I joined blonde like 8 year ago and posted like once. I was so pissed off by the news of this thread i requested my log in info and here i am. My dad loves poker bless him but hes as much use as a cock flavoured lolli pop. Hes not charging 1.25 in the main. He didnt play the main cos hes still trying to fkn work his sky box once again bless him. Dan is a very accomolished poker player who spent a good chunk of his life studying all sorts of tactics and strategy. Id back ronaldo in a penalty shootout versus my dad. Because hes better! 1.25 is a joke for dan and to have some mong kick off because he cant beat .25 50 cent and kicks off how aces were cracked on 678 all hearts mate jog on. Dont wanna buy dont buy you absolute lemon. Get a life . ✌️

Please... It's moron, not mong. ---- Jkjk

Played with Dan on day 3 of the main and would buy at 1.3 next year.

Reckon you need to have played the main to get an idea of its value.

Bubbled me you mean? *****. :p :p :p

h. jk jk. Nice run man. wp

i do still think my mark up was super reasonable. compare it to an American, many of these sell at 1.3-1.4, a lot of the regs have fallen behind everyone else in terms of ability (RIp online poker, and they have to pay tax. so at 1.4, you paying $140  for 70% )tax is 30 i believe) - that's like 2.0... i still feel the 1.25 i charged felt more than fair. even if i did bubble :p

screwed it. came 10th

lost 5/6 all ins in day 3, was alive from stealing and eventually that's what got me. reshoved 20bbs with 66 and ran into kings....couldn't hold :p

Urghhh I really feel like i need to clarity something. I in no way meant to offend anyone or make out that the whole poker community were morons. I don't think or believe this. My use of 'rando morons' was directed at nobody personally but clueless peole that don't think about what they are doing and just click buttons. This only in referred to the main event and the complete newbees that you wouldn't get in any other 10k tourney and i meant it in a way of poining out 'dead money' and value, rather than offending people. just as i would say "morons on the roads make driving dangerous" (and not expect people to take offence at that). I meant it as poker morons, i wasn't calling anyone a poker moron specifically.

"Being a lesser poker player does not make a person a moron."  I couldn't agree more with this... and in no way meant to berate the poker world.

Anyone that knows me will know that i wouldn't have meant offence by this at all. A key theme of many of my articles is helping the poker eco system and protecting recreational players, I wouldn't not attack them personally or as a whole nor do i disregard them at all.

Nonetheless, the interpretation of what i wrote doesn't mirror my views and i should have selected my words more carefully. I whole heatedly apologies for this. I'm really not an arrogant person, anyone who knows me or has watched me on Twitch or anything else will hopefully know this.

I have massive respect for the entire poker community, at all levels, and I'd actually argue that the speed the game is evolving is evidence that  there are few 'morons' in the game. I simply didn't consdier my wrods correctly, nor did I  assume (nor do i believe) that every non recreational player would consider them part of the "rando moron" classification (again hate this choice of wording). What I meant was that there are a few clueless players, that probably have no chance of winning, and this add value to the main event.

recreational player, amateur, inexperienced player or any other player that has some idea what they are doing do not equal what i was trying to describe as a "poker moron".

again sorry for anyne who took offence. Please accept my apologies.... I'm not an arrogant tosser... honest!

reg the expenses thing. I initially only included it because i didn't want to seem arrogant and had seen it elsewhere. it felt like fair justification for me, and that's something i do consider when ii buy action.... but I can see some valid points of its irrelevance. I initially I didn't want to seem like a cocky twat by saying "oh i think i have a 50% roi at the main so I'm selling at 1.25" and as it's somethign I considered when i bought action at mark up in the past form people, I just assumed people would think along the same lines as me.

Again, sorry if I've ruffled a few feathers, my initial intentions where to add a constructive post of how i justified both buying and selling at mark up in my own head.


Dan

99% sure its bullshit, pretty pretty pretty sure i didnt.

Mutual friend we have out there in Hungary (I'll not post his surname here as feels like a dick move ) but if it's not true, maybe he was joking and I misread interpreted. You're prob worth 1.9 anyway!

