Poker Player

[Jason_Fisher]

I went to a poker event last night, and met a few regular players. I got talking to this 19 year old who has cashed over £150,000 already since he started when he turned 18. He said he is looking for a sponsor to pay for his tournament entry fee's and accomodation at international main events!

Is this guy real? He's won £150,000, use that i said. Do people really sponsor such things? I know of companies sponsoring sports rising stars, like someone who sells snooker products sponsoring a snooker player and the same with tennis etc, but poker? Surely this is just so he has no risk (entry fee's). He said he will split all his cashed 50/50. No use if he doesn't win though...

What are your views on this? Surely this is like milliondollarhomepage, everyone who bought a space paid for his uni fee's and future business start ups right? ... People did it though?

 

[Podge]

It's common practice.

Other poker players will quite often sponsor somebody into a big tournament, sometimes a lot of player for smaller amounts, or just a couple of sponsor.
If the player is running hot fellow players see them as a decent investment.

 

[Jason_Fisher]

Ah ok... Just had a thought, he has cashed on every tournament he has played and has won £150,000 in just over a year, if he is splitting the winnings, why not get a UKBF kitty going

I guess with poker, hot streaks never last...

 

[TotallySport]

bet he didn't tell you how much he had lost.....

 

[Working First Aid]

I was once having a quiet round of golf with a friend when we were joined by a third we had never met before. He claimed to be a local golfing instructor, and offered us hints and tips occasionally as we went round.

Soon though, he started talking about his life. He claimed to be a natural scratch player, who used to do the pro circuit on a regular basis, but who lost all his money when his wife left him with another man. He started hinting in broader and broader terms that his skills were worth a fortune, and that again he was looking for people to sponsor him back on to the circuit. He started guaranteeing us huge returns once he started winning again.

His main problem though, was that he was playing golf as he talked to us.

He was terrible!

For a 'pro' he must have lost more balls, bogeyed more than us high handicappers, and three putted+ nearly every hole.

In the end we asked him if he would mind going ahead so we could talk business. Never saw him again thankfully...

 

[Jason_Fisher]

yeh won £150k lost £350k

I wouldn't imagine a student having that much to stake anyhow. Just had to laugh when he said he wanted to get sponsored and split the winnings when he has won £150k, i would pay my own entry and keep 100% of my winnings

 

[Podge]

For those who think poker is all gambling have a look here.

http://bustedjacks.blogspot.com/2009/03/bokus-amazing-challenge-interview-with.html

 

[Jason_Fisher]

How on earth can you play that many games? I play poker myself and you need to figure out how other people play on the table etc. He has obviously done it, but hasn't really explained how. Did he only play good starting hands and the idea is if you play only good hands over and over then in the end you will win more than you lose?

 

[Working First Aid]

sng tables are essentially mini tournaments.

The trick here is purely playing a set strategy based upon your position in relation to the blinds and how many players are left/blind size.

Essentially, winning sng much of the time is about being a lucky bully and taking other peoples blinds regardless of your hand, but having that luck to win a hand should someone decide to call you into the river...

In theory then, being great at maths is somewhat redundant as all you are doing is looking at your position in each hand and playing the long odds - excepting the losses when they come in the knowledge that the wins will be greater in the end. I used to view it like my forex trading - losses are like you're buying stock, and the wins are you collecting the profits.

That said, I'm forbidden from playing online poker by Mrs Shaun as 1 hour turns in to 6 before I know it!

Shaun
Working First Aid

 

[thetime22]

But if he's made 150k then why does he need a sponsor?

 

[Podge]

But if he's made 150k then why does he need a sponsor?

Simply a question of spreading his risk I would think.

 

[Jason_Fisher]

Simply a question of spreading his risk I would think.

Thats what i thought too. If he gets a sponsor he is not risking his own money, which if he was that good then surely he wouldn't mind staking his own money.

 

[ChrisMono]

One of my friends used to play poker a lot. He probably won around 100k but lost 110k.

There are several ways you can count your winnings..

 

[MASSEY]

I love poker i do but i just don't get the time to play usually. You get a great rush when you pull off something special but the lows of losing are tough to take.

I think i will have a session on full tilt poker tonight.

The guy is asking for a sponsor because it is good advertising for the sponsor, providing he does well in the tournaments but you take a gamble putting your money on a gambler.

 

[estwig]

I get annoyed if I lose a pound on the lottery!

