Interesting you do this zima , thanks I thought u had a well a long time ago .

Why did you go into staking in the first place?

Do you believe in today's current poker climate, with Mtt stables buying make ups of players and the like that mtt backing is fairly safe way to make money if you have the bankroll and decent players (all trustworthy), it's almost a sure fireway to never lose out badly if u game select well? I know this is a bit of a long question so sorry for rambling on

Have you ever been irl broke through backing or close too?

Do you like gambling?


Do you think Mtt poker will still be profitable in 10 years time for decent players?

Thanks for doing this

On a scale 1-10, if I described you as pompous prick, how wrong would I be? 1 being very wrong, 10 being super pompous prickesque

Not hating just interested in avg pompous prickquesness of people #charts

Which is a bigger scumbag, Ricky Fohrenbach or Brandon Barnes? Have you backed either?

Honestly tho, I have always kinda hated you because you have always seemed like a pompous dick. But I can understand the job getting into you. I have a lot of respect for you for navigating through all that and coming out a big winner. I wish I had a point aside from hello I'm drunk but I don't. But I wish you good luck, I hope youre less pompous irl, and gl

+1 and some anecdotes plz, are they both even around anymore

gl and gg always admired ur relentlessness towards scammers, keep fighting the good fight!

zima's pretty cool imo, his job is to be a dick for the most part, and hes a man of few words so i can see where the sentiment comes from. but anytime ive interacted 1 on 1 w zima hes just either straight business up and down, or a nice affable dude, idk.

Fairly certain that Ricky is still MAing Stars while preaching gay rights on twitter, while Brandon still owes 6 figs to his backers but he's too busy quoting Drake lyrics to pay

I agree Zima has always seemed very ****y (=optimal) re scammers but I'm pretty disappointed by the lack of scammer revelations itt

Whoooops my apologies for drunken spam

Agreed.

what was your involvement with Jymaster? Did you decide to drop him prior to his big win?

1. Not sure, and the site i used to keep track of everything is no longer in service. I assume its less than everyone thinks, but me and pageh won a decent amount from those games. when we started, we were one of like 2-3 stables i think.

2. romdom82 made us the most and jymaster lost the most.

3. too many to list, ha ha. i dont really anti sweat any horses, because if they scammed us i would like them to win just in case they will pay us back.

4. probably not. i have found a nice game to play in around tampa and have a few other things going on now that i think have a much higher ceiling than any staking venture.


1. a place in st pete called "sea salt". has ridic good oysters year round and all of the food there is really good. they also have this cool wine tower thing with a ton of options. i also really enjoy a friends place called tryst. i know most of the servers and people who work there so its a cool dynamic and the food is pretty good as well.

2. a good lobster roll is probably top on my list. or oysters.

3. i always used to say when driverseti would walk by, "there goes my favorite poker player" ha ha.

1. you just have to be on top of things every day. you cant take a day off. you always gotta be working on schedules, always have to work on your horses game, always have to be talking to horses and making sure their mindset is correct. its just a ton of work if you want to do it correctly, and its something that i just dont have in me anymore at this point.

2. not sure our stable does a lot better than the top stables these days. i think we got in at a decent time and we just had a nice balance between elio and I in terms of workload.

3. the "younger" stables are just hungrier. i am sure they arent cutting corners and are really excited about the staking business. at the end of me working with the stable on a day to day basis, i dreaded opening my laptop every morning.

4. i would most likely not change much. i think elio and i probably took on too many players.

ty

i got into staking because i had like 700 extra online, and i thought staking was a cool idea (i was currently staked at the time). i also was not very confident in my own game and thought this would be a good way to make some extra money. i thought if we had like 20 guys all playing 180s i would make a nice living. it def was better than a "real job"

staking is never a sure thing. the human aspect of it all is so hard to predict. i have enough money to start my own stable/stake for HSMTTs online and its pretty much the last thing i would want to do with my money. the negative aspects it brings out in people is not something i am interested in.

i have always had enough money to pay some bills. i guess at times i was drawing a salary from the company to help with that, but i would have most likely been ok even if that wasnt the case.

nah. i generally dont gamble that much in casinos (probably way more than the general public). i enjoy betting sports games every so often, playing BJ/bac very so often, but for the most part i dont enjoy negative ev gambling.

mtts will always be profitable

What are the top 5 worst common attributes you found among your worst performers, and top 5 best among best performers?

Worst/best countries to stake people from? (not necessarily profit related)

Dumbest/funniest thing a horse has ever said to you.

Good stuff, thanks.

Great stuff so far thanks for the insight.

In the current live poker landscape do you think putting time into finding the right game/situation, like the private game you play, might be more important than putting in hours studying/working on ones game? Speaking strictly of maximizing profitability.

