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Bond18
The people I know
by Bond18 on 04/02/08
Luckychewy: Over the last six months Chewy is the person I’ve spent the most time discussing poker strategy with. He’s an easy going kid with strong patience and discipline. Chewy plays a pretty TAG game, and his background in cash games makes him a very good hand reader post flop in deep stack situations. I think given his age, quality of game, and determination, Chewy is the player I know with the most potential, that is, if you could buy stock in poker players, he’s blue chip. I’ve also never met him in person. Chewy also has the benefit of playing entirely on his own roll online outside a few shots at higher NL cash games, and when he finally hit his big score, a 3rd place finish in a 1k FTOPS event worth $107,000, the only person who got a piece of that was me, a 10% swap that Chewy of course paid immediately. At this point, Chewy has lost over $12,000 in swaps to me, though considering the scores they’ve originated from, I hardly doubt he minds. In the majority of tournaments it’d likely be profitable for me to swap 100% with him.
Randallin: Randall is the best tournament poker player I know plain and simple. Randall, Chewy, and I all play a somewhat similar TAG game, but Randall sees and feels things neither of us does. When you talk to Randall you don’t necessary get the sense that he has such an enormously talented poker mind because he’s joking all the time and often high but every now and then he’ll suddenly get on topic about a poker concept and bring up angles I never thought about before. Randall is the perfect tournament poker playing robot, he makes close to zero mistakes, creates mistakes in his opposition, doesn’t spew, doesn’t tilt, and doesn’t seem to feel the pressure in high money and high variance situations. He also does the best impressions ever.
Gobboboy: Gobboboy is the most misunderstood man in online poker. Ever since he did his interviews while going deep in the 2007 Aussie Millions event and had the audacity to be honest and talk about how bad everyone plays people have framed him as an arrogant jackass. He isn’t though, and he wasn’t lying, the majority of live tournament players are so atrociously awful they wouldn’t be profitable in a $50 tournament online despite playing for 100 times the stakes in the live arena. Gobbo used to be one of the more creative LAG players online, but that was around 2006 when players were still easily pushed around. These days Gobbo borders on being a nit, a condition caused by him running horribly lately. Gobbo’s greatest weakness as a player is his own self doubt. He’s been honest lately about his net worth dropping from $400,000 to $100,000 in the past year, and that kind of losing would crush most peoples spirit. Still, I’ve told him that he should look at the bright side, he’s a 20 year old with a net worth over $100,000 whose highly recognizable and still has the ability to crush tournaments if he applies himself. He’ll be playing in the WSOP for the first time this year, and I hope for his sake he crushes it.
Ajunglen: Adam fucking Junglen is the sickest problem solver I’ve ever seen, that is, he adds up the pieces in a poker hand better than anyone I know. He’s famous for numerous hands in which he made an enormous soul read in a key situation, the greatest of which involved calling Patrick Antonius’s shove for 1.5 X the pot with AJ on a Q24 flop. It’s no secret that Adam was my original tournament poker coach who took me from an average grinder to someone who actually had the right ideas and understanding about the game, and if forced to pick one person who was most influential in my development it would certainly be him. It’s hard to classify his game as either TAG or LAG or whatever, he mostly believes in adjusting to the table and players. Adam’s only real flaw as a poker player is his lack of motivation. He puts in fairly slight volume online despite absolutely crushing when he makes the effort, and he has enough money at this point that he could sit back and do nothing for a long time without any consequence. As a result I’m pretty much always amazed if I run into Adam on the table online.
Sirwatts: Sirwatts is perhaps the most mellow man I’ve ever met, bordering on comatose. I’m fairly sure if I greeted him with a “Hey Watts!” then punched him as hard as I could in the face he’d compose himself, then look at me confused and say calmly “Whoa, what was that all about?” I don’t think he’s ever lodged a complaint in his life, even after the night where he got second in the $5,000 winner take all event on Pokerstars we didn’t hear a word about it at 2+2 or on AIM. The only thing I’ve ever seen him excited about is the prospect of Timex failing at something. Watts plays what is pretty much a perfect TAG game, much like Randall in that he basically never makes mistakes, never spews, and picks his spots to get out of line very well. I’ll be getting a house with him in Vegas this summer, as well as Pacman, Stevejpa, and Grafyx.
MikeJ: MikeJ is a complete math genius. Any time I have any question about my equity in a situation, I bring it to him. Mike barely plays since he’s actually motivated to do well in school, which is quite the rarity in my group of friends. He’s naturally getting a degree in mathematics from one of those prestigious ‘everyone here is smarter and better than you’ universities. Mike has excellent results when he does fit in the time to play, though occasionally makes pre flop pot odds calls I don’t agree with. When I or Chewy bring this up with him it results in Mike sending us a series of 27 IM messages containing enormous math equations that make as much sense as Japanese but prove without a doubt that his call was correct. I like talking poker with Mike because he brings up math related issues I never thought about before, and is a creative enough player that he brings up ideas and concepts I never thought about exploiting before. I’m not sure if poker is something Mike ever intends to pursue as a profession, but I hope he never loses time to play and think about the game entirely since his brain is so valuable to pick.
