Staking Thread caveats - debate thread.

[Woodsey]

Are you guys purposely trying to tilt the crap out of everyone?

Fwiw, it's worked incredibly well on me, so well done.

I've read hundreds of staking requests on here and 2+2 and elsewhere. I've bought shares in well over 100.

I have never seen this caveat before in any staking request.

I don't want this this caveat to become standard. Others obviously don't agree.

I think it's worthy of a full debate.

Sorry if this tilts you James, I suggest you stop reading the thread.

I've already proven that its a negative freeroll for Blonde to have this full debate because as the market is right now everyone is maximising EV and it is perfectly efficient. If blonde enforces the ban and Chris has to at a lower price (by taking out the caveat) then he loses EV but equally if buyers don't buy because of the clause they are passing up EV.

Who the hell is banning it? No way to ban it, some are just saying they don't like it that's all.

[Doobs]

I think you'll find it's the ambiguity which hasn't satisfied us. Even the right honourable Chris Brammer hasn't yet decided at what point he would break the stake.

As above - prospective buyers are not in a position to demand such information

Given that the OP is exactly what Chris posted - the action has sold therefore total EV for the partnership has been maximised. It is perfectly efficient. There is no better outcome. Chris could have marked up the package a little more or made more stringent demands but he can do that too until the package stops selling out. At that point we have a problem because total EV isn't being maximised and at that point it is on the seller to back down and meet the buyers demands but we are not at that point or anywhere near it, hence it is still a negative freeroll for blonde to drive sellers away with policies such as a ban on a buy back clause.

To anyone that objects to the buy back clause: Who in your opinion benefits from banning such clauses? This would be the next logical step as transparency on the sellers part seems not to have satisfied you all both of you.

This is getting ludicrous.  Nobody was proposing a ban on the clause, we were having a discussion.  You're assertion that this clause didn't make any less likely people would invest was wrong.  I stated up the thread that this clause was enough to put me off.    

As a prospective buyer, I am perfectly entitled to ask for information, and I guess he is perfectly entitled to refuse it.  As it is we got a bit of clarification higher up the thread.

Likewise, nobody has asked for a sicknote and for people to sign a register before they play.  I just kind of expect the basic courtesies:  Just let me know if you can't play, then pay me back pretty sharpish when you can't play/do a win.  Just let me know when you are out etc.  I don't need a 10 page trip report etc, though it would be nice to get an update of sorts.

You also stated that the sellers could just go elsewhere, so having discussions like this was bad for buyers, as "we" could lose tens of thousands of EV through a discussion.  I don't know where you have been, but if the average recent proposal has been +EV, never mind +tens of thousand of EV, I'd be massively surprised.  

To me the board has tipped too far in the direction of the sellers, and this kind of clause isn't going to make it better.   Options have a value, and the more they are tipped towards the seller, then the bigger value they have.  I do this much of the day in my day job, and much of the rest of the time is sorting out the mess caused by people who didn't realise these options had a value.

Anyway, discussing it any further isn't the best way to react to this, there are always plenty of other ways I can spend my money.  My wife will be pleased.

Doobs

[Doobs]

I have a question for you Suupr. Do you think that taking a stake into high buy in events means you have a responsibility to the people good enoough buy a share to play those events in the best of form. The reason I ask is I believe you didn't play an event in one of your staking packages last year and in your Vegas list for this year you have this at the bottom

''''Because my primary objective in the summer is to play the cash games, there is ALWAYS a small chance that I will miss an event, due to fatigue of long session, unreal cash action etc. I have set myself the objective of 5 tournaments this summer, which is reasonable and I am pretty sure I will play, however, the risk of me not playing IS there, if this makes you at all uncomfortable then please don't buy, there is nothing I can do about this unfortunately. In the event of this happening, I will refund everyone's money as I was paid it at the rate I was paid it.''''

Sorry I only just replying to this now, been on a tilting plane journey last 24 hours (thin think I know )

Apologies if I offended you with you any of my ccomments, certainly wasn't intentional and my impression is you have plenty thick enough skin for these debates anyways

R.E the point about me.  The points you've made are correct, but I see them from the other way round

If you are taking cash from people to play in tourneys surely your part of the deal should be to be in a prime position to do well in those tourneys, yet you are basically saying with this caveat that I might be in a good cash game or I might be tired from playing cash so will not keep my end of the deal if I do put myself in that kind of spot.

