It became quite costly to play poker.
After GGPoker dramatically raised the rake at tables with blinds of $25/$50 and above a few weeks ago, approximately one hundred high stakes No-Limit Hold’em players decided to abandon the site. The strategy looks to have paid off now that GGPoker has decided to restore rake levels to anything like what they were before.

Poker instructor George tweeted on April 3 that even before the hike, the average rake at five- and six-handed $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em tables was 4.02 large blinds, making GGPoker’s rake much higher than those of its rivals. Under the new rake system, the predicted rake was an enormous 7.08 large blinds.

Recently, @GGPoker almost increased their already absurdly high rake for HSNL tournaments.

In response, ninety players from the HSNL have organized a boycott of the matches.Twitter: (https://t.co/eXdR82tFQL) Image: (https://t.co/MgrZNEWP6R)

From George (@George_ymb): April 3, 2023
They have raised the rake to the point that pros are aware they cannot win,” “Mixgrill” commented on Two Plus Two. This will lead to a dramatic drop in the number of raked hands and leave recreational players with nobody to play against. Less money will be made on GGpoker, and players will start switching to other sites.

To paraphrase, “an environment in which it is possible for players to win money and enjoy themselves, as the network continues to generate enough revenue to profit.”

Result achieved
On Sunday, George announced with great joy that the high stakes community had struck an arrangement with GGPoker, wherein 90% of the rake increase will be removed from games with four or more participants. The rake for all three-handed and heads-up games has been reduced, and GGPoker has vowed to look into making more cuts.

The HS community decided to make peace with @GGPoker and resume playing in their VIP games yesterday after a vote.

This leads to:

Reduction in the 4+ handed rise of 90% (4.2bb @ 5k)
Reduced rake 3h+HU speeds

• GG assures us that he will think about doing more trials of 3h + HU rake reductions pic.twitter.com/b4kJ6qb4Cp

On April 16, 2023, George (@George_ymb) wrote:
After this, George said, “GG have opened up much better lines of communication, which we have already started leveraging to make the games safer and fairer.” This was a “huge W for the HS community, and online poker overall,” George said.

He went on to say that GG Poker deserved credit for “the best playing experience of any site” and “how they have handled this situation” since “they also shared unprecedented levels of information about their business,” which led to the successful reconstruction of HS Cash Online Poker.

Going forward, George and other high-stakes poker players will continue to encourage GGPoker to reduce the rake at short-handed and heads-up tables “where it is clearly mutually beneficial for the operator and the players to incentivize the battles between pros, which happen regularly on lower rake networks.”

He also mentioned plans to collaborate with Americas Cardroom to improve that site so that high-stakes poker players have an option to GGPoker. Although healthy competition is generally beneficial for players, GGPoker doesn’t seem to give a hoot about losing clients, as seen by the fact that their rake at the high stakes tables is still far higher than that of ACR and PokerStars. However, being the most popular site for real money poker players, it can get away with it.

Source: www.pokernewsdaily.com