Timex: I honestly think Timex has the most interesting story of any person I know. He was a self made millionaire before he turned 18, and now only a half year into that age he’s got somewhere in the area of three million. He got his start by asking Stevejpa if he could come to his house and watch him play, and soon started crushing tournaments himself online. He managed to win his way into the Paradise Poker one million dollar sit-n-go promotion and wound up running good and making a deal three handed for around $350,000. After that he kept playing, started backing other players, and the rest is history. Timex is the kind of person who simply has a natural talent for making money and profitable investments. If you could bet on the first three words coming out of Timex’s mouth to start any sentence, you should bet the house on “What’s my equity…” Timex has been as good a backer as I could have asked for. He has pretty much given me free reign on what I want to play as long as I run it by him before hand, and has only turned down an event once before, which considering the buy in and field quality I can honestly say was likely the right decision. Most importantly though, Timex has a great and easy going sense of humor and when I crack wise with something like “I can’t wait to wipe my ass with more of your money” he'dd rather sarcastically shoot back with “You’re the worst decision I ever made” than get his panties in a knot. On top of all this Timex is actually one of the best all around poker players I know. He dominates in live tournaments, online tournaments, and online cash and is of course best known for his win at EPT Dortmund worth $1.4 million US. He’s also leading the Cardplayer player of the year rankings four months into the year and unable to play in the US.
ShaunfuckingDeeb: If pot smokers had a hall of fame, Deeb deserves his own floor in it. Catching Deeb on the level is rarer than finding a sober Irishman. Despite his prolific smoking Deeb somehow manages to put up an absurd amount of online tournament scores. Deeb plays a pretty LAG style which has moments of hilarious spew, but he also creates profitable spots players like me would never get in. What I respect most about Deeb though, is his willingness to stick his neck out and be a pillar of integrity in the online community. Although he’s often been criticized for this I think it’s important that someone out there is willing to take the time and effort to see there are real consequences for those who break the laws of online poker. Deeb also takes the time to respond to a ton of strategy posts on 2+2, though his writing is so fucking awful I sometimes wonder why he bothers since nobody can understand it. Random Shundeeb fact: Deeb plays his millions of tables on a single laptop with a broken backspace key and no mouse. Don’t ask me how.
Charder30: A lot of us like to joke around and call Charder ‘the great spewzilla’. That used to be true, but these days I think Charder has tightened up and found a good balance to become a really good player. Of all the players I know, I would say Charder has improved the most over the last 6 months. He also has the skills to final table two straight EPT events in a row, including the enormous and tough field at the PCA. Unfortunately for me, these days I’m the one spewing to him.
StevoL: Stevo is the man I enjoy trash talking the most in the world. That’s because Stevo gives as good as he gets, and our race in the rankings (which only has symbolic value and is mostly entirely pointless) has drawn closer and closer over the last few weeks. Stevo plays a really solid TAG game, again the kind of player who makes very mistakes and doesn’t get out of line often. Stevo also has a background in cash games which gives him an edge against most tournament players in deep stacked spots. He somehow has the discipline to be up and functioning around 6am every morning to play all the major European tournaments since there’s more often overlay and even worse players. Stevo survives on a diet solely made up of coca-cola, redbull, and cigarettes. He has not eaten or slept in several months.
That’s all for now, though I may do more in the future since I certainly didn’t cover everyone. I still need to write a clever entry about Adanthar, and his love of saying “obv” at the end of every sentence.
Sundays are pleasant and in no way suicide inducing
by Bond18 on 03/31/08
As I’ve said before, I have forever given up waking up early on a Sunday to force myself to play, even if that means missing the quarterly $1050 million on Pokerstars. I wanted to have a calm, well rested Sunday for once, so I smoked a joint around 11pm and was asleep by 12:15 with a 10am wake up time.
I registered for everything from the Sunday Mulligan through the late night Tilt $50 rebuys which goes off a half hour after the $109 6 max and $109 full ring on stars. I probably played close to 25 tournaments on the day, but because I got enough sleep felt good the whole way through. The first result of the day came in the 30k guarantee $200 buy in on Bodog where I finished 3rd for about $3,700, which was more than enough to pay for the whole days worth of entries.
However, the most interesting result of the day came in the Stars $22 rebuys. At the 2000-4000 level with 400 ante I lost a blind verse blind pot and was down to 900 chips. I thought it was one ante at the time, then realized I had paid one, so in actuality it was two. I of course went all in the next hand, which I won to put me up to a little over one big blind. I then waited for any hand with showdown value and got it in again, which I won again. Things continued like this until I found myself with a sizeable stack a few rounds later. I came into the final table as one of the short stacks, but ran good at the right moments and got heads up against a pretty bad player at a 3 to 1 deficit. It didn’t take long to reverse that standing, and after continuing to apply pressure and move in pre flop, I sucked out his AK on the river to take down the tournament, coming all the way back from 2 antes. That was pretty much one of the craziest things I’ve ever had happen to me in my poker career, and I’ve uploaded the hand history which can be watched here:
http://www.pokerxfactor.com/HA123585/One%20ante%20comeback/8550
You have to make a log in to watch the video, but you don’t have to sign up or pay for anything at PXF. The hand I go down to 2 antes is number 260.