My end of the deal is, IMO to play these tournaments in the optimal state of mind, for some (people like Bram for e.g) he could prolly play a bracelet event and be a terrific proposition for a staker at 1.2 : 1 only on 75-80% of his concentration, I know that for me in tournaments, if I'm under 90% my chance of winning is practically 0%, when i'm unfocused I'm a truly terrible terrible poker player. If I wasn't in a state fit to play I wouldn't play my money, your money my great aunt's money or some money tikay dropped and didn't realise. Not only would it be a bad use of the money I would hate every minute of it

In the scheme of things do you not think your priority should be to the team of stakers you have acquired, meaning that you would not put yourself in the position of being fatigued, or wanting to stick to a cash game. The way it reads is I am going to Vegas to play cash with my money, but I would like people to buy a share of me in tourneys that I might not play coz I might not have prepared myself properly.

Remember I am putting up my own money as well. My priority is to make the best decisions for me, when good cash games run I will be playing them because it's my livelihood, the games I play in as well do require a decent amount of mental preparation. Also, I would have been going to Vegas with or without the staking, I play cash games, not tournaments and everyone who knows me knows this so my priority will be the cash games always, I don't think this is a bad attitude because when I do play a tournament, that someone has bought shares in then they can trust me 100% I will be perfectly ready to play that comp and it will have my complete focus for the duration. The downside to purchasing shares in me is that I might miss tournaments because of this, but I, myself, miss out along with everyone buying shares - prolly more so actually.

You could easily have just got in a spot like this and posted' was feeling ill , didnt want to waste everyones money when I couldn't play my best' so I think it's good that you added that but the message it sends about your part of the deal is not good imo.

See to me, I think it reads very reasonably, I guess this is a difference in our view on staking as a hole, my view is its business and it's flexible, to accommodate poker variant nature. I hope it doesn't read too badly as really my intention is to just tell people straight up "This is the deal with me, it's not viable financially for me to be any different but all my actions are honorable" 

I think as well, it's important to remember HOW BIG a difference to my EXPECTED$ in making sure I'm in the right games. I messed people around in L.A regrettably and ended up compensating out of my own pocket which I feel was correst, I just didn't want to do that again.

Hope this gives you some insight into my motives. Have taken the point on board though and will certainly consider it for the future, would be interested to hear more views on my caveat?

Just answer this one as you asked, and I don't think anyone responded.  Your original post did put me off investing. 

I don't mind people pulling out if they are sick, but nobody wants to be the back up option.  I don't think the LA thing was good all round.

I invested anyway obviously, but not as much as I would have done.

Doobs

[action man]

i think a few intangible and immeasurable things have been left out of this discussion. The sweat the staker gets and the enjoyment of rooting on a player, that this caveat negates possibly. Also whether bramms chances increase in the next tournament after a big bink.
Also, i think bramm has factored the caveat into his mark up. I snap said to bramm he should have sold at 1.4, so maybe he has lowered the quote due to this. Personally i would never buy with this caveat just because im a gambling junkie and i love the sweat too much and id be on route the the train tracks if i missed out on a huge payday after bramm bought his action back.

[The Camel]

i think a few intangible and immeasurable things have been left out of this discussion. The sweat the staker gets and the enjoyment of rooting on a player, that this caveat negates possibly. Also whether bramms chances increase in the next tournament after a big bink.
Also, i think bramm has factored the caveat into his mark up. I snap said to bramm he should have sold at 1.4, so maybe he has lowered the quote due to this. Personally i would never buy with this caveat just because im a gambling junkie and i love the sweat too much and id be on route the the train tracks if i missed out on a huge payday after bramm bought his action back.

+1 to all this.

[DMorgan]

I think that is the most laughable statement I've ever read on Blonde. So you think it's ok to say come and buy my stock but you can't ask what I'm going to do with it? I like your post normally but this made me smile

It is simple economics. When investors demand more information this lowers the price of the package because the horse now can't choose when to invoke the clause and that is actually a negative freeroll for the horse.

With forced disclosure of information, either:

A) The horse cashes for less than the figure that the investors require to buy back his action
B) The horse cashes for more than the magic number and buys back his action, everyone has won chunk
C) The horse cashes for more than the magic number but does in half his share playing cash games. He now doesn't think he can afford to buy back the action - investors realised it was a silly clause say thats fine, they get to keep the rest of the package because its +EV for them to have the horse keep playing

Without forced disclosure, either:
A) The horse cashes for less than the figure that he had in mind to buy back his action
B) The horse cashes for more than the figure that he had in mind to buy back his action, everyone wins chunk
C) The horse cashes for more than the magic number but does in half his share playing cash games. He decides to stay on the stake, as above

You see how it changes nothing? There is no increase EV for the transaction. The only possible other outcome is that the horse refuses to drop the price by disclosing and instead sells elsewhere, hence the investors lose a chunk of EV.

