are not as good as you to get an edge . Assuming that is what most pros are after doing , and you then accept that most of the recs who pros want to play against against aren't actually that bothered about rake ( they just like playing) , then the whole subject is nonsense . So working on that basis , and appreciating that a site is perceived as " soft " and the rewards for volume play are good then apart from the fact that poker players like to moan , what exactly isd the issue ?
No. There needs to be a delicate balance between the Regs and Recs, as well as poker sites (like everything else in the world) being competitively priced in its marketplace.
Recs need to get value for their money. And if rake is too high many go elsewhere. Recs are gold dust in the poker world. And pros need to be able to make sufficient profit, or they don't bother. And no poker site survives unless it caters sufficiently for both groups.
Well if the balance wasn't right , the site would have folded , right? Like to see the regularly dym ers come on and give their take ...you know vlallia , timmyrara etc i.e the people who are prepared to pay the rake and still make money
not from £11+ turbo dyms.
Well I don't play 11 dyms very often these days , but have done and come across the same players , players who one would consider as being profitable players ...im not interested in scoping , so I cant confirm that , but you would assume that the same players would only play games if they were good enough to make them profitable . You feel cheated , well fair enough ...perhaps other players will come out and support that view , and if there is enough volume , then perhaps sky will consider a rake change ..bear in mind though , its prob stars dependant policy now to a degree .
As far as your first point is concerned about offering the same rake as competitors ...well plenty of choice for people ...if i dont like the price sainsburys are charging , I can go to aldi . If enough people do that then maybe it changes .
I don't really play on any other sites so not really sure how the rake affects me etc. It's been mentioned before but I play on here for fun and enjoy the social/community feel/side to it
Mainly MTT player but dabble (annoyingly) in spin and gos when the MTT is zzzzz
I don't really play on any other sites so not really sure how the rake affects me etc. It's been mentioned before but I play on here for fun and enjoy the social/community feel/side to it
Mainly MTT player but dabble (annoyingly) in spin and gos when the MTT is zzzzz
I know you play MTTs and we are mostly talking about turbo stuff
You would have made 10x more profit if the games you played were raked at 5%. Its basically the difference between being break even and making a tidy profit for you.
Imagine you HAD made that money... would you have played a bit more?
I don't really play on any other sites so not really sure how the rake affects me etc. It's been mentioned before but I play on here for fun and enjoy the social/community feel/side to it
Mainly MTT player but dabble (annoyingly) in spin and gos when the MTT is zzzzz
I know you play MTTs and we are mostly talking about turbo stuff
You would have made 10x more profit if the games you played were raked at 5%. Its basically the difference between being break even and making a tidy profit for you.
Imagine you HAD made that money... would you have played a bit more?
Not necessarily , the lower rake would no doubt attract more winning players /pros , wouldn't it ?
I don't really play on any other sites so not really sure how the rake affects me etc. It's been mentioned before but I play on here for fun and enjoy the social/community feel/side to it
Mainly MTT player but dabble (annoyingly) in spin and gos when the MTT is zzzzz
I know you play MTTs and we are mostly talking about turbo stuff
You would have made 10x more profit if the games you played were raked at 5%. Its basically the difference between being break even and making a tidy profit for you.
Imagine you HAD made that money... would you have played a bit more?
Not necessarily , the lower rake would no doubt attract more winning players /pros , wouldn't it ?
it would attract the players that didn't beat them previously mostly id say. The very best players continued to play them anyway because they were still able to eek out a small profit.
rake high: only the best regs can play + recs that don't care about rake
rake fairly: Everyone feels like they can play
Just because the games have been running doesn't mean they will continue to. It also doesn't mean they would run much more often if rake was lower.
How discouraging for new players must it be to look up the top regs of their game and see that they break even. Bye bye motivation to learn & probably poker. Only the guys that are here purely for fun stay.
Dobie I think I get what you're saying but I disagree. I agree that recs, on the whole, don't really care about rake and care far more about community, software, rewards etc. But that doesn't make rake a completely redundant factor in a poker site's strategy. If it did, we should take your argument to its logical conclusion and raise rake to any level - 20%? 30%? 50%? Recs might not care at most levels but if you raised the rake to a level that was unbeatable to everyone there would be no game and no site. This currently looks like the case at the upper turbo DYM levels and is not healthy - it surely needs pointing out and at considered changing?
