Episode #413 - June 9th, 2016

Live from the Two Plus Two Studios - This week on the Pokercast: The WSOP is upon us once again and Andrew Barber, a poker pro with an economics background gives us an accurate representation of the tournament staking world. First Terrence is down where the action is while Adam is home, Terrence gives us a trip report of the WSOP so far and Ross has a quick report from his trip to New York. This week in ICYMI: News from the first week of the WSOP including winners, attendance and as usual a few issues with the way things have been handled. We also talk about the new Wynn poker room and the live GPL matches.
Andrew Barber then gives us the truth about poker staking, and how some people are being taken advantage of. Andrew shares with us his view on buying and selling action and some ideas he has to improve the system. We then get into 140 or less and your mail! We have our first song submission along with some voicemails, and e-mail questions. We review a few hands in the Rossco report and as usual the password/format to the Pokerstars Invitational is within the show.

Music: Hons - Degen, Artifakts - So Much Better

Ross Report Hands:
Hand #1
Hand #2
Hand #3

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Invitational IDs:
PM 1589256696
$1 1589256913

Ta Dahhhh
Even a blind chicken gets a bit of corn sometimes ladies!

Was hoping for a top 10 but, ah yupp, yupp yupp!

It's my first... second place!!! Christmas time!!!!

On the podium for bronze!

Back to back final tables

5st

WPT final table!

Listening to the show now guys in the UK, great show so far Really enjoyed that song maybe Ross could make a drop out of it too.
Euro 2016 kicks off today, What are your picks guys?

Final Table

Boom. Nov 9

la la la
im so sexy

I got a nice chuckle on the drive to work when Brooklyn was described as "rural." If it were it's own separate city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States.

Really? Didn't think it was that crowded.

... and statistically tied for 7th.

Small nit pick: When We Were Kings is about the Rumble in the Jungle vs Foreman

Hey guys, great show. I have to admit I had a hard time following all the staking math, but it was really interesting to listen to either way.

A few questions/comments from this week...

I don't understand the level of hate for the top-up tourney. Sure it may not be the best tournament idea, but you guys seemed really pissed off like it was making victims out of casual players, and penalized people who didn't read the details. If the information is clearly posted, isn't it buyer beware. Do you really think there are casual players who just show up at the Rio and register for whatever the tournament is? I doubt there are that many aside from the sick degens, though I could be wrong (and I wasn't there like T). I expect the casual player has a very specific event or schedule in mind, or at least I'm sure I would.

Also, regarding Jesus... if he shaved, cut the hair, ditched the cowboy hat would people have really recognized him? He has one of the most distinctive looks of all time for a poker player IMO, but I doubt he'd stand out without it.

Finally, in the vein of the new "what would it take" segment... what would it take for you to defraud the entire poker community and make them all hate you, if you knew you wouldn't go to jail? You guys might be better humans than me, but my number is probably a lot less than $80MM.

Please fix the RSS feed. The most recent episodes are supposed to be on top.

Really enjoyed the staking math segment. Having never been an investor as much as "take a piece of a buddy for a sweat" sort of piece taker, it is fuzzy for me. I'm not flying to Vegas, renting a house, and playing long hours at the Rio. If 3 of us split up the guy who is actually playing (including himself), do we chop up the potential profit equally? Should he expect anything for putting up with rookie dealers?

That said, the math of "he can have a -46% ROI and break even due to markup" is stark. I don't think a lot of people realized that. Love the term perverse incentive.

Definitely enjoyed the show.

I don't think the hot water coming out of your tap would kill anything [not without injuring you].

Use soap and hope.

Hot water may make soap more effective.

Keep your hot water tank at a high temperature to kill bacteria there.

I enjoyed the interview - as an (ex-)hedge fund guy, some of the ways things were said I would quibble with, but substantially what Andrew was saying is hard to really argue with.

A couple of things I would add:

- if you think that mark-up leads to misaligned incentives and a poorly functioning market, then don't look at make-up based deals.

- Bank-of-Timex style shorting is huge potential risk, and needs to come with a massive disclaimer - if you buy someone at 1.6 you might be overpaying, but at least you know that when they win, they collect the money they need to pay you off. If you bet with someone shorting the market, you have to be 100% confident that when the reference-horse wins the tournament, the shorter has the funds to pay you off. I'm sure Timex is liquid enough to pay off his lost bets, but he is exceptional, imo.

- For me the best argument for why the market could use reform is not just that the investors are losers, it's that with a better priced, more transparent market, investors could have more confidence and more, better investment options might thus be attracted to put packages up for offer, leading to a win win for investors and potential stakees alike.

Regarding how to fix the problems, I think a lot of what was being said is really a smoke screen and the core problem is the market for lemons effect, which is essentially a result of asymmetric (& lack of) information. So the best cure is not trying to bring in weird and unenforcable regulations, but to shift towards a greater expectation for full disclosure of all available information. Transparency and information enables accurate pricing, and if people still want to overpay, you can't stop them.

- there was an interesting connection with this and the previous conversation about Jungleman's tweet about overconfidence (& I don't really agree with TC that poker players are much more accurate than the rest of humanity)

So is the Pokercast in any danger now Stars has pulled out guys or what?

And what a truely great video it is. Easily the best boxing doco/movie of all time, just like Ali,...The Greatest.

RE: Pot limit
* Easiest way to compute with action is to take the amount to call last bet, add that to pot, and then add pot to last bet as total amount of pot raise
* Is it generally correct that only amount posted by SB is counted in pot PF, and if it folds to blinds, then SB can only raise to 3x?

RE: Selling at markup
* I think one alternative would be a dutch auction, where seller can set (transparent?) parameters. For example, selling up to 50% at minimum of 1.20 markup, absolute minimum of 1.15. A reverse auction uses the highest X bids that achieve the objective (e.g. selling 50% of package) and then uses the lowest of those X bids as the price for everyone.
* I don't agree with that profit % needs to be same for seller & buyer. It should be dictated by the market IMO.

I've always used the rule of 3x the last bet + the pot to determine a pot sized raise

@ 2hrs15m into the show



Such a great song