In preparation for the upcoming trip I have to go sort a number of bureaucratic details out with my permanent residency and visa status. On Friday I went down to the city and went to the immigration office to ask them about what needs to get done before I can leave the country. The immigration office is full of people who look like their having the worst day of their lives, exhausted and unshaven, like they just got thrown out of the drunk tank after a weekend long bender. The lines are enormous and with the bell that constantly calls out “NOW SERVING ‘A’..ONE FIFTY FOUR” you wonder what the suicide rate of the employees listening to it 40 hours a week is. Luckily the issue I have with them is given its own specific office away from the insanity, and I was in and out within 15 minutes. My case has been assigned a case worker and apparently after getting him the necessary documents I won’t have to worry about leaving the country and being banned for 3 years.
Meanwhile Pokerstars finally came out to announce that APPT will not start up until August, a detail to which I was aware of already but didn’t want to publicize since a friend who works with Stars told me and I’m not sure how big a secret it was supposed to be. Thank God for his heads up, otherwise I’d be sitting here writing emails to everyone at the APPT full of threats for having blown my chance to go to Europe. All I need now is confirmation from Party Poker that I do indeed have my seat reserved and to transfer them the $12,500 I am moving into the Party account. If for some disastrous reason that falls through I’ll be doing a schedule that includes the New Zealand Champs, the Melbourne Champs, LAPT San Jose, and Las Vegas, though it makes for a pretty pathetic ‘around the world’ trip. Hopefully everything gets sorted with Party though and the intended trip is on in full swing. You never know though, so I haven’t bought any plane tickets yet.
I registered for everything from the Sunday Mulligan through the late night Tilt $50 rebuys which goes off a half hour after the $109 6 max and $109 full ring on stars. I probably played close to 25 tournaments on the day, but because I got enough sleep felt good the whole way through. The first result of the day came in the 30k guarantee $200 buy in on Bodog where I finished 3rd for about $3,700, which was more than enough to pay for the whole days worth of entries.
However, the most interesting result of the day came in the Stars $22 rebuys. At the 2000-4000 level with 400 ante I lost a blind verse blind pot and was down to 900 chips. I thought it was one ante at the time, then realized I had paid one, so in actuality it was two. I of course went all in the next hand, which I won to put me up to a little over one big blind. I then waited for any hand with showdown value and got it in again, which I won again. Things continued like this until I found myself with a sizeable stack a few rounds later. I came into the final table as one of the short stacks, but ran good at the right moments and got heads up against a pretty bad player at a 3 to 1 deficit. It didn’t take long to reverse that standing, and after continuing to apply pressure and move in pre flop, I sucked out his AK on the river to take down the tournament, coming all the way back from 2 antes. That was pretty much one of the craziest things I’ve ever had happen to me in my poker career, and I’ve uploaded the hand history which can be watched here:
http://www.pokerxfactor.com/HA123585/One%20ante%20comeback/8550
You have to make a log in to watch the video, but you don’t have to sign up or pay for anything at PXF. The hand I go down to 2 antes is number 260.
In preparation for the upcoming trip I have to go sort a number of bureaucratic details out with my permanent residency and visa status. On Friday I went down to the city and went to the immigration office to ask them about what needs to get done before I can leave the country. The immigration office is full of people who look like their having the worst day of their lives, exhausted and unshaven, like they just got thrown out of the drunk tank after a weekend long bender. The lines are enormous and with the bell that constantly calls out “NOW SERVING ‘A’..ONE FIFTY FOUR” you wonder what the suicide rate of the employees listening to it 40 hours a week is. Luckily the issue I have with them is given its own specific office away from the insanity, and I was in and out within 15 minutes. My case has been assigned a case worker and apparently after getting him the necessary documents I won’t have to worry about leaving the country and being banned for 3 years.
Meanwhile Pokerstars finally came out to announce that APPT will not start up until August, a detail to which I was aware of already but didn’t want to publicize since a friend who works with Stars told me and I’m not sure how big a secret it was supposed to be. Thank God for his heads up, otherwise I’d be sitting here writing emails to everyone at the APPT full of threats for having blown my chance to go to Europe. All I need now is confirmation from Party Poker that I do indeed have my seat reserved and to transfer them the $12,500 I am moving into the Party account. If for some disastrous reason that falls through I’ll be doing a schedule that includes the New Zealand Champs, the Melbourne Champs, LAPT San Jose, and Las Vegas, though it makes for a pretty pathetic ‘around the world’ trip. Hopefully everything gets sorted with Party though and the intended trip is on in full swing. You never know though, so I haven’t bought any plane tickets yet.
