[Zetack]

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From the horse's mouth, Lee Jones...

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Q15: And finally, for the number one favorite question everybody wants answered: "What about r*keb*ck?"



Frankly, I've never really understood the fascination with rakeback. It's like people who pay too much tax, giving the U.S. Government an interest-free loan. Then they get a rebate in April from the IRS, and go "Whoo-hoo! Free money!"



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C'mon, Lee Jones is way too smart a man to not understand this.

If Rakeback were typically calculated using the amount of rake actually paid by a player, i.e. the rake taken out of pots the player wins, then his comment would be spot on and there would be no difference between rakeback and reduced rake.

But because mgr is typically based on the rake taken divided by the number of players in the hand its not equivalent at all. Lee knows that a good player plays much fewer hands than other players. Thus he gets credit (and money back) for generated rake that he's not actually paying, that's not actually coming out of his pocket.

Plus, and this is important, it doesn't matter whether the player wins or loses. Reduced rake only effects pots that you actually drag. Rakeback will still give you your 2.5 cents or whatever from pots that you lose. If a player is on a major downswing and wins very few pots during the downswing, he'll see very little benefit from reduced rake, but he'll still get the exact same rakeback as if he were in a major heater and this rakeback can offset a downswing to an extent that reduced rakeback can not.

I don't see how Lee can't fathom that this is extra money in a good players pocket and not at all comparable to reduced rake.

For a smart man like Lee to claim not to understand it, he is either being disingenuous, or downright misleading. I hate to see that from a man I respect.

--Zetack