something a bit different - any potential interest?

[Claw75]

OK, before I come up with a proper proposal I just thought I'd gauge likely interest.  I don't expect there to be much, if any, but don't try, don't find out etc etc!

My personal situation.  I gave up my full time job in January.  At that time I had a good live record.  As a purely recreational player I never kept proper records of my play, but I turned a profit of around £4,000 playing live tournaments (roughly weekly) with buy-ins between £50 and £300 over the course of 2008.  When I left my job, I put some money aside to use as a poker bankroll.  I then started running bad.  A few final tables, but only small cashes when they came.  I also started playing badly too - gambling unnecessarily, playing too tight at other times.  I've been reassessing my game over the past few weeks, including playing at some venues where I wouldn't usually play.  I feel like I'm playing well.  I've still not cashed recently, but that's been mainly down to bad luck.  In normal circumstances I would carry on and wait for varience to kick in - I'm still certain that I will be a winning player over the long term.  My initial bankroll, however, has now pretty much halved.  In addition to that, bills are mounting up, and with no steady income at present I need to use that money for real life bills and expenses.  I simply cannot justify spending any money on poker at present.

Perhaps surprisingly, I'm cool with that.  That's just the way things are, although the timing is a little frustrating.  Rather than posting the odd thread looking for staking in particular events (which I can't really justify right now given recent lack of results) I am considering putting something together proposing some kind of medium-term syndicated staking.  In brief, I'd be looking for a number of individuals to put money towards a bankroll, which I'd use to play live events at pre-agreed buy in levels (similar, I suppose, to what Matt did online earlier in the year, although I would not be contributing myself).  In return, I would document all tournaments played on my blog, and keep an open dialogue through that medium with backers, discussing particular hands etc.  I would envisage taking around 30% of any profits, and sharing the rest proportionately among the backers at agreed intervals.  The plan would be to continue playing until x amount of profit is made, or going bust (although obviously if things are going badly I'd give backers the option to cut their losses at any time).

So that's the bare bones of an idea.  Any legs to it, or dead in the water?  Flame if you must, but constructive comments would be preferred

[TightEnd]

what assurances would you give potential backers that you would have the self-discipline to stick to what was agreed  eg no table games, slots, tilty spin downs? whether these be at venue or online.

what ways will you work to improve your game?

do you think you have any edge in £200+ buy in games? FWIW I think the proposal would be more viable if you undertook to stick to £100/sub £100 buy ins where I think you are competitive, fields are smaller and expenses lower  eg Luton, Equal Chance, maybe the Western   

What volume would you be able to put in in these types of live games?


good luck with it, these are just some initial thoughts after reading the above

[GreekStein]

what assurances would you give potential backers that you would have the self-discipline to stick to what was agreed  eg no table games, slots, tilty spin downs? whether these be at venue or online.

What do you mean Tighty?

If Claw played these it would be with her own money and not from the staking funds.

[Claw75]

what assurances would you give potential backers that you would have the self-discipline to stick to what was agreed  eg no table games, slots, tilty spin downs? whether these be at venue or online.

what ways will you work to improve your game?

do you think you have any edge in £200+ buy in games? FWIW I think the proposal would be more viable if you undertook to stick to £100/sub £100 buy ins where I think you are competitive, fields are smaller and expenses lower  eg Luton, Equal Chance, maybe the Western  

What volume would you be able to put in in these types of live games?


good luck with it, these are just some initial thoughts after reading the above

In order:

I simply would never, ever, gamble with other people's money.  I hope people that know me would know that to be the case.  People will just have to take my word on that.

  I'm hoping that paying more attention to games in order to write accurate tournament reports and the resulting dialogue with backers will improve my game.  My preferred learning style is active learning.

FWIW, from my (albeit fairly limited) experience of £200 ish buy in games, I would say I do have an edge over the field.  That said, if this did go ahead I was intending, exactly as you suggest, to play only £50-£100 buy ins.

Probably around 7-8 games per month.

[Jon MW]

So what kind of total bankroll do you think you would need to get it started?

[Claw75]

So what kind of total bankroll do you think you would need to get it started?

Open to advice/suggestions on that, but was thinking around £3000.