Player Profile
by Bond18 on 03/28/08
I was doing the paper work necessary for the Party Poker Million cruise today and they have a player profile section you need to fill out for TV and marketing purposes. At first I filled the sheet out straight, but then I let a wise crack slip in. One thing led to another and, well, I'll let you read it for yourself. Here's what I'm sending back Party Poker:
Player Profile
(This information may be used for TV production and Marketing purposes)
Full name: _____George Anthony Dunst______________
Place of birth: __Milwaukee Wisconsin, United States_________________
Age: _23__________________
Current place of residence: ___Melbourne, Australia________________
Profession: _Poker player and degenerate extraordinaire. For legitimacy purposes I am also a writer.________________
Marital status: ___single but my girlfriend has dug her claws in pretty deep.________________
Children: ___none________________
Ages: ___________________
When and how did you get into Poker: __Age 18, playing with friends in high school. I was the school bookie, but eventually that dried up, so I had to find a new way to hustle my friend’s money.
Who is your favorite Poker player and why: __Mike ‘Timex’ McDonald because he gives me money to gamble with and never yells at me when I lose it.
Career Highlight - Live tournaments titles: __I am a 100% failure at live poker. I’m talking Napoleon at Waterloo level failure here.
- Online tournament titles: _I’m not sure how many wins anymore. Biggest was on Full Tilt 100 rebuys for 36k.
Favorite past time, sports or hobbies: __Watching Brett Favre work his magic. Playing Call of Duty 4. Keeping Timex in the middle class.
Personals goals or ambition: _I want to make a lot of money playing poker. I want to save up enough money that I can buy an enormous mansion and place everything valuable in the world in it. Then after I’ve accumulated everything important I’ll one day keel over in old age, dropping a snow globe as I fade into death, mumbling “Rosebud” with my last breath.
Favorite Movie: _The Godfather
Favorite Music: _Elvis__________________
Favorite Place: _They’re all pretty good, except Shanghai. Shanghai sucks.
Describe yourself in 5 words: Baddest motherfucker of all time.
Player Profile
(This information may be used for TV production and Marketing purposes)
Full name: _____George Anthony Dunst______________
Place of birth: __Milwaukee Wisconsin, United States_________________
Age: _23__________________
Current place of residence: ___Melbourne, Australia________________
Profession: _Poker player and degenerate extraordinaire. For legitimacy purposes I am also a writer.________________
Marital status: ___single but my girlfriend has dug her claws in pretty deep.________________
Children: ___none________________
Ages: ___________________
When and how did you get into Poker: __Age 18, playing with friends in high school. I was the school bookie, but eventually that dried up, so I had to find a new way to hustle my friend’s money.
Who is your favorite Poker player and why: __Mike ‘Timex’ McDonald because he gives me money to gamble with and never yells at me when I lose it.
Career Highlight - Live tournaments titles: __I am a 100% failure at live poker. I’m talking Napoleon at Waterloo level failure here.
- Online tournament titles: _I’m not sure how many wins anymore. Biggest was on Full Tilt 100 rebuys for 36k.
Favorite past time, sports or hobbies: __Watching Brett Favre work his magic. Playing Call of Duty 4. Keeping Timex in the middle class.
Personals goals or ambition: _I want to make a lot of money playing poker. I want to save up enough money that I can buy an enormous mansion and place everything valuable in the world in it. Then after I’ve accumulated everything important I’ll one day keel over in old age, dropping a snow globe as I fade into death, mumbling “Rosebud” with my last breath.
Favorite Movie: _The Godfather
Favorite Music: _Elvis__________________
Favorite Place: _They’re all pretty good, except Shanghai. Shanghai sucks.
Describe yourself in 5 words: Baddest motherfucker of all time.
You got yourself a god damn deal
by Bond18 on 03/27/08
We finalized the deal with Full Tilt. I’m not sure what their wishes are as far as keeping the details private or public, but until I talk to them about it I won’t put it here. If they say that’s fine, then I certainly will.
I’ve also finalized my itinerary for the trip. I got tired of waiting for Stars to announce the APPT schedule and decided to fuck it. I’ll be going from Melbourne to Venice for the Party Poker cruise, then to Paris for the Grand Prix, then Wisconsin, then Costa Rica, and finally Vegas.
I emailed a friend who works for Party Poker wondering about the availability of cabins and luckily there were a few left. The only problem is moving the necessary $12,500 into my Party Poker account. For the majority of online companies calling them and saying “Hello, I’m an American who now moved to and lives in Australia, can I please be allowed to use your services?” is enough to give the poor sap on phone support a stroke that’ll have him bleeding out his ears.