Seriously tho, how can anyone say - I have this ROI or that ROI in any event. it's all just made up and basically anyone who sells does it cause they're potless innit

$10k is a lot of money bud.

Ok, I'll apologize for my use of the word scummy in my original post, that was unnecessarily personal and this wasn't supposed to be a personal attack, just a comment on my frustration at the way the poker community is when it comes to squeezing every last penny out of every situation.

I've got a couple of things to reply to here so I'll try to break it down properly:

I want to echo what Doobs has been saying. If you believe a reasonable estimate of your roi is 20% and you're selling at 1.25 then you're taking a plus EV stake for the people buying a piece of you and making it -EV, right? A 20% roi on a 10k means you expect an average profit of 2k, and and if you're selling it 1.25 for the whole 10k then that totals 12,500, or am I doing this wrong? I tend to completely avoid tournaments so I may be wrong about how ROI works, but this is my understanding of it.

Even if you feel like you have a 30% roi in the field, or even a 40%, you're taking away over half of your investors expected average profit with this sort of mark up. These are investors who are paying for you to play an event that is the ultimate dream in poker, an event you wouldn't be able to play and a dream you wouldn't have a shot at if it wasn't for that investment, and you want to charge people well over half their average profit for giving you that opportunity and having the sweat in the ME that they wanted? And the justification is that "this is standard for the main", which really doesn't sit well with me either, as I mentioned in the opening post. Just because other people are behaving in a way that in my opinion is morally questionable, doesn't mean that you have to follow suit too. There are some very good players on this forum who sell at either no mark up or a small one, who are definitely still going to be a +ev investment at a higher mark up, but choose to sell at or close to face, presumably for this reason. I'm also not a fan of talking about your customers, the people who pay your wages, as rando morons and total noobs etc, but again that's just something I don't like about the way a lot of the pros talk that I think is massively -ev for the long term economy of the game, but that's a different conversation. Again, though, I want to echo what Doobs has said, about how even if the day 1 field is particularly soft, you could catch a bad seat draw, and the further you go into the tournament the higher the % of good players and the higher the money, which has got to make a huge difference to anyone, especially (and this isn't a dig at all at you Dan, just an observation) someone who has only ever cashed 1 event above 1k.

There are a few reasons why I didn't say anything on Facebook, but mostly it comes down to how I don't feel like it's my place. What is starting a shit storm on a staking thread about whether you're worth the mark up actually going to achieve? Especially if it's coming from someone who never backed you before. Yes, I am on the look out for some sweats, but I respect that I'm not a serial buyer and feel like I don't really have the right to go around derailing the Facebook staking threads of people I don't really know. I hope you can understand, then, why I chose to post this on a public forum to see what the general view of my opinion on this matter is, and I do think that the poker community has a responsibility to police this sort of thing. The staking market is not regulated, and if it wants to prosper (which I think everyone can agree is very good for the long term future of the game) then it's important to keep it under control.

If it was just about having a sweat in the main, and about having a bit of fun and hopefully making some money in the process, why the big mark up? And the fact that something is "standard" doesn't make it good.


As an aside, does anyone have an idea what a reasonable ROI would be in the main for someone like Pleno who's a total genius, and for someone who would be an average tournament reg?

Pleno sold at 1.9 MU last year (according to a very reliable friend of his, though don't know Pleno personally)

I think the rano moron think has been taken wrongly. I didn't mean weak poker players. i meant literally, they random morons that you only see in the main event. there are people that have NEVER played before. IT's probably a bit harsh and wasn't meant to be supper offensive, they just are poker morons. they have zero idea what they are doing and that is good value.