 

[Jason_Fisher]

I get annoyed if I lose a pound on the lottery!

I would feel worse if i sponsored you to do the lottery and paid your £1 and you lost

 

[estwig]

I would feel worse if i sponsored you to do the lottery and paid your £1 and you lost

I don't play the lottery, can't cope with the low of losing a pound.

P*sses me right off!!!!!!!

 

[garyk]

There are so many online/offline tournaments happening all the time it would be easy for a good player to amass those winnings. Poker stars alone runs a tournament every sunday night with a £200,000 jackpot, week in week out.

Gary

 

[KateCB]

I know nothing about poker, but have seen suffering at the hands of gamblers.....no way would I sponsor gambling in any form.....and as thetime22 says, if he has 150k sitting in an account, why does he need a sponsor - surely the entry fees aren't that high - or are they?

Casino Royale springs to mind, wasn't that a million dollar entry? or was that million dollar pot? Anyway, it was a lot of money

 

[reggiemental]

Anyone see the poker player on Dragons Den some time back. He was also looking for sponsorship to cover a years' tournaments if I remember.

They pretty quickly gave him the boot!

 

[Jason_Fisher]

I vaguely remember...how much did he ask for? I know they would have turned him down, but for smaller businesses i think it may be good if he is good and plays alot of live tournaments?

 

[office man]

if it sounds too good to be true.......

 

[Frankus]

...and you know the old adage.. generally, if it sounds to good to be true, then it probably is.

Poker players will always tell you how much they've won, but seldom how much they've lost.

They will enter and lose 80% of the tourneys they play. If the average entry is, say, £100, and they play 20 tourneys, they might win win £1,000 to £1,500. You will see that, if they lose 80% at £100, they lose £1,600.

Simple maths.

There are some who consistently seem to win though. Try to find one of them.

 

[14A]

...and you know the old adage.. generally, if it sounds to good to be true, then it probably is.

Poker players will always tell you how much they've won, but seldom how much they've lost.

They will enter and lose 80% of the tourneys they play. If the average entry is, say, £100, and they play 20 tourneys, they might win win £1,000 to £1,500. You will see that, if they lose 80% at £100, they lose £1,600.

Simple maths.

There are some who consistently seem to win though. Try to find one of them.

Thats tournaments, where there's only really one main winner.

If you played normal online matches then I think you can earn good money, I do it every now and then with the 'free chips' and once in a blue moon play for money.

That article is good reading, as with many things its a numbers game.

 

[oliverbanks]

Leave it to the poker community.

I've played a lot of poker in my past and it's very common for people to get staked. But it's usually done in the poker community where people understand the swings and correct plays.

In tournaments variance is high, so you might end up staking this guy and he won't cash in a tourney for 10 events, or, he could go and win the first one.

Reason he probably wants to be staked is because with $150,000 you can't really tour the circuit for that long. The Main Event itself is a $10k tourney plus accomodation, food, side events, prop bets, cash games etc. It can add up pretty quick.

 

[LBtrading]

Ive played poker for years and fulltime since the start of this year. oliverbanks is the only person that sounds like they remotely have a clue about what there talking about.

"sponsorship" is whats known as staking and is very common, also when a poker player says how much they have won they have deducted there entry fees and losses. its the same thing as people having £100k turnover but that doesnt mean they have made profit.

when poker players get staked different percentages of profits are nromally negotiated depeneding on the staking type, most players get staked for all the games they play so thats multiple tournamenst or enough money to play cash games or sng's, normally if a staker provides backing for all games or many games for a set period then 50% profit share is common.

but then alot of poker players also "sell shares" when its just 1 tournament or a few tournaments, what this means is that if the tournament entry fees are £10k then they will sell 50% for 5k, mainly if the tournament entry fees are higher than they normally play or are willing to risk. now if they are a great player with decent success and winrates they might add a markup so instead of selling 50% for £5k they might charge £5.5-£6k for 50%.

also sng and poker isnt luck at all and infact its heavily math based, especially sng or minitournaments, yes its about calculating stack sizes and big blinds and stealing the blinds but there is an insane amount of math behind this and behind what cards are profitable to shove based on what you think the hands the people in the blinds will call with, once you know what type of hands you think they will call with based off of watching how they play you can then work out how many times they will fold, based off of this you can work out what hands you can shove profitably against them,

 

[KateCB]

Phew, and i thought adwords was a difficult algorithm!!! :]