Dont understand your questions as ive alrdy stated A-Greg is a friend B-my comments are directed solely at the bashing C-I didnt evaluate the pkg on its "numbers merit" So...wldnt the obvious answer be obvious that I wouldnt post in a thread where indont know anything about the poster??? Perhaps youre just confused bc some of.the bashing posts have been removed.
.idk. But im.rather confident ive stated my position clearly when sayin "there are ways of asking questions without being dooshebags". Its honestly not so much the bashin..Gregs a big boy, he can fight his own battles.....I just particularly dont like it when ppl are being simple coks in a thread in mkt place....sets a bad precedent AND this forum has PLENTY of other spots where trolls live...not needed here when thousands of dollars are on the line. And again....this is just my opinion.

Yes, this is my first post under this user name. No, I don't care what you think. I'm a member of the community with many posts, but I wish to keep this one separate from my other relationships and dealings within the marketplace, as I have mutual friends with certain parties. I have never previously created a profile for this purpose, but felt it necessary to avoid the firestorm. I will never post from this account again, nor will I reply to anything in this thread again. Using my ONE TIME! Flame away if you must, but my points here are as objective as I can allow them to be.

While I am by no means the alpha male of my group, I have a considerable tourney track record, though I pale in Hendon Mob comparison to the company I keep. I do not have a bracelet, or an HPT Title, much less 4. Chris and Greg have both of these things. I have played with both of them on multiple occasions. Mostly tourney's, but have also sat with them in cash games, so I have a perspective, and an opinion, albeit my own. Footnote: that I came back to add, I've also seen both of them in the blackjack pit, in this past year.


I believe the questions in this forum to be 100% valid, as someone who has been a horse, a backer, and full time player. Where else to raise them? The package Greg has put forth is riddled with potential issues, and the history behind previous packages is a litmus test. It's a valuable piece of the puzzle in the question of present day investment.

I believe Greg to be a nice guy, in all my interactions with him. Being a nice guy does not make him a good or a bad investment. It does not exonerate him from some of the questions brought up. This thread smelled to high heaven, and anyone who read it in its entirety should agree or your radar is off. (my opinion) I don't know what's been deleted so far. I don't keep daily/hourly tabs. I do believe that a nice guy is very capable of posting from other names. I appreciate Greg's civility, while don't understand the lack of follow-up info. Seems standard to sell yourself as a lucrative commodity with transparency in order to garner the strongest chance of package investment success.

When Tryba jumped into the thread, I did an eyebrow raise. I imagined my eyebrow raise to look cool, like Sean Connery, but it was just here in front of the computer with nobody to see or judge.

Here is a guy who has posted MANY packages in the marketplace, and also rode the laurels of a bracelet ship/package return. For the record, I have never invested in him, but know people who have. You guys can do the math and the crossbook referencing of buyins/cashes post-bracelet. 2013 WSOP, Foxwoods and Colorado Circuits, HPT, other east coast stuff. Tremendous volume. I admit, I'm impressed with all the bullets. 1.3MU and a low retention of ones owned percentage of themselves goes a long ways sometimes. Happy/sad investors can always step forward. I've already done the math, and I'm not replying, so good for you.

Bracelet binks go a long way to getting backing in general for both of these gentleman, regardless of recent history. Tryba seemed to knee-jerk defend the questions about Greg's package, which I find ironic coming from a guy who uses the marketplace as a living. And yes, ironic, b/c it seems like research is something that neither of these guys really want to encourage us to do.

The true hypocrisy here is Tryba calling out others for "bashing"... If you've ever sat on a table with him, he is not Raymer by any means. He abuses players, dealers, and floor. Sometimes he has headphones on, his white T is clean, and all is right with the world, at least in that moment. He is very "self-assured." Some might say something else. He is quiet until he is loud. His Twitter is essentially garbage of "booooooming it" to anyone who might be deep and constant teenage berating of amateurs, coupled with playground vocabulary. Today he's fighting some amateur random kid again. This alone does not make him a good or a bad investment. It does mean that he has different standards here than he does in real life. Not a personal attack. An observation, shared by many. Ego. Check.