Do you ever have to pit gamble more money than you are comfortable with to stay in the good graces of the guys you play with in the private game?

Do you think the poker scene in Tampa/St Pete will ever grow or will it continue to remain stagnant?

I've been waiting for this well for some time now. I started backing in 2005. I've had somewhere in the 80 range of horses over the years. I currently have 1 (live poker).

This thread is focusing too much on the negative experiences/parts & results of backing. Wells are not just for the question askers. It's for you. People ask you questions to jog your memory and in return you tell stories. Whatever happens, we'll always have these stories to tell. When we're sitting at the poker table in our 70s (hopefully), we'll tell the fonder stories from an earlier life, not who the biggest scum bag was.


What was your favorite specific type of SNG/tournament to back players in?

What is the best way someone has ever gotten out of makeup?

Something dumb a horse once said/did that you've told hundreds of times over since

What is the dumbest thing that's happened to a horse in a tournament that you can now look back at and have a laugh over?

Who's the best friend that you made from backing?

I would like to add: How long did you knew Brandon Barnes was scamming you? Do you knew that he scammed others as well? Why didn't you come forward earlier?

lol, not even sure if i should answer these questions (not because i am afraid of self evaluation, but more cause you were drunk as you posted them). i would like to think you are wrong. staking really made me a bitter person for a long long time. every time i saw someone who scammed me playing, or getting stakes, or doing well, i just was bitter towards them. that came off bad and i have been trying to fix that. sure, i still loathe all the people who ever stole money from elio and I, but its not something that i try and let mess with me from day to day.

if you want a number, i would say 4

no problem

lol, great question. it has got to be ricky. heard rumors ricky did some not so nice things to barnes (and no, not getting into it) that will always be in the back of my head when i hear his name. ricky took advantage of barnes in a lot of ways. barnes was a kid when he got into the game and was really really impressionable. i dont say that as an excuse for barnes, but he really stood no chance when predators like ricky were around. barnes also had quite a hard life leading up to his fall.

Elio and I staked barnes when he was in cabo for a bit. he played 2-4 to 5-10 HU cash for us for maybe 6 months or so. only reason why i staked him was because i was in the same city as him and i think i could watch over him better. i also had hung out with him a decent amount and i think there was some respect between us. there were times when barnes would push the limits, but he generally was a good horse for us. at the end, he came to us and said he wasnt sure how much longer he would be in mexico, so he was out of make-up and he said he wanted to quit the deal. sounds strange, but we have nothing but good things to say about him as a horse.

barnes came to us at some point when he was trying to sell his ftp balance after BF. we bought it at 67%. He told us after we went over the whole deal, that the money wasnt in his own account, but he had bought it from his 2 friends. we didnt think much of it, seeing as barnes had been a great horse. we should have done more research. we took his work for it that he had 15k in ftp funds that were his (whether in his own account or in someone elses). we paid 10k for the 15k and we have gotten back around 2k or so of it and are now on his repayment list with everyone else. looking back, this makes me feel pretty dumb, ha ha, but he had been such a good horse and respected all the rules blah blah blah.



thanks.

thanks. you actually were a player i used as an example to some of the horses to say "this is how you should schedule stuff". you always played a ton/played a lot of sites.

lol. i heard at some point ricky was VPNing from the states, but never really had proof. i know there was some guy who was running a business where he was setting up accounts and helping guys VPN from the states.

we staked him for a long time, and dropped him like 2 years ago or so. he ran really bad with us, but also probably wasnt playing his best poker at times (which happens).

we had 0 of his big win. he did pay back his loans though, which was nice.

Thanks for the answers, and once again sorry for the disrespective tone, I know drunk posting is no excuse but I'll use that anyway. I also really did mean that it's very respectable how you navigated through all that negative stuff. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavours in the future, I might come up with some actual sober questions at some point. Thanks for doing this!

lol @ barnes is too busy RT'ing drake lyrics.

how good is elio at poker? how many people are on his level IYO?

who is a better troll tommy conway or kleath?

whats your drug of choice?

biggest prop bet?

biggest prop bet wittnessed?

craziest night in vegas?

after being scammed quite a bit, do you still believe in humanity?

cabo bball dream team, starting 5 and 3 off the bench?

best memory of living in CSL?

zima is a lot of things but pompous is not one of them.

Paul Zima, making MTTc great again.

How many people were living in Cabo when you decided to move down there? When was the last time you packed up and left?

From my dealings with Paul I can comfortably say he is a very friendly and reasonable person. I know he has vented frustration about scammers and thieves on 2p2 but I don't think most people understand how difficult it is to stay level headed when dealing with *******s wantonly and willfully stealing from you.

I know I've been pretty slow on the recent job you asked me to do but do you think overall that the work I did was beneficial for you and Elio?