I don't really play on any other sites so not really sure how the rake affects me etc. It's been mentioned before but I play on here for fun and enjoy the social/community feel/side to it
Mainly MTT player but dabble (annoyingly) in spin and gos when the MTT is zzzzz
I know you play MTTs and we are mostly talking about turbo stuff
You would have made 10x more profit if the games you played were raked at 5%. Its basically the difference between being break even and making a tidy profit for you.
Imagine you HAD made that money... would you have played a bit more?
Not necessarily , the lower rake would no doubt attract more winning players /pros , wouldn't it ?
it would attract the players that didn't beat them previously mostly id say. The very best players continued to play them anyway because they were still able to eek out a small profit.
rake high: only the best regs can play + recs that don't care about rake
rake fairly: Everyone feels like they can play
Just because the games have been running doesn't mean they will continue to. It also doesn't mean they would run much more often if rake was lower.
How discouraging for new players must it be to look up the top regs of their game and see that they break even. Bye bye motivation to learn & probably poker. Only the guys that are here purely for fun stay.
I think you are painting a grim unrealistic picture of the top regs on here ...obv I cant back that up , as they're hardly likely to come on here and say , actually im crushing it . I also think that most recs wont have any idea of the true success of regs ( pretty much like us ) and wont really be that interested . You enter a double up for example and there are some names you recognise as often mentioned in dispatches , on the table it's a good experience to play against them ...sometimes you beat them , sometimes you lose ...i doubt the latter is a particular demotivator .
I don't really play on any other sites so not really sure how the rake affects me etc. It's been mentioned before but I play on here for fun and enjoy the social/community feel/side to it
Mainly MTT player but dabble (annoyingly) in spin and gos when the MTT is zzzzz
I know you play MTTs and we are mostly talking about turbo stuff
You would have made 10x more profit if the games you played were raked at 5%. Its basically the difference between being break even and making a tidy profit for you.
Imagine you HAD made that money... would you have played a bit more?
Not necessarily , the lower rake would no doubt attract more winning players /pros , wouldn't it ?
it would attract the players that didn't beat them previously mostly id say. The very best players continued to play them anyway because they were still able to eek out a small profit.
rake high: only the best regs can play + recs that don't care about rake
rake fairly: Everyone feels like they can play
Just because the games have been running doesn't mean they will continue to. It also doesn't mean they would run much more often if rake was lower.
How discouraging for new players must it be to look up the top regs of their game and see that they break even. Bye bye motivation to learn & probably poker. Only the guys that are here purely for fun stay.
I think you are painting a grim unrealistic picture of the top regs on here ...obv I cant back that up , as they're hardly likely to come on here and say , actually im crushing it . I also think that most recs wont have any idea of the true success of regs ( pretty much like us ) and wont really be that interested . You enter a double up for example and there are some names you recognise as often mentioned in dispatches , on the table it's a good experience to play against them ...sometimes you beat them , sometimes you lose ...i doubt the latter is a particular demotivator .
Im glad you agree its grim. I HAVE looked people up. I played a few hundred games this month, so I know who the regs are, I also know who the long term dym regs are. Im not exaggerating when I say the best player break even at £11+ turbo dyms.
-EDIT- After looking into it further, not one of the top 10 for count, or profit according to sharkscope leaderboards for SNGs on sky are profitable at £11 turbo dyms this year...
I’m frankly amazed that the top dym players aren’t making any profit at turbos. I was totally unaware of this. I, wrongly as it turns out, assumed that they were still winning,albeit less, than regular Dyms, and making a tonne out of rakeback
I choose not to play turbos as I certainly don’t think that I can beat them.
I’m not a fan or turbos as they’ve taken away a lot of the traffic from normal Dyms.
But I’m kind of with dobie on this.
They do seem to run frequently and so the proof is in the pudding that high rake isnt deterring players whether they are regs or recs.
Of course I would like to see lower rake but whilst the games are filling quickly I can’t see Sky changing anything any time soon.