Ill reiterate how much it costs to play the main event.  Flights 1k-2k, hotel 1-2k, live poker expenses are huge, and mark up is a way of minimizing this.  the player has to commit his time and $ to travelling and indeed playing, and this is something that helps with this cost (And would have to be paid by a backer if they were to play the main them self (or indeed any tourney equal to the value of their %)). YEs the guy gets a trip in vegas etc, but serious players arent going to be getting fucked up and having fun all day. the series is long and the grind is real. IT comes once a year, and serious pros go to vegas to work hard, not party 24/7 (some have 3 or 4 nights out only over the whole series).

the truth is in my (limited) experience the main event is the softest tourney i think i have ever player, and I've heard this reiterated time and time again. All of these randoms and weak players do sky rocket your ROI. There are good players yes, but they are so out numbered, and the structure and field size means bad table, you can often just wait it out in the early days.

as far as the dream, I've played it before and i can just say the Main Event is just another tournament imo. I was hyped to pay it last year, but very underwhelmed. i guess i was expecting fireworks and discoballs.

I could be wrong, but I've only cashed 1 tourney over 1k too. But I'm from the Uk and there aren't that many to play. I've done really well in £500 events and I show a really good final table conversion rate and there is only a small difference between a 500 and 1k event in the UK skill wise. Maybe who you were talking about is similar, there are not many (i can only think of a couple a year £1k+ events in the UK. The main event is no more difficult than something like the big 55 or big 109, which prob has a similar strength field and number of wizzards. This is something you will realise if you have managed, or do manage to play the it at some point. Some of the things you see are ludacris. I saw a 10x pre from utg, 3 callers, and 62o win the hand with a huge flop overbet and gutshot. I remember writing an article about him slamming it on the table in pride.

AS far as main event ROIs go. it's hard to quantify exactly, because you never really get an accurate sample size. However, (and plucking numbers out of the air here) if someone has an ROI of about 50% in online $109s (and a decent sample) you can assume they will do well in the main ($109 is a high average stake on line). Someone like Holz who is one of the best in the world and crushes super high rollers live has (and I've looked these up) a $250 average stake, Plenos on party is only $116. Holz has a 80% roi and Pleno 100 over a small sample, bearing in mind these are the elite, someone with the 50% at 109s should expect to do super well in live games as they're far easier as a general rule of thumb, and the Main is one of the softest I've played (though i didn't go deep to experience other stuff).

It guess it comes down to how they look at it as well as your research. An investor should look at it one of two ways, as a sweat and a bit of fun (like a sports bet) and they should be prepared to be making a bad investment if they don't do the research, or treat it as an ev calculation and do research on the player and only invest if they see profit.

ASide from helping with necessary expenses, if anything selling action removes some of the burden. you don't lose as much if you lose, and the pay jumps are smaller when you win, so it probably enables someone to play better, less scared.  Many amateurs that invest often cant expect to have an edge in the game, so buying at someone who is expected to make a small profit after markup is still better than playing themselves. Also, lots of players justify their expertise. one analogy i was given was, "you wouldn't expect a plumber to fix something for free". Lots of players justify markup on this alone (though i don't). Many pros have spent thousands of $ on coaching and countless hours studying, so question why should they give away their expertise for free when they worked so hard to make themselves +ev.

I think markup takes into account expenses, expertise, and time (it's kind of like working for someone else in a way i guess), and i think it's reasonable in a lot of cases, though 2.0 mark up seems ludicrous to me (and people sell at that). You also lose a couple of % in conversion fees too don't forget (you have to buy in cash)

I didn't see the scummy in the first post.  So apologies for that, but you can't expect your readers to know yor intention when you said it.

I used to be one of the bigger buyers on Blonde, but learned my lesson through the pocket.

I don't believe having a perceived ROI of 20% justifies a 25% mark up.  In my view, the seller should alays leave enough to give the buyer a +EV bet.  So if you are a 20% ROI player, you should probably be selling something much nearer 1.0.  Not only are your buyers taking heaps of variance from the comp each year, there is a whole bunch of risk too.  Every year there are stories of people blowing the buy in in Vegas before the main or just flat out stealing it.   I know nothing much about you, so this isn't a personal thing.  It is just a general risk we take every time we stake someone who isn't a very close friend (and even sometimes when you do).  And just because somebody else is ripping people off a bit more by charging 1.5, doesn't mean it is ok to charge 1.25.  And just because your freinds understand all this, and are all just punting, is it really the case with all these facebook posts? 