The details of my deal that I can include are that I’m expected to have five submissions a week and am not allowed to print anything outright libelous or slanderous. Cursing and elaborately constructed insults will apparently be allowed, thank God. They’ve told me they’ll keep editing to a minimal though I do have the suspicion that were I to write up a story about one of their big name pros that’s both true yet insulting, it might find its way out of the article. A good example occurred last year where I squeezed with AJ in a spot that Phil Gordon had flat called pre and he ended up folding AQ which would have won. Phil spent the next 45 minutes complaining like a total baby until well known online player ‘Mr. TimCaum’ looked across the table and said “Christ Phil, are you still complaining about that!?” For a guy as young, rich, and successful as he is, he really is such a whiner about losing in random tournaments.
I can also say that I’ve given them exclusive rights to the content, which means nothing will get posted at 2+2, P5’s or here, though I may be able to start threads and simply provide a direct link to that days update. I’m not quite sure how it’ll all work yet though having talked to Dhuber over at P5’s he’s pretty sure with their knew pocketfives blog feature being started that probably won’t be allowed, though he was nice enough to offer that I come onto the podcast down the road to promote it. Huber has a lot more personality than his calm and professional nature on the podcast might suggest.
Meanwhile I’ve continued my hot streak over the past week. I’m good friends with StevoL who is number one in the Australian rankings, and as I slide closer and closer to taking his spot my trash talk gets more and more furious. The other night when I was out at karaoke and rather drunk and high, I sent him the following text message letter for letter: “Im one of the badest mother fuckers of all time. You’re going down son its over bitch. This trash talk is so good I put in an apostrafi. Yes, i wrote that word all urban like. Bitch.” I imagine he cried himself to sleep after receiving it, though he’s way to macho to ever confess it. Either way, he’s going down. It’s all pretty pointless in the end, but I enjoy making a quasi-rivalry out of it. After all, Stevo is younger, taller, and has more money than me, so I need to put him in his place for something.
I’ve also finalized my itinerary for the trip. I got tired of waiting for Stars to announce the APPT schedule and decided to fuck it. I’ll be going from Melbourne to Venice for the Party Poker cruise, then to Paris for the Grand Prix, then Wisconsin, then Costa Rica, and finally Vegas.
I emailed a friend who works for Party Poker wondering about the availability of cabins and luckily there were a few left. The only problem is moving the necessary $12,500 into my Party Poker account. For the majority of online companies calling them and saying “Hello, I’m an American who now moved to and lives in Australia, can I please be allowed to use your services?” is enough to give the poor sap on phone support a stroke that’ll have him bleeding out his ears.
The details of my deal that I can include are that I’m expected to have five submissions a week and am not allowed to print anything outright libelous or slanderous. Cursing and elaborately constructed insults will apparently be allowed, thank God. They’ve told me they’ll keep editing to a minimal though I do have the suspicion that were I to write up a story about one of their big name pros that’s both true yet insulting, it might find its way out of the article. A good example occurred last year where I squeezed with AJ in a spot that Phil Gordon had flat called pre and he ended up folding AQ which would have won. Phil spent the next 45 minutes complaining like a total baby until well known online player ‘Mr. TimCaum’ looked across the table and said “Christ Phil, are you still complaining about that!?” For a guy as young, rich, and successful as he is, he really is such a whiner about losing in random tournaments.
I can also say that I’ve given them exclusive rights to the content, which means nothing will get posted at 2+2, P5’s or here, though I may be able to start threads and simply provide a direct link to that days update. I’m not quite sure how it’ll all work yet though having talked to Dhuber over at P5’s he’s pretty sure with their knew pocketfives blog feature being started that probably won’t be allowed, though he was nice enough to offer that I come onto the podcast down the road to promote it. Huber has a lot more personality than his calm and professional nature on the podcast might suggest.
Meanwhile I’ve continued my hot streak over the past week. I’m good friends with StevoL who is number one in the Australian rankings, and as I slide closer and closer to taking his spot my trash talk gets more and more furious. The other night when I was out at karaoke and rather drunk and high, I sent him the following text message letter for letter: “Im one of the badest mother fuckers of all time. You’re going down son its over bitch. This trash talk is so good I put in an apostrafi. Yes, i wrote that word all urban like. Bitch.” I imagine he cried himself to sleep after receiving it, though he’s way to macho to ever confess it. Either way, he’s going down. It’s all pretty pointless in the end, but I enjoy making a quasi-rivalry out of it. After all, Stevo is younger, taller, and has more money than me, so I need to put him in his place for something.
Things it took me a while to learn part 17, Staking deals
by Bond18 on 03/23/08
I’ve had this segment requested a number of times and there seems to be a lot of questions and misinformation within the community about staking arrangements. I’m not the most qualified to speak about being a person who is staking (which is fairly irrelevant since very few reading are interested in starting a staking empire) but I do feel quite qualified in talking about being staked. First, a little history in my experience being backed.