One of the top regs has crushed them games (£11turbo dym) over a pretty significant sample up to a fairly recent date, i'd hazard a guess the breakeven/losing stretches are not related to the games getting tougher but the fact alot of them players have been mass multitabling for promos/rb this year and sacrificing edge to do so or they simply are not good actually very good regs, i may be wrong though as i don't play them games and wouldn't know who many of the regs are.
As far as i'm aware lower stake turbo dyms and spin up games are amongst the most popular games on the site, probably because all varieties of recs find them fun to play and don't care about the rake, so it's unlikely sky are bothered about changing anything whilst that continues to be the case. I think it's just a balance that you have to accept playing on Sky high rake= significantly softer player pool, the people who are aware and can't make money in spite of this have the option to play the other sites you mention and Sky are probably not bothered to lose that particular % of the player pool.
fwiw i'm a high volume hu hyper player so completely understand the points you're making in regards to competitors rake compared to skys, just a few factors that also need to be taken into consideration when questioning why it is the case.
As a recreational player who plays PL08 mtt's and turbo dym's i have to agree with chickenmelt. Even a recreational player would like to make a profit at the game if possible and at turbo dym,s it's not easy at all Example - I like the PL08 bounty hunter at 19:15 mtt £5.50 if i get to the final table it's 50p rake for three hours play which seems fair. If i play turbo dym's at £5.50 for three hours (15 mins a game) its £6 rake £12 rake if i play two tables at a time.That makes it hard to make any profit at that format. Seems to me chickenmelt has a valid point if your playing faster games should they not have lower rake?
Must make a note of that. STOP PLAYING TURBO DYM'S. Edit got to admit if i get knocked out of the PL08 mtt's i will probably still play dym's out of boredom.
I find it amazing no turbo dym reg has been on here and commented so far. The Rake in my opinion should never have been 10% on turbo and hyper Sngs on here. Andy makes very good observations and comments and he doesn't rely on them to make his money.
Reducing it will have short term affects for the profitability for sky but long term it will keep the games runningand thus profit, same with the lower spins. there a business though and people continue to play them so they won't change it.
One of the top regs has crushed them games (£11turbo dym) over a pretty significant sample up to a fairly recent date, i'd hazard a guess the breakeven/losing stretches are not related to the games getting tougher but the fact alot of them players have been mass multitabling for promos/rb this year and sacrificing edge to do so or they simply are not good actually very good regs, i may be wrong though as i don't play them games and wouldn't know who many of the regs are.
As far as i'm aware lower stake turbo dyms and spin up games are amongst the most popular games on the site, probably because all varieties of recs find them fun to play and don't care about the rake, so it's unlikely sky are bothered about changing anything whilst that continues to be the case. I think it's just a balance that you have to accept playing on Sky high rake= significantly softer player pool, the people who are aware and can't make money in spite of this have the option to play the other sites you mention and Sky are probably not bothered to lose that particular % of the player pool.
fwiw i'm a high volume hu hyper player so completely understand the points you're making in regards to competitors rake compared to skys, just a few factors that also need to be taken into consideration when questioning why it is the case.
You are lucky the rake isn't 10% for HUSNGs!
fwiw, I would accept paying more rake on sky than other places... but when it gets to double your nearest competitor, it doesn't seem right.
yeah iv made threads on this exact thing before but they were genrally ignored
But you still play here . For what reasons ? ...presumably you ignore the rake , for other benefits , hence proving the points I was making earlier . Obv if you play the bulk of your play elsewhwere , then that also echoes my points , but is something sky should address .
Yes I still play on sky because I am not moaning about the higher rake in general. Do I play the turbo sngs? maybe if I need a few points to make priority... to make money? no chance.
Sky have the bulk of my volume but i'm nothing more than a winning rec, im also not stupid enough to play in games that are not beatable or barely beatable.
This moan is not about the Rake being higher on sky elsewhere its about certain games being higher than is generally beatable for even the best players.
Make no mistake the turbos on sky are not turbos.... they are hyper turbo structure.
Spins are still beatable but purely on the basis of weak tables where recs get fleeced. I would play more regs if the rake was lower and sky would earn way more out of me as a player
Surely the regs are making a profit when rakeback is included though? Obviously if you are a very high volume player and break even or even lose slightly the rakeback more than makes up for that.