[Dingdell]

Devils advocate here - what about grinding through and working to finish the SAS? Backing/mentoring all included.

Or do you feel you are better playing live?

I know of one player who regularly takes a good income from the double your money games, just grinds it out and more than pays the bills.

[boldie]

ooopps Jon just asked one of the questions I had.

My second one was; Where are you mentally at the moment? Over the past few months you've stated that you were fed up with poker..not playing anymore (good bye to poker thread or something) and then a week or month later you're asking for staking into big events. Would you be fully commited to this and, maybe more importantly, would you be "stable" enough for this as  a medium to long term investment?  (Don't mean to be rude with this one BTW)

Just noticed your reply saying £3k, that's not a roll for 100£ games though, is it? How often are you looking to play? What events? (GUKPT side events or regular weekly events at poker clubs etc?)

Why just live events? Why not online where you don't have the travel expenses and all that?

Sorry, just firing off questions here.

[Claw75]

Devils advocate here - what about grinding through and working to finish the SAS? Backing/mentoring all included.

Or do you feel you are better playing live?

I know of one player who regularly takes a good income from the double your money games, just grinds it out and more than pays the bills.

I'm planning on doing the SAS things as well Ding.

[Claw75]

ooopps Jon just asked one of the questions I had.

My second one was; Where are you mentally at the moment? Over the past few months you've stated that you were fed up with poker..not playing anymore (good bye to poker thread or something) and then a week or month later you're asking for staking into big events. Would you be fully commited to this and, maybe more importantly, would you be "stable" enough for this as  a medium to long term investment?  (Don't mean to be rude with this one BTW)

Just noticed your reply saying £3k, that's not a roll for 100£ games though, is it? How often are you looking to play? What events? (GUKPT side events or regular weekly events at poker clubs etc?)

Why just live events? Why not online where you don't have the travel expenses and all that?

Sorry, just firing off questions here.

where am I mentally?  Don't know how much detail I should go into in this post, but last year was a very difficult one for me in many ways, and I did suffer with a lot of mental illness problems which made me very prone to to swings.  I'm all clear now, off meds for 3 months, and feeling fine.  Am I 'stable' now? As stable as the next person.  I suffer with discipline problems where my own money is involved - another reason I've considered this is that it will help with that too.

lol not sure it's worth answering the other questions now as I've probably just blown any chance of getting this off the ground out of the water, but I want to be up front.

no £3k isn't a proper bankroll for £100 games for a professional player.  I think it's probably enough for what I'm proposing, but am open to alternative suggestions if I'm way off.

I prefer playing live.  Travel expenses will be minimal - planning to play locally.

[Claw75]

oh and re 'good bye to poker' or whatever thread it was you referred to boldie - I can't remember the exact details, but pretty sure that was a post saying I couldn't afford to play due to difficult financial circumstances, and that I was pretty gutted about it.  don't think I've ever said I'm giving up poker because I'm fed up of it.  I'll never get fed up of playing (live).

edit: found it http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=35413.0

[celtic]

Hmmm, I was offered something similar last night with a slightly bigger bankroll, which would increase depending on success. Be interested in hearing views on here, particulary from a staker's point of view.

[Claw75]

Hmmm, I was offered something similar last night with a slightly bigger bankroll, which would increase depending on success. Be interested in hearing views on here, particulary from a staker's point of view.

you just come on here to brag!?!?

PS good luck

[StuartHopkin]

I would suggest that bankroll would not be big enough for playing £100 buy ins long term. £50's maybe.

[GreekStein]

Clare just my 2 cents here....

I've only played against you once for a few hours so I have no clue about your edge in games but it would really need to be ridiculously high to make this worthwhile for yourself and stakers in a live environment. (Online is a completely different ball game and a lot better option for something like this in my opinion).

By a rough calculation I'd estimate you'd need like a 200% ROI to make this nearly worthwhile for yourself as a profit making venture. Do you feel you can achieve close to this on a very consistent basis? You can only play 1 live comp in a day & you'd not be playing near optimally I wouldn't have thought if you were playing several a week. Add to this your expenses and it becomes a bit of a nightmare for you.

Likewise I think you'd need a bigger roll than £3000 if you are playing live donkaments above £75.