I have been to Vegas a few times now, and every year there are people in the corridor looking rough, telling tales of heroic drinking sessions, and laughing about how they have only had a couple of hours sleep.  I have paid mark up on here to witness somebody show up right at the end of late reg, and it is 1.01 he wasn't doing that because his short stack game was brilliant.  I fully accept that you get some bad players in the main, though maybe not so many as you once did.  But you also can find yourself sat next to Steve Sung, as I did on one of my two goes at the main.  If you get to day 2 or 3, you can find some much tougher tables and the genuine bad recs are mostly gone (there really is no need to call your customers morons and I mean ever).  How would you fare with Steve Sung on your left for 8 hours?  Or how are you going to react when you get late where the money is big?  And though you may well be in the top half of players when you start, where are you on day 4 on when the bigger part of the prize money is?  And how badly is your game going to be affected when you are playing for this big money.  I don't believe anyone really does play better as the prize gets bigger, but if you haven't ever played for 6 or 7 figures, it is unclear how much you will freeze or play too passively. 

I am not going to call anybody a scumbag, but most of these mark ups are on the heavy side and I don't think it is a negative thing for the poker community to mention it here. 

Good luck in the main.  Hope you give your investors a payday.

I agree. I aways send backeers a tourney receipt and I have a financial investment myself, I do want to see a positive return on it and playing drunk or on 4 hours sleep would be pretty bad. a 20% roi really isn't hard to have in a tourney like this.

Hopefully i will have the issue of worring about how big money payjumps will affect me!

Good luck if you amke it out there.

Hey Dan,

Do you often wonder into random people's houses and call them scummy?  Your post seems a lot more negative than the first one to rando morons like me.  

Must be nice to have 4000 friends, sick brag.  No wonder you almost sold out quickly and everything.

Cheers

  

Ha! You're taking what i said out of context.... this is the kind of trolly, negativity i was referring to. Passive aggressive posts that have no substance.

 'Rando morons' although probably a little non PC, referred to the total noobs you get playing the main event (And there's lots of them, people who have never played before which make the tourney good value). I wasn't directed at anyone personally.

You're paraphrasing my use of the term 'scummy', which was a quote from the original poster and I don't believe I called anyone in here Scummy. In fact, i don't think anyone,  OP included, used scummy as a direct insult to anyone personally.

My friends, as i explained are not all 'friends' - no brag present. I was using it to justify Facebook as a suitable resource.


My post was in no way meant to be negative. Perhaps it may be a little defensive, but I was aiming to reply to the original post in a constructive way, trying to make a contextual and intelligent argument to explain mark up (which i feel i did).

Seriously, people need to stop looking for things to attack and just smile more! I think i actually made a valid argument. I could have just written "do i have a 20% roi at the wsop? almost certainly yes. Markup justified", but instead i spent a while explaining things in depth, surely that's a way better way to respond.

Hey Dan,

Do you often wonder into random people's houses and call them scummy?  Your post seems a lot more negative than the first one to rando morons like me.  

Must be nice to have 4000 friends, sick brag.  No wonder you almost sold out quickly and everything.

Cheers

  

Ha! You're taking what i said out of context.... this is the kind of trolly, negativity i was referring to. Passive aggressive posts that have no substance.

 'Rando morons' referred to the total noobs you get playing the main event (And there's lots of them, people who have never played before which make the tourney good value). I wasn't directed at anyone.

You're paraphrasing my use of the term 'scummy', which was a quote from the original poster and I don't believe I called anyone in here Scummy. In fact, i don't think anyone,  OP included, used scummy as a direct insult to anyone personally.

My friends, as i explained are not all 'friends' - no brag present. I was using it to justify Facebook as a suitable resource.


My post was in no way meant to be negative. Perhaps it may be a little defensive, but I was aiming to reply to the original post in a constructive way, trying to make a contextual and intelligent argument to explain mark up (which i feel i did).