In my opinion the rake system and rewards system on Sky is very poor compared to it's competitors for small to medium volume/stakes players. I have no idea what the rewards system is like for priority as I have no chance of ever putting in that volume.
Before coming to Sky I spent a few years on other sites and was getting rakeback in the region of 50%, even at a relatively low volume, that equated to hundreds of pounds some months, with sky atm the I get a £2.30 token a week! (Admittedly I do play much less than I did but even at a similar volume the Sky rewards system is poor).
I didn't come to Sky for it's rewards system though, I came mainly because of the TV channel and stay because of the community and apathy!
Plus of course some of the promotions run by Sky are exceptional and even low volume recs stand a chance of winning trips to Vegas etc.
Plus of course some of the promotions run by Sky are exceptional and even low volume recs stand a chance of winning trips to Vegas etc.
I agree there are way more positives to sky and people reading this will see this thread as a negative.
Sky do a lot of great giveaways and monthly promotions that benefit players at all levels and in the interest of fairness I play here despite the higher rake.
That being said the rake at turbo (6max specifically) is extortionate and not sure why it is called Turbo as it is a hyper turbo structure
Definitely agree with the OP. My 2p (for what it's worth) as somebody smack bang in the middle of the "rec" description.... Sky poker is a product. As the OP says, the sky poker product does not keep in line with "industry standards" if you like. Sometimes this can be a good thing or a bad thing. If you are a complete noob to online poker, you might pick sky because of the familiar brand of sky. You will stick with it because you like certain things (non of which are related to rake). But there will come a point, if you like playing online poker where you start to "shop around" and look at different sites. Once you do that, you might realise sky seems a little steep, my money doesn't go as far. That's the beginning of losing your rec's. They've lost me over recent years. Up until a month or 2 ago i'd hardly played on sky. Why? Because my money goes further on other sites (win or lose).
Yes there are lots of great things about sky, but there's no denying, as a "product" sky poker isn't keeping up with the rest. This shows in the graveyard that is daytime poker and the constantly reduced main event prize pools, that used to bounce back up after the summer lull, but now just stay where they are.
Ultimately the numbers will speak for themselves. People have talked about the "death" of sky poker for years on the forum. It's certainly not dead, but it sure is quiet around here......
Firstly, I'm very much in agreement with @chicknMelt in feeling that Sky should look to review the rake charged in some of their offerings.
For the majority of players (both recs and pros alike), the notion that the game of poker could be beaten if you played well enough was fundamental to its appeal and brought it to the level of popularity we see today. If that gets eroded through games/rake structures that are fundamentally unbeatable then poker operators will be in danger of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Outside of MTT and SNG offerings, I would also suggest Sky look into the rake charged in micro stakes cash games (7.5% is astronomical compared to most competitors) and also the rake caps applied to heads up cash (again, comparatively huge). In most of these instances, although Sky may take a hit in terms of revenue on a hand dealt/game played basis, the added incentive for players to play (especially reg vs reg battles) would likely increase traffic to more than cover reduced rake. I remember a local Indian restaurant that years ago ran a one-off special of making everything half price for one week. They did such a roaring trade during that period that they decide to keep those prices permanently and the business boomed thereafter.
Looking at rake in a slightly bigger picture, it all seems somewhat illogically set up to me. In the post-boom era of online poker, net-depositing (aka losing) players appear to be the most highly cherished of all by poker sites but, perversely, they are often given the roughest deal when it comes to rake. Due to the nature of the rewards system, high-volume winning players will only be paying 60-70% of what the most valued customers are in relative terms - and even more so if those net-depositors are playing cash games of 10nl or less. It'll likely never happen but it would be far fairer to do away with rakeback all together and just make the rake as a whole a little less for everyone.
Finally, for some balance, there are areas where Sky does well. For a start, rebuys in MTT's are not raked, which is not the case on all sites. Also, rake levels are only one side of the coin when determining the profitability of games and in terms of offering a softer overall player pool, Sky perform well compared to most. That doesn't mean they couldn't do things in a better/fairer way though which would be of benefit to both themselves and their customers.
