Staking Resolution - The Bank Of Timex (w-interview)

[Doobs]

So a determined and aggresive attempt to suppress a market place has failed, and there is still and demand for the product (given that threads rarely fail to sell, you could almost argue an under supply) ............................. I wonder what a potential outcome of this could be in both the short and long term (ceteris paribus)

Still want to listen James, or maybe counter?

I wait with baited breath...

wont be wasting my breath on a troll like you james

waste it on this troll then?

just wrote a long post, but deleted

in short, this doesn't work in the long term due to market forces / manipulation and affecting ability of players to sell/play

the market will not adjust by players lowering mark-ups, I cant be bothered to point out why (id even go as far, in the long term to say the  exact opposite will happen)

Go on, give it a try, for the fans

we're all still waiting, you're clearly the only one in the know. enlighten us.

Well James inferred that Timex's intervention would only lead to falling mark ups (lets call them prices)

Its fair to say Timex has failed (other than possibly in the very immediate short term when his scheme existed, although not much evidence to suggest this is the case).

So the market has been trending upwards as there is a demand for a market, and given that most threads sell out you could argue an under supply.

So sellers were recently faced with what was an attempt to undercut the market place (very aggressively). Not only has this failed (spectacularly), but there is nothing to suggest it will affect either supply or demand in the market place.

Ergo, supply is short (they sell out), demand is there , so the prices will at the minimum remain constant, but should continue to rise and possibly (as a reaction to Timex) rise faster, as people will now wish to maximise profits (if this was a true market place)

I believe my original comment was

the market will not adjust by players lowering mark-ups, I cant be bothered to point out why (id even go as far, in the long term to say the  exact opposite will happen)

Pretty sure im not wrong

Demand may well rise going forward, and may well fall.  The same could happen to supply. 

One thing I am pretty sure about is that you haven't established a causal relationship between the existence of the bank of Timex and long term prices in the market. 

[cambridgealex]

He's not talking about "fish", he's talking about in his words "mediocre" regs (still winning players) that are overcharging themselves (worth 1.1 not 1.3 for example, NOT the ones worth 0.8 not 1.3), sucking money out the economy AND reducing his winrates in the tournaments in the process.

[outragous76]

So a determined and aggresive attempt to suppress a market place has failed, and there is still and demand for the product (given that threads rarely fail to sell, you could almost argue an under supply) ............................. I wonder what a potential outcome of this could be in both the short and long term (ceteris paribus)

Still want to listen James, or maybe counter?

I wait with baited breath...

wont be wasting my breath on a troll like you james

waste it on this troll then?

just wrote a long post, but deleted

in short, this doesn't work in the long term due to market forces / manipulation and affecting ability of players to sell/play

the market will not adjust by players lowering mark-ups, I cant be bothered to point out why (id even go as far, in the long term to say the  exact opposite will happen)

Go on, give it a try, for the fans

we're all still waiting, you're clearly the only one in the know. enlighten us.

Well James inferred that Timex's intervention would only lead to falling mark ups (lets call them prices)

Its fair to say Timex has failed (other than possibly in the very immediate short term when his scheme existed, although not much evidence to suggest this is the case).

So the market has been trending upwards as there is a demand for a market, and given that most threads sell out you could argue an under supply.

So sellers were recently faced with what was an attempt to undercut the market place (very aggressively). Not only has this failed (spectacularly), but there is nothing to suggest it will affect either supply or demand in the market place.

Ergo, supply is short (they sell out), demand is there , so the prices will at the minimum remain constant, but should continue to rise and possibly (as a reaction to Timex) rise faster, as people will now wish to maximise profits (if this was a true market place)

I believe my original comment was

the market will not adjust by players lowering mark-ups, I cant be bothered to point out why (id even go as far, in the long term to say the  exact opposite will happen)

Pretty sure im not wrong

Demand may well rise going forward, and may well fall.  The same could happen to supply. 

One thing I am pretty sure about is that you haven't established a causal relationship between the existence of the bank of Timex and long term prices in the market. 

Maybe not, but the point is that one man with an agenda was never going to impact the market substantially, and whether he failed like him did or just fizzled out, he would never have succeeded.

James was suggesting with his involvement the market would only trend downwards, I was merely pointing out that this IMO wasn't the case.

