Black Belt Poker

[cod meharly]

How much rakeback will BlackBelt gain from 50 graders playing 4 tables for 6 hours a day over the 4 week period?

From what I gather, at least a dozen of the players will be playing STTs and so raking less, and at least a dozen will drop out along the way.

Their cut form the rake may well be a fair wodge, but I don't see it coming close to the $160,000 that cod has suggested.

nah i dont think they will get close tbf...i do recall neil saying at the presentation that the rake would help alot with the brown belt packages though. no idea of the exact amount though

[George2Loose]

How much rakeback will BlackBelt gain from 50 graders playing 4 tables for 6 hours a day over the 4 week period?

if it was about generating rake wouldnt they start higher?

[cod meharly]

How much rakeback will BlackBelt gain from 50 graders playing 4 tables for 6 hours a day over the 4 week period?

if it was about generating rake wouldnt they start higher?

if they started higher then it would be hard to get 50 to play...no?

[DUNK619]

How much rakeback will BlackBelt gain from 50 graders playing 4 tables for 6 hours a day over the 4 week period?

if it was about generating rake wouldnt they start higher?

if they started higher then it would be hard to get 50 to play...no?

  whats the betting on how long it will take 4 the stakin thread to go up after he reaches 300

[thetank]

How much rakeback will BlackBelt gain from 50 graders playing 4 tables for 6 hours a day over the 4 week period?

if it was about generating rake wouldnt they start higher?

if they started higher then it would be hard to get 50 to play...no?

Maybe you'd still get 50 but there would be a greater amount of week 1 dropouts.

[Royal Flush]

Surely any good poker player can adapt, the problem is that a large amount of those who fish for backing are too arrogant to adapt which is why they go skint in the first place. Having looked through the 50 though i see some names that are excellent players who will adapt to beat whatever game they are in, those that say the stakes are too small and that is why they can't beat them are on a cloud somewhere sitting there just saying "if i didn't run bad all the time i wouldn't be skint"

[Bad Beat]

 I'm not really sure what I'm allowed to say on this thread but it caught my eye so I thought I'd make a couple of points.

 First of all to answer Cod's point, we're not going to get anywhere close to half of the money from rake to fund 8x$20k packages. In fact if too many people drop out we may struggle to get even a quarter of our money that way. we don't just have the cost of the packages, we also have the cost of flying the eight to Vegas, renting the house and throwing in a bit of grub, renting a vehicle to go to The Rio, running training days throughout The Grading process and that's before we pay wages to our lovely staff who are working so hard to get things going.

 Anybody who thinks this is a rakerace to cynically get money from the 50 players and profit whatever happens has just not done the maths. I did do the maths, and I came up with this plan as a marketing exercise for a new company. I expected it to cost me money. I also wanted to bet on the Brown Belts to make some money in the tournaments. They are playing 50/50 after make-up and I'm hoping, (and I've started praying again), that they'll get me some money back.

 I'll answer some other points in a little while. If I'm not allowed to let me know and it'll save me typing.

nc

[tikay]

You are free, & more than welcome, to discuss any BBP matters on here Neil, & I hope you do. Our only objections were to full-on "Press-Release" type jobbies.

Debate away here as long as you wish, & we wish you, & your staff, well, with all things BBP-related.

[henrik777]

 I'm not really sure what I'm allowed to say on this thread but it caught my eye so I thought I'd make a couple of points.

 First of all to answer Cod's point, we're not going to get anywhere close to half of the money from rake to fund 8x$20k packages. In fact if too many people drop out we may struggle to get even a quarter of our money that way. we don't just have the cost of the packages, we also have the cost of flying the eight to Vegas, renting the house and throwing in a bit of grub, renting a vehicle to go to The Rio, running training days throughout The Grading process and that's before we pay wages to our lovely staff who are working so hard to get things going.

 Anybody who thinks this is a rakerace to cynically get money from the 50 players and profit whatever happens has just not done the maths. I did do the maths, and I came up with this plan as a marketing exercise for a new company. I expected it to cost me money. I also wanted to bet on the Brown Belts to make some money in the tournaments. They are playing 50/50 after make-up and I'm hoping, (and I've started praying again), that they'll get me some money back.