Comments
You feel cheated , well fair enough ...perhaps other players will come out and support that view , and if there is enough volume , then perhaps sky will consider a rake change ..bear in mind though , its prob stars dependant policy now to a degree .
As far as your first point is concerned about offering the same rake as competitors ...well plenty of choice for people ...if i dont like the price sainsburys are charging , I can go to aldi . If enough people do that then maybe it changes .
Mainly MTT player but dabble (annoyingly) in spin and gos when the MTT is zzzzz
You would have made 10x more profit if the games you played were raked at 5%. Its basically the difference between being break even and making a tidy profit for you.
Imagine you HAD made that money... would you have played a bit more?
rake high: only the best regs can play + recs that don't care about rake
rake fairly: Everyone feels like they can play
Just because the games have been running doesn't mean they will continue to. It also doesn't mean they would run much more often if rake was lower.
How discouraging for new players must it be to look up the top regs of their game and see that they break even. Bye bye motivation to learn & probably poker. Only the guys that are here purely for fun stay.
I also think that most recs wont have any idea of the true success of regs ( pretty much like us ) and wont really be that interested . You enter a double up for example and there are some names you recognise as often mentioned in dispatches , on the table it's a good experience to play against them ...sometimes you beat them , sometimes you lose ...i doubt the latter is a particular demotivator .
-EDIT-
After looking into it further, not one of the top 10 for count, or profit according to sharkscope leaderboards for SNGs on sky are profitable at £11 turbo dyms this year...
I’m frankly amazed that the top dym players aren’t making any profit at turbos. I was totally unaware of this. I, wrongly as it turns out, assumed that they were still winning,albeit less, than regular Dyms, and making a tonne out of rakeback
I choose not to play turbos as I certainly don’t think that I can beat them.
I’m not a fan or turbos as they’ve taken away a lot of the traffic from normal Dyms.
But I’m kind of with dobie on this.
They do seem to run frequently and so the proof is in the pudding that high rake isnt deterring players whether they are regs or recs.
Of course I would like to see lower rake but whilst the games are filling quickly I can’t see Sky changing anything any time soon.
I have said I don't play them because of rake
You don't because of rake
EssexPhil doesn't because of rake
Out of the 5 or 6 players that have responded that's quite a high % of people that are discouraged because of the high rake.
Imagine what liquidity would be like if rake for turbos had been 5% all along...
One of the top regs has crushed them games (£11turbo dym) over a pretty significant sample up to a fairly recent date, i'd hazard a guess the breakeven/losing stretches are not related to the games getting tougher but the fact alot of them players have been mass multitabling for promos/rb this year and sacrificing edge to do so or they simply are not good actually very good regs, i may be wrong though as i don't play them games and wouldn't know who many of the regs are.
As far as i'm aware lower stake turbo dyms and spin up games are amongst the most popular games on the site, probably because all varieties of recs find them fun to play and don't care about the rake, so it's unlikely sky are bothered about changing anything whilst that continues to be the case. I think it's just a balance that you have to accept playing on Sky high rake= significantly softer player pool, the people who are aware and can't make money in spite of this have the option to play the other sites you mention and Sky are probably not bothered to lose that particular % of the player pool.
fwiw i'm a high volume hu hyper player so completely understand the points you're making in regards to competitors rake compared to skys, just a few factors that also need to be taken into consideration when questioning why it is the case.
Example - I like the PL08 bounty hunter at 19:15 mtt £5.50 if i get to the final table it's 50p rake for three hours play which seems fair.
If i play turbo dym's at £5.50 for three hours (15 mins a game) its £6 rake £12 rake if i play two tables at a time.That makes it hard to make any profit at that format.
Seems to me chickenmelt has a valid point if your playing faster games should they not have lower rake?
Must make a note of that. STOP PLAYING TURBO DYM'S.
Edit got to admit if i get knocked out of the PL08 mtt's i will probably still play dym's out of boredom.
Reducing it will have short term affects for the profitability for sky but long term it will keep the games runningand thus profit, same with the lower spins. there a business though and people continue to play them so they won't change it.
fwiw, I would accept paying more rake on sky than other places... but when it gets to double your nearest competitor, it doesn't seem right.