We will never have perfect information on the market so to suggest that you or I could prove otherwise is zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The simple fact is, he has had and will have no impact on the market place. However generation of fear in the supply chain of it doing so could easily make sellers inflate prices now to get it whilst they still can.  This is fairly obvious.

I not going to spend hours debating simple economic principles.

[outragous76]

and as for "gaming laws", more like "inbox is full, cba with this"

[SuuPRlim]

a couple of misconceptions in this thread as far as I'm aware,

Firstly, the notion that a fair and free economic market (with or without external influence) will develop in the most economically efficient way is totally false, so saying that because mark-ups are increasing in this market, over the past 2 years is a result of that being the correct economic direction for this market to go in is NOT correct (It could be correct, but it isn't proof enough in itself)

The reasons mark-ups have increased IMO is because necessity to sell increased (a combination of more people having less money, and more people wanting to take shots in bigger buyin events) and as this happened demand wasn't instantly affected, in a stnd market, when supply increases the natural reaction is for there to be a dip in demand (more options, people can chose) as this wasn't the short-term reaction to this increased supply (demand didn't falter) then prices in the short term have risen, eventually we'll find an equilibrium point (this could be higher, or lower than it currently is, but evidence of several informed people predicting it will be lower suggest that is likely what will happen) but saying that because it's risen and not slaughtered demand that the equilibrium is higher is defo not a given.

Timex's efforts certainly haven't "failed" I mean in a sense they have as he was attempting to influence the market by reducing demand, forcing supply to reduce or for prices to fall - by fulfilling a large portion of demand himself - he hasn't achieved that, but the only way we could prove his plan a "failure" was if we could prove the model he was using was not profitable, as for his model to be a losing one mark-ups would have to be currently at or below equilibrium in terms of pricing.

My opinion, is that mark-ups are too high, people will LOSE money buying pieces over time and more and more people will stop (or reduce) the action they buy - this will drive the whole "generic" mark=up down and will even force people who sell at reasonable prices to sell at reduced mark-ups.  However I may well be wrong, or I may well be right but the market will continue to operate imperfectly for a long time.

[Doobs]

As others have alluded to, I find it fascinating that Timex has taken this line 'against' players with excessive MU.

Surely it is in his interest to have these 'fish' in his tournaments?

Lets make an illustration (no doubt nowhere near as good as a Mantis effort).

Dmitar works for a large farming collective in rural Bulgaria.  The collective is made up mainly of pig farmers; this makes up most of the local community.  Dmitar is smart though. He went to school, got some GCSE's and then went into accountancy.  He works for the collective as their Accountant.  He's good, but not great with numbers, and is therefore head and shoulders above the pig farmers on numeracy skills.

For fun they have a weekly poker game. Dmitar not only has better numeracy skills than the pig farmers, he is also fearless as his wage allows him to be.  He invariably wins a high % of the games.  His success and ego make him push for better things and he gets lucky in the odd bigger tournament around the country.  The pig farmers see this and here his (inflated) success stories.

One day he sees the EPT on TV and decides he wants in, but the 5k price tag is a little expensive. So he hits on the idea to sell pieces of his action.  He knows he has travel and accommodation costs, so decides that as he is playing for others then they should absorb some of these costs. Hell the pig farmers don't have a clue! Why not make a little more money out of them and increase the mark up?

So he sells at 1.5 on FB and on mybulgaria.info

He sells out easily!

So he then goes and plays EPT Berlin. Different game. Back home his 20 runner tourneys only last 90 minutes and he's shoving for 40 minutes of those! His shoving ott with k3o 100 bb deep work at first, but after 40 minutes he gets found out. BOOM! DREAM OVER :-(

And his dead money is in the prize pool for Timex and his mates to scoop.

But he has a few quid left from the overlay he made on MU.  So he goes spins some 2/5. Has fun, gets drunk, but ultimately donates to the cash game players.

That was fun he thought, I'll do that again.

He goes home, jumps online and posts up his staking thread.

Should Timex really be jumping in and trying to discourage or undercut this Dmitar?

Or (slightly unethical I know) should he be trying to encourage people to back Dmitar?

Hell, why not send him a load of gear? Dress him head to toe as a Pstars Pro? Have photos taken with him at the EPT Main 'Dmitar and his best buddy Timex'?  Jump on the forum and say, 'Hell? 1.5? Dmitars gotta be worth at least 2.0!!!!!'

Get him to 2.0 and Dmitar is into TWO EPT events in one swoop!