 I'll answer some other points in a little while. If I'm not allowed to let me know and it'll save me typing.

nc

Are they allowed to chop ?

Sandy

[Bad Beat]

 Thanks for that Tikay. I'll try not to make it into an advert and just want to clear up a few issues that people often raise.

 I take some of the implications of Tighty's points on board and I've obviously considered them.

 If we had a grading period where we made our candidates play online mtts then we would struggle to make even a small fraction of the rake needed to cover $160k worth of WSOP entries and all the exes. Therefore we really needed to ask The Graders to play cash. Also if we simply picked people who were only capable of playing Mtts to be our Graders then the guys might find that they struggle to earn a living every month, and also the expenses money needed to travel to tournaments. Given the higher variance in being a tournament pro a better fit for us is the one we went with.

 Therefore, an ideal Brown Belt for us is one who is a cash game high volume grinder on-line, a winning player who is going to earn their income and enough expenses to travel to the tournaments, and who we're going to reward with tournament entries totalling WAY more than they could simply earn by shopping around for a rakeback deal. They'll also be gaining points, which they need to earn to maintain the belt, for three other things. That is referring others, winning money in the tournaments and participating in the community. Details of how these points will work will appear in a few weeks time, but effectively it means players can earn more tournament entries from activities outside of playing online poker.

 

[Bad Beat]

 To pick up on Tighty's other implication, people have said already what is the relevance of playing 25c/50c when people are being selected to play large buy-in MTTs?

 Some people here have given answers that exactly mirror my thinking.

 Firstly I would say that this is an enormous sum of money that we're giving away. I don't think it's unreasonable for me to ask people to jump through a few hoops to get their hands on the cash. The Grading is supposed to be a test of character. We're hopefully, going to develop a long-term relationship with a group of players who are going to really represent our site going forward, and we're also gambling a large amount of the companies money on those people.

 Making people face adversity and testing them with things that are hard to do is one way of sorting out the men from the boys. The guy who sticks at it over four weeks is way less likely to quit the scheme after a few months if things don't go well, he's way less likely to try and cheat the company in some way, and he's way more likely to play as if it's his own money and care about it in the MTTs throughout his sponsorship.

 Essentially I'm getting them all pot committed.

 Making people come to training/workshop days in London is not about me teaching people about bet-sizing or how to attack on the bubble. It's a test of who is committed to the project. The ones who flew from Sweden and Ireland have shown tremendous committment and the ones who neither showed up or rang to explain have dissappointed me. Already I'm learning about them as people.

 Also these days are tremendously important in building a sense of camaradarie and encouraging bonding. This will also, hopefully, be developed when the Brown Belts stay under one roof in Vegas. I'm hoping the players are all learning from each other and the sense of community they have developed so far has impressed and encouraged me.

 I personally agree with much of what Flushy has said here. People who simply said that they weren't beating these low levels because of bad beats or because the players are bad are not thinking about the game to the level you MUST to win today. We are hoping to build a group of people who can adapt, are prepared to learn and are capable of utilising the knowledge they gain in attacking other forms of poker. While the exact ammount of P & L they make is not totally important too me, I totally decry the idea that this trial cannot teach us anything about the people or that it has no relevance tothe end goal.

 As a reminder to all The Graders are judged on four criteria:

1> Effort and committment to the project - did they do the hours, the tables, turn up at the days?

2> Profit. Did they have a steady winning curve? A loser that ran bad is better than someone who won by spinning-up and desperate gambling on week four.

3> Willingness to improve. Did they show humility, accept room for improvement and attempt to become a better player?

4> Opening up their game. Were they prepared to be scrutinised, did they coopete with media, write a blog, post hands for discussion?

 All four criteria are equally important and eight Brown Belts are going to be picked on who achieves a balance over the four criteria.

 I hope that clears up a couple of points.

nc

[TightEnd]

Thanks Neil, very comprehensive answers.

[JaffaCake]

Good stuff Mr C, very interesting, good luck to u and your brown belters....

[JaffaCake]

2> Profit. Did they have a steady winning curve? A loser that ran bad is better than someone who won by spinning-up and desperate gambling on week four.

Oh, and is it true this will from now on be known as the riverdave rule?

[Royal Flush]

I personally agree with much of what Flushy has said here.

Can i get that on a t-shirt?