Hi everybody,

I became a RIO elite member yesterday and this is my first post. Very excited to start grinding again!

After a 6 month break I am looking to start playing PLO again. I want to start on the 100PLO level but I am not sure which site to choose. Basically a few factors I have taken into account so far and my thought process:

• Rake. Pokerstars seems to be the lowest with 5% capped at $2.50. Many other sites come out at 5% capped $3.
• Rakeback. Pokerstars offers no rakeback, other sites (like Party) do.

I believe that the two points above sort of cancel each other out. Other sites have higher rake but some rakeback, stars has lower rake but no rakeback. From a rake/rakeback perspective it seems inconclusive to choose a site.

When then look at other factors:

• Ability to play 100PLO zoom on Stars. This quite a big deal because it allows me to get >750 hands per hour 3-tabling zoom. If I were to 6-table (which I think is my max) regular tables on a different site I would get around 370 hands per hour. For simplicity sake: let's say my hourly volume is twice as high on stars.
• Stronger playerpool in 100PLO zoom on Stars. I think it is often said that Stars has the hardest games. We can therefore assume that achievable winrates (especially in Zoom) will be lower on Stars than on other sites.

If we take these points into account we can conclude that if my winrate on a different site would be >twice as high as it would be on Stars, a site other than Stars would yield a higher hourly. I personally doubt that this is the case, as the effect of the playerpool skill might not be that big in a game like PLO.

I therefore conclude that 100PLO zoom on Pokerstars is the best game for me. Besides yielding a higher hourly, we get some additional positives:

• More volume means more "learning" experiences.
• More volume means a more significant sample size quickly to draw conclusions from.
• Stars has a smooth client/software.

What are your thoughts on this? I feel like my thought process is flawed in some way because I often see people playing other sites. Is it because they believe their winrate can be more than twice as high on other sites? Or do they play ~12 regular tables at a time to allow for similar volume on a higher winrate?

Cheers!