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)
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