Horses - are stables a good thing

[Simon Galloway]

In high variance games this exists. Spin n go stables pay their horses based on their ev not on their actual results because the variance is so high.

In Mtts you should simply make a lot of profit if you're playing the correct games with the correct approach. People lose because of game selection, whether that's a guy playing the big109 with 15$ Abi or the storm with a 0.50 abit. It goes all the way Upto live tournaments.

That stable is insanely overestimating their likelihood of getting paid when the horse binks a jackpot.

ask any builder - plumber - electrician - why they take on an apprentice who will for quite a while only be any good for humping things - they pay them a decent wage  show them all they know and then when the apprentice has qualified they may stay for a short while before they decide to go on there own - the builder - plumber cant say hey i have shelled out ex - in most cases he just remembers that was him/her years ago

Not a great example as your apprentice is a) not well paid and b) unfit to even make a good cuppa on day 1.  They are taking the worst of it in the name of getting an education.

A horse gets their 50% right out the gate, in return for already having gotten their education and proven track record, prior.

Lets say as a backer you have backed a horse and are in the hole for 15k - suddenly the horse binks a 40k win - you take 20k your 50 percent which is profit - the horse takes 5k and the 15k  goes to pay the make up and it all starts over-again - the horse isnt really getting a good deal - for the hours he has put in its pretty poor pay

maths fail

Your maths is wrong, $15k goes to reduce make up to 0. Then $25k is split so the horse gets $12.5k

maths pass

[rfgqqabc]

Lets say as a backer you have backed a horse and are in the hole for 15k - suddenly the horse binks a 40k win - you take 20k your 50 percent which is profit - the horse takes 5k and the 15k  goes to pay the make up and it all starts over-again - the horse isnt really getting a good deal - for the hours he has put in its pretty poor pay

maths fail

Your maths is wrong, $15k goes to reduce make up to 0. Then $25k is split so the horse gets $12.5k

maths pass

6 months of posting because of this fail. fml. Only took me 17 mins to call it this time.

[pleno1]

edit: shouldn't have posted that sorry

[SuuPRlim]

its a seller's market this is.

People who approach people for backing because they need it, if the alternative is a low paid job then really they have no alternative but to accept it and get going. Perhaps they could get a well paid job and they have some attractive alternatives, or perhaps more than one option to back them, so they can shop around or just quit, whatever is best for them.

People like Pleno and SG offer more than money, as a way to both a) justify their fee (the 50%) above the financial outlay, b) improve the players and thus increase their profits and c) to attract the best calibre of player to join the stable.

The example of the apprentice is, as SG said, way off the mark, nothing comparable in the slightest (bar one thing), typically speaking 16 yr olds with no marketable skills at all take apprenticeships get paid hardly anything in exchange for a chance to learn, the employer (the backer in this instance) takes little risk, he gets labor, albeit hugely underskilled labor at a fraction of the price, and in return he passes on knowledge. By the end of the term the apprentice (horse) will have learnt lots for zero money, but will have invested lots of time for which he has been statutorily underpaid for. It's a fair exchange and one which benefits both (thats the one similarity) providing it works out.

In the instance of poker backing the backer takes on lots of risk, lots and lots of risk.

[david3103]

In the instance of poker backing the backer takes on lots of risk, lots and lots of risk.

If backers were loan sharks that level of risk would demand an equally high interest rate, plus lots of fees and dodgy 'insurance' products.

[tikay]

2 different types of staking

1) Someone has done well got money, is really good at poker, they stake a friend(s), theres some coaching involved in the deal.

2) Large scale staking operations, they advertise on poker websites for "horses" (what a ridiculous term along with "stables". Most folk they take on they will not know/ have previous experience with.

Going back to my post above with the type of "staking" from point 1, this seems quite natural normal, and acceptable.

However with point 2, this is a real drain on the poker industry. Setting up on a commercial scale to just bleed as much money from the poker system as possible, it's just greed, how can we milk as much money from the poker industry as possible.