I've always wondered how so many investors in this marketplace can make decisions purely on numbers on a screen, which Nate Silver will tell you are hardly conclusive all the time...much less most of the time. So many people wanna play Moneyball, while so few want to think about the nuances of the game, which is the fabric of poker. Even fewer people seem to have played with the people they invest in. Attitude/trust/emotional countenance have a lot to do with things too.

I owned a business outside of poker for years before poker, and don't have the typical poker story. I am friends with some of the best and brightest in the poker world, and lay no claim to be either. I live in Nevada. I believe in upholding contracts and paying debts. Solid business acumen dictates that one do their own research, and not blame others for faulty decisions and investments. Poker is a business. Which is why Greg and Chris should continue to post their respective packages, but be fully aware that a public forum will vet them if said public forum is savvy. Trolls are gonna troll, but I don't think this thread really had much of that. We've all seen worse.

I have not stated in this post, nor will I, how I think either of these guys play. This is purely about hypocrisy/hero worship/transparency. And for the love of Christ, stop with the booooooming it. It's dumb. And so are the crazy glasses. But I digress.

Been a fun ONE TIME. All the best in 2014, and against the evil that is variance.

↑spoken with such conviction for a person mixin half truths with utter ridiculousness frm behind a mask. Kudos.

Let me say something about this - you could not be more wrong. I have known Chris for years and although I do not hang out with him, he is a good hearted guy who takes poker seriously. I sat with him most recently in day 1a of the Harrah's Circuit main and let me be clear: HE DID NOTHING OF WHAT YOU ALLEGE. Who the f cares if he says BOOM???? There are people out there making counterfeit chips and ruining the integrity of the game and you're upset about him saying BOOM????

Oh and 1 more thing - the fact that you had to create a brand new account to bash him really speaks more about you than him buddy. Oh no, he's had some arguments with people at the poker table - I guess the world is coming to an end now because of that. It's human nature that sometimes people will argue - are you really that clueless????

Just had to speak my peace. Good luck at Borgata Chris - I'll be there on Thursday.

and why did you need to make up another sn for that post?

not that i have the $ to invest, but what is the BRM plan for the 100k??

like would it we started at 1/200 buyins or just going gungho into 5 n 10k events?

As I stated a couple of times, if you are seriously interested in investing, PM me or use the contact page on my website, and I will answer questions and discuss the deal in more detail. Those who have done so, I have responded and we are talking it out. At which point, they will choose to invest or not.

Thank you.

Chris is a good friend, and has been so for a long time. I did not point him to this thread, nor ask him to post in it, or anything. His appearance in this thread was unknown to me until I read what he wrote. My opinion is that he didn't like what some people were writing, or the tone in which they wrote it, about me, so he jumped in to defend a friend. I appreciate his words, and his defense, though it was not necessary. Been here on 2+2 since almost day 1, so I'm used to haters, trolls, and the like. And I'm still here, because most of 2+2 is good people who love to talk poker, and who help one another.

Whoever you are, I'm not mad at you. You didn't insult me, or use immature words. But I would suggest you think it through in the future before creating an account just to make one post. If what you say has merit, than you ought to be able to say it yourself. It's not as if you're trashing a dictator who's going to arrest or kill you if they learn your identity.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

I'm not a 2+2 regular, but I've been part of the poker community for about 20 years now. A friend alerted me to this thread and I wanted to offer an opinion from someone who has backed Greg in the past. I was one of Greg's investors when he won the main event. I even flew to Vegas at a stupid-early hour on a Friday morning so that I could watch the final table. (Mornings have sixes and sevens. Who knew?!)

I have every confidence that Greg was 100% honest and fair with his backers. He kept in regular communication with us and updated us regularly with the bankroll status and details about what he had played recently. He explained his thought processes around game selection, both for cash games and tournaments, and we even got detailed discussions of some of the hands that he played, if I remember correctly. There was never a point where I felt like I lacked information from Greg, and I never felt like he was taking advantage of his backers in any way.

