Hello


I have run into situation with a horse that i would like to get some thoughts on from the community.


I had been staking bigjbecker on FTP and Stars for around 6 months prior to BF happening. All was well between us and he was a great horse in terms of updating when i asked him too, he made good money and grinded hard. He was a great horse up BF.

BF came and it basically had me stop all my staking operations. I sold off a lot of my Euro guys to other backers/dropped the ones not in MU. I kept a few with higher make-up so they could try and get out and get me some money back. Wanna make this point clear, we still were backing some people and we didnt drop people post-BF because we didnt have the money. We put all the US guys on hold for the time being because most of them were mid-stakes/wouldnt move to continue poker. I told everyone that the MU is still there and that we would just continue the deal when poker came back or they moved to a dif country to continue playing.

For this particular horse, he wanted to play some live stuff. He and i had a lot of talks around WSOP and he said he wanted to sell all his action at a mark-up and not give me any on the stake (like 10-20%). After talking with him for a long time, and many other backers as well, i eventually came to the conclusion that me and my staking partner have no claim to any of his live action and he was free to do what he wanted in this regard. Obv he doesnt really need my permission, but would think giving me and my staking partner a sweat would be a show of good faith etc. I understand that i am not exactly entitled to that action, but would have been nice to have some. It is a business though, and he should do whats best for himself and i didnt hold any grduges toward him in this regard. He has to do what he has to do.

So, after the WSOP i didnt speak to the horse much. I was looking around 2p2 and i saw him post in a thread about relocation. I PMd him and he said he was moving to Mexico to continue playing and that he would be buying out of our MU. He said he could put himself in all the MTTs online that he wanted. I of course wanted his action, but if he wants to buyout than i was ok with it. Here is where we ran into some problems:


Horses MU pre-BF was 4300

Horse has/had around 1k on FTP

moving forward, his make-up is 3300ish and the FTP money in his account is mine/staking partner's


unsure if this next part is relevant, but want to put it out there so everyone knows everything about the situation.

He moved and contacted me and said maybe if we knocked off some of his MU, he would still play for us. We thought that was something we could look into as he was a good horse previously for us. We talked it over and we ended up coming to an agreement to put his make-up to 1750 (3300-relocation costs/future costs of the move). If we were going to have action on him, we were ok with taking a little hit on the make-up now so we could have his future earning potential. We do not feel the 1750 is a correct buyout for this horse in this instance though if he wasnt gonna play for us.




So, here is where we are at.

Horse thinks he should buy out of the 3300 MU for 1000. He has asked some of his friends (one being a friend of a friend and is a high stakes backer/member of this community) and they all agree he should pay somewhere between 0-1250. After us talking for many hours, he recently said "I can offer 1k, take it or leave it".

He has said a few times that him staying in the country would make it so i had 0 chance at the make-up, and while i agree i would guess poker would come back at some point.



I said i think 2300 is correct. I came to figure of 2300 because of a few reasons.

1. We didnt drop the horse. We were not broke. We had money to continue backing him.

2. 3300 was his make-up. I know he has to move to continue playing and that costs money. So, we took 1k off his MU for his travel costs.

3. He is a pretty good winner in the stakes we have him at, so him getting out of make-up seems like a pretty good possibility.


I have asked the horse for us to go to arbitration and he has refused for a few reasons. He has said arbitration wont be fair because an arbitrator cant be unbiased and knowledgeable enough about this situation to solve it fairly. I flat out disagree and think arbitration is the only way to get this solved. I feel there are enough smart people that we could find who would give us the correct result in this situation.



So, what do people think is fair in this situation.

Ty for you time.

Well no one as expecting for BF, i think this particular situation whatever you guys choose its ok, i think he gives you 1k is good to you , because moving country is much more than 3 or 4k in expenses, i know it from personal experiences, even more all the mental process , leaving family and friends , no money pays that, in my opinion the 1k should be well accepted , i can understand both parts and i think it was a fair thing he did and its fair for both

Personally I think this situation is straight forward - horse should pay back losses I think you have done more than enough by offering payment reduction for time spent relocating.
What I would say is that for future maybe have something agreed for live action as well to cover backs as personally I think that's BS how you didn't get a sweat.

I think he should have to pay 50%, so $1650.

He wants to buy out of the makeup, you should have the final say on what price to charge, not him. What would you charge if you were to sell him off to another backer? If you let him buy out that's essentially what you're doing, whether his "backer" is another person or himself.

i also think 1650 sounds like a good number.

i don't see why ur giving him anything for relocating, if he's moving anyways.

i cross posted this thread in MTTc, and it has a lot more discussion/posts over there. (if you want to read)


i appreciate you all posting your thoughts

In my opinion you technically shouldn't have to take anything off the make-up and he should play for you at least until the make-up is zero. That's what is agreed on in the contract that I have with each person I back -you have the right to enforce that.

I don't agree with the idea that he should only owe you between 0 and 1250 - he owes you the full make-up plain and simple - it has nothing to do with his geographical location but more if he has access to poker. He now has access after moving. The real problem for him is having to relocate after Black Friday. I bet it's costing him a lot to move and the idea of having to grind out of MU isn't that appealing.

So if you want to continue your relationship with him after getting out of make-up doing a deal where he in a lower amount of make-up makes sense. A lot of factors go into the figure - such as how profitable is he in the future, amount of variance, duration of stake etc. If I had to throw out a precise number I think in the region of 50% of MU is a fair amount. It's hard to be accurate without know the factors I mentioned.

Hope that helps, GLP.

i tend to agree with this as well, what is the standard buy out for makeup though? I just started staking myself and was wondering what this would be ( i always thought it was around 50)

I completely agree here. Everything else just does not make sense. I really do not understand why do people tend to think 50% is fair, although this seems to be the numbers most agree to.
Relocating should not have any effect on his makeup, unless YOU make him relocate, in which case it is only fair you take the relocation cost. From what i read above, he moved on his own will, so that's that.

I'm saying this as a horse, not backer.

yes but what is the standard buyout for makeup?

I can't really tell you exact numbers but probably Zima can help.
I would think it varies with amount of makeup, expected ROI of the horse and the willingness of the staker to sell/buy out a horse.
Also i could very well be talking rubbish so don't quote me on this. This is just my thinking.

buying out of make-up is a case by case basis thing


it has a lot of factors involved and really isnt an exact science.

Its not his fault bf hit. No horse should have to move out of the country to play and still have the same makeup. its just not finacially possible in alot of cases. That said I agree with 50% sounds fair. I think the horse is thinking he can buy out for cheap and play on his own instead of cutting the makeup and play for Zima, which imo is a little scummy.