Is pokerstars without a bonus better than pokerroom with a bonus?

[thesharpie]

I'm playing 2/4 SH and I have a choice to play pokerstars without a bonus, pokerroom with a bonus, or absolute with a bonus. I don't have any rakeback, maybe I could open a pokerroom skin and get rakeback if that works out best.

I think I read somewhere that pokerroom with a bonus+rakeback was comparable to pokerstars with no bonus due to pokerroom's [censored] rake. It seemed like whatever BB/100 you gained from the rakeback/bonus at pokeroom was almost negated due to pokerstars rake structure. I couldn't find the page I was looking for but if anyone can post the rake they've paid over so many hands at pokerroom or absolute maybe we can compare. I have 7830 hands at pokerstars with 546.50 total rake paid, average players at the table is 5.3.

7830/(546.5/5.3) = ~1.32

About 1.32BB/100 in rake paid. Anyone know how accurate this is due to the smallish sample size?

Also pokerstars is probably the softest site so that has to be taken into consideration.

Not that I'm a forum Nazi or anything, but wouldn't this be better posted in either the Affil/RB and/or Internet Bonuses forum? I would think that you'd see a better response.

It is a good question. I believe that $600 bonus @ PR/Eurobet equals about 70% RB for full ring and 35% at their 5-max tables. With 25-30% RB it would add a little bit more, too. Bonuses are deducted from the MGR.

The softness and rake considerations at PS would probably make it more worthwhile to play their, but if you like to play around then just playing the bonus off is okay, I suppose.

[bnorthro]

I'm thinking about leaving the PokerRoom network once I finish up the Eurobet bonus, even though I have RB at Hollywood. I checked and I've payed about twice as much per hand in rake on the PokerRoom skins. I didn't think it was that bad until I checked my PT the other night. After ~8K hands at poker room $2/4 5M, I've payed something like $1,200 in rake (not on my home CPU right now).

Plus at PokerStars PAHud works better and you can see the hands at showdown, so that's a plus as well.

[HajiShirazu]

Is pokerstars really softer? Well, maybe when there isn't a reload going the games are much better but I always thought PR was a total fishfest at SH while at stars the donkey count was a bit lower. Absolute is kind of meh, although I did play in some GREAT games there over the weekend.

[thesharpie]

A quick rought calculation and it looks like about 2BB/100 difference paid! That looks like more than what the bonus is worth if you go by bonuswhores' $8.12/hour, which I'm guessing is probably a bit less, add in the softer players and that you get to see holecards at showdown and pokerstars looks the winner unless maybe if you've got a good rakeback deal.

What about absolute, anyone?

[bnorthro]

Some of the players I've seen at PokerRoom are absolutely horrendous. I've taken some horrendously bad beats there, but I'm still convinced there's a lot of money to be made, but a lot of rake to be paid as well.

[thesharpie]

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Not that I'm a forum Nazi or anything, but wouldn't this be better posted in either the Affil/RB and/or Internet Bonuses forum? I would think that you'd see a better response.

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I thought I might get better responses posting here as I'm guessing more 2/4 SH players frequent this forum than the other 2.

pokerroom's short-handed games are surprisingly jello-like

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pokerroom's short-handed games are surprisingly jello-like

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I should have mentioned in my original reply that I haven't played on PokerStars...

Anyway, do you think that the SH games softness on PR compensate for the horrendous rake assuming you have a bonus going + some RB?

I would think that playing NL would be a better alternative...or SNGs, if they count those toward bonuses...I'm sure they do.

[imported_leader]

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pokerroom's short-handed games are surprisingly jello-like

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It's pretty LAG from my experience at 3/6

I have an article that answers this very question, but being a newbie here, I'm not sure if it's cool to post a link. If so, please let me know, and I will post the link.

Here's the section that speaks to what you ask ($2/$4 full ring):

1. A reload bonus always helps to offset the rake, but it may not help as much as you think. Poker Room's October 2005 reload bonus requires you to earn 10x the bonus amount (in dollars) in player points. (Prior to October 2005, players were required to earn only 7x the bonus amount.) You receive 0.07 player points for every $0.10 in rake. So, you will receive an average of 0.84 player points (0.07 x 12) for every hand that is raked (Poker Room abides by the "no flop, no drop" rule, meaning that it takes no rake if there isn't a flop). This means that you will need to play about 2,900 hands of $2/$4 to earn the 2,000 player points that will release the maximum $200 bonus. "That $200 helps to make up the difference in rake between Poker Room and Poker Stars," you think. Let's do the math, again assuming that you are that very good player who wins 10% of all hands played. Once you play those 2,900 hands at Poker Room, you will have paid back about $351 (290 x 1.21) in rake. Had you played those 2,900 hands at Poker Stars, you would have paid back $203 (290 x 0.70) in rake. The difference is $148, so you net a real profit of $52 on that bonus--not bad, but not a real $200, either.

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I have an article that answers this very question, but being a newbie here, I'm not sure if it's cool to post a link. If so, please let me know, and I will post the link.



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I'd like the link please.

[smoore]

As a general rule, non commercial, non affiliate links are just fine. People here are very good at sniffing out spam that's disguised as a question.

My website has lots of original content on it, but there are affiliate links too, so I just wanted to say that up front. Here's the link to the online rake article:

http://www.actionflop.com/article-online-rakes.htm

David