Overall re staking, the only benefit I can see for it as TeddyBloat mentioned above is development and improvement of ones game. I can not see how this can be healthy on a long term basis. For sure there is risk for a "backer", probably significantly less so when it's point one above there is a good relationship, you are friends prior to any staking agreement.

Overall, it must be pretty terrible for someone getting staked giving away so much of their profit every year, this is especially true for cash games.

I have no idea why anyone would ever be staked long term for cash games. If they are a winning player they are just burning money.

One thing sites could do to inhibit large scale staking operations is disable player to player transfers.

This isn't necessarily true, as I said before there are very few successful staking operations. If it was just print print print there would be dozens of companies. Fact is many have lost hundreds of thousands or even millions in some cases thus actually helping the poker economy.

Fascinating thread which I have much enjoyed, whatever the agenda may or may not have been.

Very few successful staking operations? Probably, yes.

Human nature being what it is, those not in the current loop tend to recall the bad examples. My impression, for example, was that, say, Flushy & Moorman did not exactly do too well at it, but it all seemed a bit informal & ad-hoc from where I viewed it.

I do recall, & know, of a few more formal Staking organisations though, the first in my recollection was Bad Beat. I've no idea how that turned out, or if it still exists (Marky?), but the impression I got was that it was well run & presumably successful.

More recently, Bankroll Supply seem fairly organized, from the little I can see.

Sharky ran one, too, might still do?

Do those sites make a decent return on their capital? I've no idea. Anyone?

The schemes run by the likes of Pleno don't fall in either category. Pleno's stable seems a long way from "corporate", far more intimate, but is, by all accounts, astoundingly successful.

On which note......     

[tikay]

blonde received an approach recently from a Staking Operation, who wanted to use the blonde Staking Boards to promote their product.

For better or worse, there were a number of issues that made it a no no, & we declined the offer.

I'm not too up on Staking Operations, & had never heard of them, but their website seems very professional & well put together.

They are called "Standard Backing", you may have seen them register as a new Member on blonde last week.

In impeccable timing, I can't get their website to open at the moment, but their handle is StandardBacking.com
 
They have a 2+2 thread, too, which seems to have been very well received - unsurprisingly, everyone wants their poker paid for it seems - & it has page after page of applications, here...

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/225/staking-archives/standard-backing-mtt-mttsng-players-1545334/

I'm curious, so if anyone has any knowledge of them, I'd be interested.

Should add I am not recommending them, or whatever the opposite is, I'm just interested.

[FUN4FRASER]

When I started in poker. If player a put player b in a tournament.

It was 50:50 no make up.

After Stake Back Right  ?

[Simon Galloway]

When I started in poker. If player a put player b in a tournament.

It was 50:50 no make up.

After Stake Back Right  ?

Things like "after stakeback" hadn't been thought about.  £500 comp, 50:50 no MU  meant you were given £250 for your time playing it.  There were quite a few people readily itching to put "known faces" into events like that, either without having worked out the maths, factored in the chances of getting shafted, or possibly having done all of that, but still convinced it was a good spot.

And with a readily available reload for the next event, you can see why some players back then had an exceptionally cavalier attitude towards money.

[SuuPRlim]

recently this year, I did some work with a guy on this forum on a project that involved some staking, this a very clever guy and we didn't some decent exploring into the mathematics of backing...

I learnt some really interesting things, mostly notably that 50:50 with MU deal is actually very favorable to the horse IF you chop the profits everytime you get into profit. We worked out a deal based on the horse not always cashing out and allowing some of his profits to risidually build up to contribute to the bankroll, and gong 50:50 on the EV at every point.

The way it came out was that at first the horse would receive ~25% of the profits and as the profit built up he would end up with 70%, all the while the EV being 50:50, the backer getting 50% of the EV in exchange for 100% of the money and the horse getting 50% of the EV in exchange for the time, effort etc.

This lead us onto an interesting discussion, which went on for a fair while and one of which we never really reached an agreement on as to what % split of the EV should be...

We were universally in agreement that the minimum the horse should receive is 50%, and thats where we stuck, be interesting to hear the thoughts on this actually... What is a fair EV split?