Outside a couple of one off deals I had in tournaments I’ve had two large backing experiences. The first was with a friend from Milwaukee named Rob who knew I had come close to busting my roll. I approached him about backing and he was pretty eager at the chance since he knew I worked quite hard at improving and was trustworthy. Our starting deal was a fairly strange one, he gave me a roll of $10,000. If I lost it I was expected to pay back half through whatever methods I ended up making money from (that is, one day getting a job) and if I won he got 1/3rd of the profits. Basically, I was half staked. I was under Rob from around December 2005 until September 2007. In that period I think I made Rob something like $60,000 for himself, though I’ll never be entirely sure. Our basic arrangement was that I played whatever I thought was appropriate, but always okayed what I intended through him ahead of time and kept things within the bankroll. Our deal ended very amicably with him having made a sizeable profit and my having built a considerable roll with minimal risk for myself. Rob had both my online and live action, though if I chose to take an event off and play it for myself that option was always available to me.
My second and better known arrangement as been my deal with Timex . I told Timex around April 2007 that I’d be going to the WSOP and if he wanted to do any backing for the events I was open minded. Timex put a team together and had us sign contracts that said we were obligated through the entirety of the World Series. When the series was over I had lost him $61,000 and he asked if I wanted to keep going in future live events. We kept the deal running and also included the highest stakes online tournaments (mostly 1k buy ins and occasional FTOPS and WCOOP events) which I am too nity to play. At one point with Timex I was in over $125,000 worth of make up, but at the current point the number sits around $90,000. Our deal is 60-40 in his favor and he is accountable for all loses.
Now on to less self absorbed content; the most frequent question I see asked about staking is what a standard deal is. It’s hard to say exactly what the standard deal is, based on the quality of player, the stakes he’s playing for, his volume of play, whether he’s doing both online and live, etc. It seems though that the majority of staking deals are either 60-40 in the backers favor with make up or 50-50 with make up. As far as deals with no make up are concerned (often done for a single event situation) the standard seems to be 80-20 in the backers favor, though considering the variance involved there those numbers can fluctuate to a good degree.
Next most frequently asked seems to be how to get staked. This is a pretty elaborate topic. I think a list of qualities and steps towards getting backed will be appropriate here:
1. Honesty: First and foremost a player who wants to be backed needs to be considered trustworthy. If you don’t have this you are pretty much useless to a backer. Backers don’t want to operate like babysitters and they don’t want to have to deal with players who might be lying, stealing, or omitting details to them. Having an honest reputation within the community goes a long way.
2. Communication: A player needs to let his backer know what he intends to do and how. He needs to let him know what he needs and what he’ll provide. One of the most common problems in backing arrangements is a player playing an event and the backer and player not being entirely sure if the other thinks he has his action. If there is any event you either intend or hope to play, you always must let your backer know in advance to get approval unless he has given you free reign ahead of time.
3. Quality play: Smart backers know that skilled play is considerably more important than results. I can’t stress enough that just because you have some killer results doesn’t mean you deserve backing. There are plenty of random donks who run hot over a small sample and final table or take down a few tournaments and seem to think they are now entitled to a sweet backing deal. A backer wants to see a quality thought process and skilled play much more than he wants to see a few big tournament scores. If you want to establish a reputation for quality play you really ought to be contributing to strategy discussion in poker forums. It’s not only a great way to improve and learn from some of the better minds in the game, but it’s a way to prove that you think deeply about the game as well. When approaching a backer who is less than familiar with your play be willing to submit a number of animated hand histories for him to evaluate. More can be learned from this than giving them a link to your OPR stats and saying “look how much I crush dude! Ship the stakage!” As Timex puts it: “one thing to keep in mind is that even though you may be a profitable player when covering 100% of losses and getting 100% of profits, that isn't equivalent to being profitable covering 100% OF losses and getting only 60% of profits (which is the situation that the backer is accepting). So if you are a reasonable winner at your games, and think you would like a backing deal to play slightly bigger games, put yourself in the backers shoes and realize that if you aren't killing the smaller games, its difficult for you to be profitable enough at the bigger games to make it a profitable investment for the backer. And also, don't PM me, I'm more or less done looking for new horses at the moment.” Thanks boss.
4. Be easy going and accommodating: A backer doesn’t want to deal with someone who is demanding and inflexible. If a backer asks you to do something that’s reasonable, such as not play a certain tournament, don’t get your fucking panties in a knot and your ego offended. It’s okay to tell a backer you’d really like to play a certain tournament, but going on and on about how massively +EV you are is annoying and depending on who you are and which tournament you’re talking about, possibly delusional.
5. Keep good records: Both the backer and the player should be keeping records. This will prevent possible mix ups in the future. Nothing quite dissolves a backing arrangement like an argument over money, so make sure you keep close enough track of what’s going in and out that this shouldn’t happen, and if it does, it’s easily rectified.