It'd be interesting to see what people like Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim would make of his twitter account, as I'm pretty certain sure-as-shit those Texans would've been helping ole Dmitar out as much as they could!

This example isn't what Timex was talking about it was people who should be 1.1 selling at 1.4.  Somebody who sold at 1.5m but is 1.1 in a tournament will still reduce both Timex's and the other rec's EV long run, Dmitar wouldn't.

Timex wouldn't post encouraging people to buy Dmitar, as he would soon find himself the subject of a thread on 2 plus 2 where several people would line up to call him a bellend and a tosser, and one on Blonde where people take their time explaining the problems with the backing arrangement he is suggesting.  

Well I'd normally expect it to be that way around!

[bergeroo]

So this guy identifies an opportunity in the staking world which he states is definitely +$EV. But isn't going to pursuit it due to the fact it's not +LifeEV. So in other words he is now looking at the bigger picture and making free decisions on what to do in the staking world based on factors other than +$EV. Kinda like when people freely buy pieces with a high mark for their own reasons. The dude is attacking supply when that only exists due to demand, but in order to attack demand he has to convince people they should only make +$EV decisions in the staking world. And in trying to prove this point he chooses not to make +$EV decisions in the staking world. What a completely fruitless exercise.

Pretty sure the reason why he chose not to go ahead publicly is that he is risking arrest in the US for acting as a bookmaker. I'd imagine he might carry on doing this privately on a small scale.

Erm he's Canadian and, according to wiki, lives in Canada. Why would the FBI have jurisdiction?

Also Canadian!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isai_Scheinberg

Indian!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anurag_Dikshit

[MANTIS01]

The vast majority of poker players are recreational and thus generate their income from outside of poker. That income is sustainable in itself so I don't see how money is sucked out of the poker economy to any great extent, esp if their is a strong supply waiting to fill the void. If hardly any staking threads sold out I'd be more inclined to agree with the notion that the economy is being sucked dry. Therefore the cake is being over-egged for some other reason.

Think this is purely ego driven really. It's like the different colour belts in karate. When I first started doing Tae Kwon Do I skulked around like a peasant with my white belt on whereas all the black belts strutted around like peacocks. The black belt was a badge that showed everyone else what they were worth in terms of ability. Before one lesson I found a black belt on the floor and put it on to see what it looked like. All the peacocks saw me and went ape shit saying I lacked respect and needed to know my place. People need this order of things you see, a proper visible hierarchy, and people are generally desperate for status/recognition.

Have to say I liked the Bulgarian pig farmer story.

[cambridgealex]

He's not talking about "fish", he's talking about in his words "mediocre" regs (still winning players) that are overcharging themselves (worth 1.1 not 1.3 for example, NOT the ones worth 0.8 not 1.3), sucking money out the economy AND reducing his winrates in the tournaments in the process.

Yeah I get that too, but:

Mediocre: not very good, of only moderate quality.

If he is that good, then long term he should be happy to have these guys in the pool.  Not only are they boosting the prize pool with their own money, but also of punters money that I suspect he would not usually get to see (eg. I play upto £500 ish tourneys; have only done EPT by satelliting in. He would never usually get a sniff at my sterling. By me taking punt in, for example, you, he gets to win some of my monies)

The higher MU u can charge the more likely you are to come back to boost that prize pool at the next event - as the player has taken on less risk to his own br.

How can that not be good for Timex? Or is it just an arms race - and he's worried about people making the jump up to his level?

I think Dave made a very good post earlier in this thread explaining why it's still bad for Timex having "mediocre" regs in the field, because they are still profitable in the field, and suck some of the value from the losing players that Timex was happy feasting on himself.

To use an analogy, 10 lions feasting on 40 zebras are going to get 4 zebras each. Throw 10 more lions in there, even if they're weaker than the first 10, they'll still eat some zebras.

[SuuPRlim]

Lee you seem to be totally missing the fact that these players are still PROFITING from them playing.

Spose a £10k event with 100 runners and Timex has a 200% Roi.

Prizepool is £1,000,000 and £30,000 of this is Timex's expectation. Now a "mediocre reg" who wouldn't be playing if he hadn't managed to sell 50% at 1.3 is now in the field, his actual ROI is 25% so of the £1,000,010 in the prize pool £12,500 of that is the reg's expectation. There is now £2,500 less which will be taken from EVERYONE in the field, those who are winners will win a little less and those who are losers will lose a little more.