Negative freeroll
Negative freeroll
Negative freeroll
Negative freeroll
Negative freeroll
Negative freeroll
Negative freeroll

[RED-DOG]

cliffs?

http://vimeo.com/1697471

[DMorgan]

Obviously it would be in the stakers interest for buying back to be banned.

But I've already proved that it wouldn't. If you ban the clause then the horse will just increase the markup to equate the loss. In this case his previous suggests that he will still sell out and EV would still be maximised, same as before. The price of the package won't change. He either sells out on Blonde as before or he sells elsewhere and the forum loses so its a negative freeroll.

[DMorgan]

However, just becuase we trust Chris not to do this, doesn't mean there aren't lots of players who wouldn't.

That is why this debate is so important imo.

So we don't agree that the horse has no incentive to do something shady like this? Pissing people off the relatively small field of investors for this size package is so so -EV for the horse and he's not even taking back money, its EV and he's likely to just do his money in anyway over the span of 20 big-field MTTs.

I just don't think that theres any way that a logically thinking horse would do this and if someone tried to sell who was deemed to be a risk to pull this, he wouldn't get through the checks and balances of the investors anyway.

[DMorgan]

The horse will only be buying back action if he's playing well, confident and in form - hence the package value has gone up.

If he's playing tez, there will be no chance for the staker to get out of it.

Again its just an unenforceable rule. Either we keep the status quo or we ban the clause, people realise that actually theres nothing they can do to stop the horse sending them a chunk of money and not sending %ages of future cashes, realise that the rule is unenforceable and scrap it - a net loss in wasted time and effort but mainly the people that decide to post elsewhere because of the forced lowering of prices which is banning this clause.

If you ban the clause, the horse just increases the markup to make up the difference and the price remains the same and sot here is no EV shift towards the buyer.

[DMorgan]

It's very naive thinking if you think this ambiguous caveat could never be abused.

They're running out of bullets folks, down to the personal stuff!

We can do this.

Feel free to find me a scenario where it is +EV for the horse to abuse the clause in some way

[The Camel]

However, just becuase we trust Chris not to do this, doesn't mean there aren't lots of players who wouldn't.

That is why this debate is so important imo.

So we don't agree that the horse has no incentive to do something shady like this? Pissing people off the relatively small field of investors for this size package is so so -EV for the horse and he's not even taking back money, its EV and he's likely to just do his money in anyway over the span of 20 big-field MTTs.

I just don't think that theres any way that a logically thinking horse would do this and if someone tried to sell who was deemed to be a risk to pull this, he wouldn't get through the checks and balances of the investors anyway.

This is very naive.

Almost 100% of grims are -ev for the person doing the dirty deed.

When a famous players stole 20k (or whatever it was) from the Vic, causing him to be banned from every casino in the land, do you think he thought through his actions thoroughly?

Yes, he was 20k better off, but his reputation was tarnished forever and his future earning capacity (if he's a winning player) has been undermined forever.

Poker players tend to do stuff which benefit them for the present, with little or no thought for the future.

[The Camel]

It's very naive thinking if you think this ambiguous caveat could never be abused.

They're running out of bullets folks, down to the personal stuff!

We can do this.

Feel free to find me a scenario where it is +EV for the horse to abuse the clause in some way

Horse puts a package of 20 wsop events with buy back clause.

Stakers buy package

Horse busts first 15 events

Horse buys 50% of tkay in seniors event

Tikays wins seniors

Horse exercising buyout clause

Horse wins bracelet in event 18 of package

Lots of pissed stakers.



You think this scenario is unrealistic?

[Woodsey]

^ The Tikay bit winning yes  

[MANTIS01]

Problem with longterm +EV stats in tournament staking is they only show what a buyer can expect over a long period of time. The horse is already using those stats to convince the buyer to take a short term gamble over a few weeks during the wsop. Does variance even out in poker over a coupla weeks? But sure enough, if those stats are good it will encourage buyers to take on the gamble. But in fact when the horse realises the deck is hitting him in the face he will be gone. So the buyer has gambled a short term rush will happen when in fact that is never going to happen, not for the buyer at least. It's a series of individual comps dressed up as a package. So why call it a package?