Seriously, people need to stop looking for things to attack and just smile more! I think i actually made a valid argument. I could have just written "do i have a 20% roi at the wsop? almost certainly yes. Markup justified", but instead i spent a while explaining things in depth, surely that's a way better way to respond.

YO! I think I'm in good stead to speak since I made a similar post on Facebook (though not at 1.29). I have like 4k 'friends' and 80% of them are poker players that have added me, there's a good poker community and the people that bought off me were all poker players. It's also not just your friends you're sharing to, you're getting reshares etc. it's the most efficient way to do anything nowadays. I'd say the Facebook thing isn't too big of a deal. I think non poker players don't get past the lingo and I've never even been approached for action from a non poker player, So i wouldn't be concerned about that. I will always swap before i sell to friends, but if not i will also always buy at the same mark up i sell to them at too. potato potato (hmmm just released it's impossible to use that saying in text...)

Reg mark up. If you've played the main event you'll know it's the softest tournament in the world. sure it has all the wizards, but if you see some of the stuff i saw last year (including my bust out hand last year where someone shoved 16k into 3k, leading to a huge multiway all in with a FD), you'd agree, even good amateurs could justify a MU vs this field. I've bought at mark up, and i would expect to do so. For the most part I'd only buy if i thought It was worth it (unless i was feeling fruity). Perhaps i am doing these players a favor, but if so, helping someone out is fine by me, it's something to feel even better about when they lose my money (which is obv going to happen more often than not).

If anything I, I'm often worried about charging markup. I'm pretty humble about my "ability" and I charge mark up because people advise me to and tell me I am worth it. I usually sell at 1.2, but last year i lost a shit load converting to £ to $ so i moved it up to 1.25 this year (i did explain this in my original post). I also spoke to several respectable people before posting to make sure i wasn't taking the piss with my MU and that it seemed fair. I pretty much got laughed at and reminded of super high markups other people charge. I know 100% there were people selling at 1.6-1.9 last year because i inquired but didn't buy (granted they are top top players but still). I even know of people being freerolled in for 50%. that's way better than 1.29, which would be what, like 78:22? Even though I didn't explain why i added mark up in every super grim and boring detail, people can look at my results and/or have played with me and make their minds up themselves. I was super clear with my MU and didn't try to deceive anyone. I play very few live tournaments, but I have pretty good results in them when I have. I wanted to keep my posts as short as possible, so assumed those wanting to buy would understand how mark up works and be able to make their own minds up about whether they wanted to invest, or punt or whatever way you want to look at it.

The main point is people want a main event sweat. It's a great spot to get behind and that's fun. People also appreciate its expensive to go to Vegas and playing the main also extends my trip by 2 weeks, which comes with expenses and had i not sold enough, i would have played something else while i was there with the money I'm putting into the main. This is something you don't have to worry about when buying a piece. If anything, I'd argue the structure, rando morons and fun factor make the main event a spot for justifiably higher mark up.

I only sold to poker players, many highly respected and very accomplished players, and I almost sold out extremely quickly. It was these kinds of guys who advised me to charge mark up, and that reassures me people think it's worth it. If you have a problem with mark up, don't sell with it and don't buy with it, noone is making you do anything. People bet on sports or roulette or black jack for fun knowing they are making -ev bets so i guess people do place a value on the fun element, and i think that means mark up will remain "standard".

For me, the scummy thing isn't selling at mark up or on Facebook, so long as it's clear (even if it's unjustified in terms of skill level since noone is forced to buy), it's 'ranting' in a forum instead of maturely asking the guys personally, or dropping them a message to politely suggest they justify it on the post (for everyone's benefit). I wouldn't go into Tesco and rant about the price of melons, if i didn't think they were worth it... i wouldn't buy them.

This post doesn't even do anything constructive, it's just a pointless rant and  I'd argue that wining and ranting and spreading needless negativity is way more destructive than a group of players HAPPILY investing and getting behind an individual, having fun, and hoping to make a bit of money in the process.