If Someone came along as a result of selling at a inflated MU with a -20% ROI then timex (and other winners) would now be winning a little more as there is an additional £2,000 to carve up.

It may or may not have been a drive of ego to start the project but everyone is missing the point - IF his model is profitable, then he IS right.

[cambridgealex]

Lee you seem to be totally missing the fact that these players are still PROFITING from them playing.

Spose a £10k event with 100 runners and Timex has a 200% Roi.

Prizepool is £1,000,000 and £30,000 of this is Timex's expectation. Now a "mediocre reg" who wouldn't be playing if he hadn't managed to sell 50% at 1.3 is now in the field, his actual ROI is 25% so of the £1,000,010 in the prize pool £12,500 of that is the reg's expectation. There is now £2,500 less which will be taken from EVERYONE in the field, those who are winners will win a little less and those who are losers will lose a little more.

If Someone came along as a result of selling at a inflated MU with a -20% ROI then timex (and other winners) would now be winning a little more as there is an additional £2,000 to carve up.

It may or may not have been a drive of ego to start the project but everyone is missing the point - IF his model is profitable, then he IS right.

lions and zebras tho

[SuuPRlim]

much preferred the lion+zebra analogy, didn't see it till after I'd posted!

Good work that man

[outragous76]

Lee you seem to be totally missing the fact that these players are still PROFITING from them playing.

Spose a £10k event with 100 runners and Timex has a 200% Roi.

Prizepool is £1,000,000 and £30,000 of this is Timex's expectation. Now a "mediocre reg" who wouldn't be playing if he hadn't managed to sell 50% at 1.3 is now in the field, his actual ROI is 25% so of the £1,000,010 in the prize pool £12,500 of that is the reg's expectation. There is now £2,500 less which will be taken from EVERYONE in the field, those who are winners will win a little less and those who are losers will lose a little more.

If Someone came along as a result of selling at a inflated MU with a -20% ROI then timex (and other winners) would now be winning a little more as there is an additional £2,000 to carve up.

It may or may not have been a drive of ego to start the project but everyone is missing the point - IF his model is profitable, then he IS right.

The marvel that is theory vs reality!

Reminds me of my favourite ever Contractor response in a site meeting I attended

Architect: There is nothing in theory that says this design cant be built

Contractor: You fucking build it then!

[Woodsey]

He's not talking about "fish", he's talking about in his words "mediocre" regs (still winning players) that are overcharging themselves (worth 1.1 not 1.3 for example, NOT the ones worth 0.8 not 1.3), sucking money out the economy AND reducing his winrates in the tournaments in the process.

Yeah I get that too, but:

Mediocre: not very good, of only moderate quality.

If he is that good, then long term he should be happy to have these guys in the pool.  Not only are they boosting the prize pool with their own money, but also of punters money that I suspect he would not usually get to see (eg. I play upto £500 ish tourneys; have only done EPT by satelliting in. He would never usually get a sniff at my sterling. By me taking punt in, for example, you, he gets to win some of my monies)

The higher MU u can charge the more likely you are to come back to boost that prize pool at the next event - as the player has taken on less risk to his own br.

How can that not be good for Timex? Or is it just an arms race - and he's worried about people making the jump up to his level?

I think Dave made a very good post earlier in this thread explaining why it's still bad for Timex having "mediocre" regs in the field, because they are still profitable in the field, and suck some of the value from the losing players that Timex was happy feasting on himself.

To use an analogy, 10 lions feasting on 40 zebras are going to get 4 zebras each. Throw 10 more lions in there, even if they're weaker than the first 10, they'll still eat some zebras.

Who you calling a zebra?   

[DungBeetle]

"So sellers were recently faced with what was an attempt to undercut the market place (very aggressively). Not only has this failed (spectacularly), but there is nothing to suggest it will affect either supply or demand in the market place.

Ergo, supply is short (they sell out), demand is there , so the prices will at the minimum remain constant, but should continue to rise and possibly (as a reaction to Timex) rise faster, as people will now wish to maximise profits (if this was a true market place)"

But none of this changes the fact that if Timex's scheme went ahead he is, via his derivatives, effectively flooding the market with sellers which would result in a lower price.

When you say "there is nothing to suggest it will affect either supply or demand in the market place" in my opinion it's factually incorrect.