6. Approaching a backer: It’s pretty well known who the main backers are in the online poker community. The most normal way most are approached is either through PM or email. If you’re some nobody messaging out of the blue I don’t like your chances. However, if you have well respected friends in the poker community who are willing to vouch for your ability and trustworthiness this will help. Be mindful though, that establishing yourself in the community ahead of time is pretty relevant. If you’re a new player who has zero reputation, a few good results, and few connections your chances of getting backed are slim to none. Most of the major backers get numerous requests for backing a day, so your reputation needs to proceed you to have a realistic shot.
Next, people often ask ‘is backing right for me?’ First of all that depends on what you’re trying to achieve. Most people seeking backing are looking to get backed for what they can’t afford, and among internet players that mostly means being backed for live play since the buy ins are so high. Most players would obviously prefer to be staked only for live play and keep online for themselves, though these deals are not terribly common. The majority of backing deals, especially for less established players or new to the backing scene, are for a combination of online and live poker. You need to consider though, that in this kind of deal you run the risk of accumulating a high amount of live make up and then having to work it off with all your online volume, meaning you have no actual income for perhaps months at a time. These kind of backing deals give you the opportunity to make a large live score, but conversely put you in a position you’ll see zero online winnings if you run bad live.
We should also discuss make up. For those who aren’t aware make up is similar to debt but not the same thing. Make up is what you are down on your backing arrangement, but not necessarily money owed to your backer. That is to say, if you are in make up for $50,000, and have a net worth of $100,000 and for some reason are no longer able to play poker, you do not owe the backer $50,000 out of your own money. As far as leaving a backing arrangement in make up for no reason goes, unless you are under contract there isn’t necessarily repercussions in the traditional form of something like a lawsuit (or broken legs) but there are factors to consider. First of all if you leave a backer while in make up for no good reason it is very unlikely you’ll ever find another backer since word of your actions will get around. Also, some would consider this unethical, and it is a considerable grey area of morality. While you indeed have the right to opt out of your staking arrangement while in make up for no legitimate reason, the damage it will do to your reputation in the poker community is something you need to weigh it heavily against. A backer and a player need to set the conditions of what happens when a player is in make up but wants to change or leave an arrangement ahead of time.
Lastly there are two quick questions that often come up. First, in the case of FPP’s, who is entitled to them, the backer or player. The vast majority of the time it is the player who is considered entitled to the FPP’s. The other issue deals with expenses, travel and accommodation can be quite expensive in regards to live poker. While there are some deals that include these, the majority of the time the player is expected to pay these out of pocket.
I hope this settles some of the confusion.
Outside a couple of one off deals I had in tournaments I’ve had two large backing experiences. The first was with a friend from Milwaukee named Rob who knew I had come close to busting my roll. I approached him about backing and he was pretty eager at the chance since he knew I worked quite hard at improving and was trustworthy. Our starting deal was a fairly strange one, he gave me a roll of $10,000. If I lost it I was expected to pay back half through whatever methods I ended up making money from (that is, one day getting a job) and if I won he got 1/3rd of the profits. Basically, I was half staked. I was under Rob from around December 2005 until September 2007. In that period I think I made Rob something like $60,000 for himself, though I’ll never be entirely sure. Our basic arrangement was that I played whatever I thought was appropriate, but always okayed what I intended through him ahead of time and kept things within the bankroll. Our deal ended very amicably with him having made a sizeable profit and my having built a considerable roll with minimal risk for myself. Rob had both my online and live action, though if I chose to take an event off and play it for myself that option was always available to me.
My second and better known arrangement as been my deal with Timex . I told Timex around April 2007 that I’d be going to the WSOP and if he wanted to do any backing for the events I was open minded. Timex put a team together and had us sign contracts that said we were obligated through the entirety of the World Series. When the series was over I had lost him $61,000 and he asked if I wanted to keep going in future live events. We kept the deal running and also included the highest stakes online tournaments (mostly 1k buy ins and occasional FTOPS and WCOOP events) which I am too nity to play. At one point with Timex I was in over $125,000 worth of make up, but at the current point the number sits around $90,000. Our deal is 60-40 in his favor and he is accountable for all loses.
Now on to less self absorbed content; the most frequent question I see asked about staking is what a standard deal is. It’s hard to say exactly what the standard deal is, based on the quality of player, the stakes he’s playing for, his volume of play, whether he’s doing both online and live, etc. It seems though that the majority of staking deals are either 60-40 in the backers favor with make up or 50-50 with make up. As far as deals with no make up are concerned (often done for a single event situation) the standard seems to be 80-20 in the backers favor, though considering the variance involved there those numbers can fluctuate to a good degree.
Next most frequently asked seems to be how to get staked. This is a pretty elaborate topic. I think a list of qualities and steps towards getting backed will be appropriate here:
1. Honesty: First and foremost a player who wants to be backed needs to be considered trustworthy. If you don’t have this you are pretty much useless to a backer. Backers don’t want to operate like babysitters and they don’t want to have to deal with players who might be lying, stealing, or omitting details to them. Having an honest reputation within the community goes a long way.
