It's mark up time of the year again!

[danshreddies]

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.

[Rexas]

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?

[cambridgealex]

300%, 40-100% depending what u mean by average

[danshreddies]

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)

[nirvana]

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

[Marky147]

I posted a good 2p2 podcast from a while back, where Sheets went into a bit of depth on markup, etc.

If I wasn't busy knocking it in on sports I'd have a look for it

[Marky147]

When I say it was good, I mean that I thought it was good...

[danshreddies]

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.

[arbboy]

Love these threads.  Same garbage is spoken every year.  

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

This is my fav sentence this year so far.  How about if you are not good enough to beat the ex's you just don't play the event?  Mark up isn't a way to cover your expenses.  Mark up is used as Doobs says to give both parties an equally beneficial +ev investment (not marking it up to a point you think is your edge because then the backer is simply buying variance long term and has no edge just so you cover your expenses).  Just because you have loads of overheads to incur playing an event doesn't justify you charging a mark up.  Just choose not to play the event if you can't afford the ex's involved.  It is not a poker players right to play the $10k WSOP main event.  Live poker mtt's for the VAST majority of players are totally unprofitable ventures after expenses are included.  They are not a way to make a living/be profitable investments for backers for the vast majority of poker players.

It would be like me finding a roulette wheel somewhere which takes huge bets only on single numbers at 50/1.  Minimum bet £10000 a spin.  You are only allowed to back one number per spin at 50/1.  I have a backer and say 'listen i will lay you 36/1 all of these numbers which is still a tiny edge for you but you have to stake me because i am doing all the work and incurring all the expenses of playing at this casino i need 99% of the edge for myself even though your money is putting me into this venture.'  

[Simon Galloway]

I was going to go for a long walk, but stuff it...

A few years ago when staking threads (discussing staking, not individual advertisements) were very popular on here, I predicted that there would be massive downward pressure on markup.  The threads are quite a good read, I re-visited them a month of so ago one quiet morning to see how things weer then.  My predictions were accurate, so whilst not wanting to trumpet my own genius there were some very obvious things that weer inevitably going to happen:

• MU would in the short term remain over-priced as the glut of buyers kept it artificially high
• The general recession, coupled with the constricting poker economy would mean that there was less easy money to punt off buying pieces ~ borne out by the graveyard staking boards now
• MU was calculated by a group of players (not backers) that all decided that they were worth 1.4 and as they sold out quickly, "must have under-priced" and marked up further the following year
• "10k is  alot of money bud."  Well yes it is, so if you are asking someone else for it, give them a fair shake.  Don't take all the value and leave them with all the variance.
• Backers don't get the 14hour days in the Rio, but they don't get the complimentary additional experience and education that comes from playing on other people's coin in large events may times over.
• So many ways that naive backers can get rolled over.  Even experienced backers can't immunise themselves from rogue actions involving 2 brasses, a Mickey Finn and an embroidered story about getting your room broken into.  The risk of that is usually equal and opposite to the 'edge' that the player contributes, added to the additional nightly costs of being there.  You are going to be there anyway, and no sensible person will claim that playing the main necessitates 14 nights extra in a hotel.  Stay earlier doing your won thing, then sell for the main, play 1D, book 3 extra nights in a hotel and a flight home on Day4 and have a very nice problem if you need to amend that
• "The room is full of Farmers". Well, yes it is, but there are also 2000 players in there that know what they are doing and will rip you a new one (as described admirably by Doobs' experience)
• I do agree with the "don't like it, don't buy attitude.  It is one that I have almost unwaveringly followed and will continue to do so.  If a player comes to me and says "I'm short, I want to play, can you take a slice at spot" - if I like them , trust them and/or think it is a reasonable spot, I'll do it.  If someone points me towards their FB post with any kind of significant MU... not a chance.

[DungBeetle]

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.

You're the one that needs a credit line to play.  If you can get mugs to back you at markup because you've got an edge you've pulled out of thin air then good for you.  But don't pretend they aren't getting stiffed.

[EvilPie]

I was going to go for a long walk, but stuff it...

Did you manage a short walk?

[Simon Galloway]

I managed it back to the sofa, I guess that counts.

[nirvana]

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.

I know mate and I know zero about staking..just like talking smack izzit

[nirvana]

I managed it back to the sofa, I guess that counts.

Have a good evening tonight - nearly decided to try and bandwagon but dinner takes me elsewhere - I know you'll be mortified :-) but have a good un