Sky have the bulk of my volume but i'm nothing more than a winning rec, im also not stupid enough to play in games that are not beatable or barely beatable.
This moan is not about the Rake being higher on sky elsewhere its about certain games being higher than is generally beatable for even the best players.
Make no mistake the turbos on sky are not turbos.... they are hyper turbo structure.
Spins are still beatable but purely on the basis of weak tables where recs get fleeced. I would play more regs if the rake was lower and sky would earn way more out of me as a player
In my opinion the rake system and rewards system on Sky is very poor compared to it's competitors for small to medium volume/stakes players. I have no idea what the rewards system is like for priority as I have no chance of ever putting in that volume.
Before coming to Sky I spent a few years on other sites and was getting rakeback in the region of 50%, even at a relatively low volume, that equated to hundreds of pounds some months, with sky atm the I get a £2.30 token a week! (Admittedly I do play much less than I did but even at a similar volume the Sky rewards system is poor).
I didn't come to Sky for it's rewards system though, I came mainly because of the TV channel and stay because of the community and apathy!
Plus of course some of the promotions run by Sky are exceptional and even low volume recs stand a chance of winning trips to Vegas etc.
Sky do a lot of great giveaways and monthly promotions that benefit players at all levels and in the interest of fairness I play here despite the higher rake.
That being said the rake at turbo (6max specifically) is extortionate and not sure why it is called Turbo as it is a hyper turbo structure
Definitely agree with the OP. My 2p (for what it's worth) as somebody smack bang in the middle of the "rec" description....
Sky poker is a product. As the OP says, the sky poker product does not keep in line with "industry standards" if you like. Sometimes this can be a good thing or a bad thing. If you are a complete noob to online poker, you might pick sky because of the familiar brand of sky. You will stick with it because you like certain things (non of which are related to rake). But there will come a point, if you like playing online poker where you start to "shop around" and look at different sites. Once you do that, you might realise sky seems a little steep, my money doesn't go as far. That's the beginning of losing your rec's. They've lost me over recent years. Up until a month or 2 ago i'd hardly played on sky. Why? Because my money goes further on other sites (win or lose).
Yes there are lots of great things about sky, but there's no denying, as a "product" sky poker isn't keeping up with the rest. This shows in the graveyard that is daytime poker and the constantly reduced main event prize pools, that used to bounce back up after the summer lull, but now just stay where they are.
Ultimately the numbers will speak for themselves. People have talked about the "death" of sky poker for years on the forum. It's certainly not dead, but it sure is quiet around here......
For the majority of players (both recs and pros alike), the notion that the game of poker could be beaten if you played well enough was fundamental to its appeal and brought it to the level of popularity we see today. If that gets eroded through games/rake structures that are fundamentally unbeatable then poker operators will be in danger of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Outside of MTT and SNG offerings, I would also suggest Sky look into the rake charged in micro stakes cash games (7.5% is astronomical compared to most competitors) and also the rake caps applied to heads up cash (again, comparatively huge). In most of these instances, although Sky may take a hit in terms of revenue on a hand dealt/game played basis, the added incentive for players to play (especially reg vs reg battles) would likely increase traffic to more than cover reduced rake. I remember a local Indian restaurant that years ago ran a one-off special of making everything half price for one week. They did such a roaring trade during that period that they decide to keep those prices permanently and the business boomed thereafter.
Looking at rake in a slightly bigger picture, it all seems somewhat illogically set up to me. In the post-boom era of online poker, net-depositing (aka losing) players appear to be the most highly cherished of all by poker sites but, perversely, they are often given the roughest deal when it comes to rake. Due to the nature of the rewards system, high-volume winning players will only be paying 60-70% of what the most valued customers are in relative terms - and even more so if those net-depositors are playing cash games of 10nl or less. It'll likely never happen but it would be far fairer to do away with rakeback all together and just make the rake as a whole a little less for everyone.
Finally, for some balance, there are areas where Sky does well. For a start, rebuys in MTT's are not raked, which is not the case on all sites. Also, rake levels are only one side of the coin when determining the profitability of games and in terms of offering a softer overall player pool, Sky perform well compared to most. That doesn't mean they couldn't do things in a better/fairer way though which would be of benefit to both themselves and their customers.