2. Communication: A player needs to let his backer know what he intends to do and how. He needs to let him know what he needs and what he’ll provide. One of the most common problems in backing arrangements is a player playing an event and the backer and player not being entirely sure if the other thinks he has his action. If there is any event you either intend or hope to play, you always must let your backer know in advance to get approval unless he has given you free reign ahead of time.
3. Quality play: Smart backers know that skilled play is considerably more important than results. I can’t stress enough that just because you have some killer results doesn’t mean you deserve backing. There are plenty of random donks who run hot over a small sample and final table or take down a few tournaments and seem to think they are now entitled to a sweet backing deal. A backer wants to see a quality thought process and skilled play much more than he wants to see a few big tournament scores. If you want to establish a reputation for quality play you really ought to be contributing to strategy discussion in poker forums. It’s not only a great way to improve and learn from some of the better minds in the game, but it’s a way to prove that you think deeply about the game as well. When approaching a backer who is less than familiar with your play be willing to submit a number of animated hand histories for him to evaluate. More can be learned from this than giving them a link to your OPR stats and saying “look how much I crush dude! Ship the stakage!” As Timex puts it: “one thing to keep in mind is that even though you may be a profitable player when covering 100% of losses and getting 100% of profits, that isn't equivalent to being profitable covering 100% OF losses and getting only 60% of profits (which is the situation that the backer is accepting). So if you are a reasonable winner at your games, and think you would like a backing deal to play slightly bigger games, put yourself in the backers shoes and realize that if you aren't killing the smaller games, its difficult for you to be profitable enough at the bigger games to make it a profitable investment for the backer. And also, don't PM me, I'm more or less done looking for new horses at the moment.” Thanks boss.
4. Be easy going and accommodating: A backer doesn’t want to deal with someone who is demanding and inflexible. If a backer asks you to do something that’s reasonable, such as not play a certain tournament, don’t get your fucking panties in a knot and your ego offended. It’s okay to tell a backer you’d really like to play a certain tournament, but going on and on about how massively +EV you are is annoying and depending on who you are and which tournament you’re talking about, possibly delusional.
5. Keep good records: Both the backer and the player should be keeping records. This will prevent possible mix ups in the future. Nothing quite dissolves a backing arrangement like an argument over money, so make sure you keep close enough track of what’s going in and out that this shouldn’t happen, and if it does, it’s easily rectified.
6. Approaching a backer: It’s pretty well known who the main backers are in the online poker community. The most normal way most are approached is either through PM or email. If you’re some nobody messaging out of the blue I don’t like your chances. However, if you have well respected friends in the poker community who are willing to vouch for your ability and trustworthiness this will help. Be mindful though, that establishing yourself in the community ahead of time is pretty relevant. If you’re a new player who has zero reputation, a few good results, and few connections your chances of getting backed are slim to none. Most of the major backers get numerous requests for backing a day, so your reputation needs to proceed you to have a realistic shot.
Next, people often ask ‘is backing right for me?’ First of all that depends on what you’re trying to achieve. Most people seeking backing are looking to get backed for what they can’t afford, and among internet players that mostly means being backed for live play since the buy ins are so high. Most players would obviously prefer to be staked only for live play and keep online for themselves, though these deals are not terribly common. The majority of backing deals, especially for less established players or new to the backing scene, are for a combination of online and live poker. You need to consider though, that in this kind of deal you run the risk of accumulating a high amount of live make up and then having to work it off with all your online volume, meaning you have no actual income for perhaps months at a time. These kind of backing deals give you the opportunity to make a large live score, but conversely put you in a position you’ll see zero online winnings if you run bad live.
We should also discuss make up. For those who aren’t aware make up is similar to debt but not the same thing. Make up is what you are down on your backing arrangement, but not necessarily money owed to your backer. That is to say, if you are in make up for $50,000, and have a net worth of $100,000 and for some reason are no longer able to play poker, you do not owe the backer $50,000 out of your own money. As far as leaving a backing arrangement in make up for no reason goes, unless you are under contract there isn’t necessarily repercussions in the traditional form of something like a lawsuit (or broken legs) but there are factors to consider. First of all if you leave a backer while in make up for no good reason it is very unlikely you’ll ever find another backer since word of your actions will get around. Also, some would consider this unethical, and it is a considerable grey area of morality. While you indeed have the right to opt out of your staking arrangement while in make up for no legitimate reason, the damage it will do to your reputation in the poker community is something you need to weigh it heavily against. A backer and a player need to set the conditions of what happens when a player is in make up but wants to change or leave an arrangement ahead of time.
Lastly there are two quick questions that often come up. First, in the case of FPP’s, who is entitled to them, the backer or player. The vast majority of the time it is the player who is considered entitled to the FPP’s. The other issue deals with expenses, travel and accommodation can be quite expensive in regards to live poker. While there are some deals that include these, the majority of the time the player is expected to pay these out of pocket.
I hope this settles some of the confusion.