@Mikey, this pretty much comes to your point of paying the horse more for his time than the man with the money. In a 50:50 MU deal the horse is actually relieving more than 50% of the EV, actually quite a bit more depending on his ROI. Just gotta bear in mind the difference between EV and $.

[Simon Galloway]

blonde received an approach recently from a Staking Operation, who wanted to use the blonde Staking Boards to promote their product.

For better or worse, there were a number of issues that made it a no no, & we declined the offer.

I'm not too up on Staking Operations, & had never heard of them, but their website seems very professional & well put together.

They are called "Standard Backing", you may have seen them register as a new Member on blonde last week.

In impeccable timing, I can't get their website to open at the moment, but their handle is StandardBacking.com
 
They have a 2+2 thread, too, which seems to have been very well received - unsurprisingly, everyone wants their poker paid for it seems - & it has page after page of applications, here...

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/225/staking-archives/standard-backing-mtt-mttsng-players-1545334/

I'm curious, so if anyone has any knowledge of them, I'd be interested.

Should add I am not recommending them, or whatever the opposite is, I'm just interested.

There aren't very many.  Quite a few pop up and do not survive even the briefest time test.  The original major league players were Sheets+Bax.  I don't think the numbers have ever been disclosed, but they must have had first run at all the very early cake.  They are rumoured to have suffered some "correction to the mean" later on, possibly as a result of dis-economies of scale and I assume geography/UIGEA did the rest.  My first exposure to it over here was Lawrie (Laurie?) Buttars ~ "Godolphin" as he was known.  No knowledge on how that went, but he definitely bankrolled some domestic household names in the poker circuit.  Next experience of it was Flushy and the Shrewdies, who were just getting going on here at the same time I started.  A lot of the threads were fun, I imagine the final outcome wasn't.  Likewise with Moorman, no idea what actually happened there. Perhaps he overestimated how much work was involved, perhaps he wrongly assumed that everyone else would kill it to a similar level that he had and hadn't reckoned on getting a few rofflers on board - idk.  Someone said something about several million, could be, I have no idea.  But if it was on that scale, then putting someone sharp on a salary and a % at the rudder would have been worthwhile considering doing.  Regardless, it was either losing money, or too much of a time drain and I don't think he actively stakes now, on any kind of scale at least.

Forward wind to the maybe dozen* outfits operating today, either in backer channels, 2+2 or other known staking outlets.  Most are embryonic startups building on the sand, based on observation of how quickly these startups disappear and how much drivel they spout while briefly around.

But there are a small handful of seemingly smart market participants, most targetting a very deliberate sector, that seem to be doing ok, at least well enough to continue to operate, and with intelligent contribution to discussion.

*  Ther must be a lot lot more than that, but a lot of these will be splinter groups in geographic regions that no-one would ever have any reason to come across.

[tikay]

^^^^

Do you know of these "Standard Backing" people?

[Simon Galloway]

No idea. NKOTB I assume, I'll look into it.

[teddybloat]

The group i am with have been around for about five years.

There are 3 'front of house' goto guys who deal with day to day problems, cash outs reloads and moving up stakes, one is a tech support.

There are also 4-5  coaches and aslo some admin guys that we players dont deal with.

Pretty big operation. Very well run and they have been very supportive of me even with off-table problems. Its very much a learning enviroment and they invest in us as players.

Dont know about the more corporate / generic operations but without investing and being selective with their players i can see how they can go badly wrong.

[Marky147]

I do recall, & know, of a few more formal Staking organisations though, the first in my recollection was Bad Beat. I've no idea how that turned out, or if it still exists (Marky?), but the impression I got was that it was well run & presumably successful.

More recently, Bankroll Supply seem fairly organized, from the little I can see.


On which note......     

I finished with BB in 2013, and they had stopped almost all their UK staking, apart from a few private deals IIRC.

Chris had long since gone back to Monaco to focus on Manro Haydan, but I believe John still has a few irons in that fire, and the company is still going, although not in the same manner it was back when I was there.

'BRS being fairly organised', is like saying Alex Ferguson was a fairly good manager