I'm not backing anyone at the moment, but if I was then I would happily take a piece of Greg's bankroll this year.

Well since you always wondered, let me enlighten you a little bit.

Investors make decisions all the time based on numbers alone. Most make investment in products, companies, ideas and people without knowing the product, visiting the company or meeting the person.

ROI from stakes in random poker players can provide decent yields to your portfolio. One does not need to to understand much about a good poker player to understand the opportunities that present themselves here in marketplace. At the same time, it's fairly easy to weed out the broke degenerate looking for a stake.

Or maybe I'm just lucky

I know you better than that and in your case "luck" has nothing to do with it. Glad to see your still in the game.

And before anyone calls Patti a shill, that friend was me. I've played with Greg a few times at Winstar and would have no concerns investing in him if I had 1000. Probably better than if I played that money myself. Who am I kidding? Definitely better.

Is that really you Michael?? Hit me up on email brother.

FossilMan...sent you a PM.

Shipped to yahoo, p-q didn't work.

I read the op and my first thought was wow he's going to get bashed. The big issue is that the markup on this package is massive. For every $1 you invest, you lose $1 if he loses it but if he doubles his money you only win 60c. Since it's not strict markup I think it's hard to figure what kind of roi he'd need for this to be +ev, but on the surface it seems high.

I don't know and haven't interacted with greg at all, but he's always been a class act from what I know and does a great job with the ppa and helping defend poker on national tv. He's definitely someone with a solid reputation and a really good track record in poker.

However, from what I've seen he hasn't been bashed at all, and this is not even close to as bad as I was expecting after reading the OP. A few people asked for more info and the only person to outright say it was bad was klink and he offered to put his money where his mouth is.

Also why is it not ok for people to make comments about packages being -ev but it's fine for op's to get a ton of their friends to post about how +ev the package is? I think most of the people who post negative viewpoints are people who would likely buy if it was a good deal while the people who post positive viewpoints in many circumstances don't even buy a piece. I honestly think people posting positive things without buying are far more detrimental to the marketplace than those who post negative things.

Anyway I agree with what a few have said though, seems the better way would be to put a package together of mtts and charge mu. This is the way things are traditionally done here and makes it much more clear what kind of roi's you need to achieve for it to be a +ev investment and also shows which tourneys you'll play. Even if you literally say something like "15k is for a mix of 1k and 1.5k wsop events" that's better than what you've done here already and still only involves one refund in the end which unless you brick everything you'll have to do anyway.

Isn't a 60/40 backer/horse staking deal equal to 66.7% markup?

Agreed that the criticism in this thread has been relatively tame. There's nothing wrong with demanding details on a black-box package like this one, especially when the markup is 2-5x higher than most packages sold here. Hell, the OP contains more rationale for the package's mere existence ("i have to sell pieces to assuage ny wife's concerns") than rationale for why putative investors would want to put their money up other than "i sold a package like this in the past and it worked out great" (stuff like "i estimate my roi in this specific set of games to be X" and/or "here is a body of evidence supporting my claims" and/or "here is the BRM strategy i plan to employ on behalf of my investors" are the kinds of details people expect). Maybe these questions are answered in PMs, but they're the types of things people expect from the outset.

My impression is that Greg is trustworthy and is offering this package in good faith. I also think there are cash games and mtts in which Greg has an roi north of 70%. But when you offer a non-standard investment at exceptional markup in a public forum, you're going to get "bashed" (ie publically questioned about the merits of your investment) and, if you're lucky, white-knighted.

Excellent post. I've read this thread several times wanting to say something against it without tar and feathering Greg too harshly but you pretty much summarized my thoughts exactly.

This is an excellent post questionin the #s of the bap...except, and crrect me Iif im wrong, Gregs pkg includes make up or funds rolled back in.
And again, my issue was never with anyone questioning the pkg...it was the ridiculous tone of mwny questioning and rude comments that have been removed.

I'm actually curious on the math of this as well. Like standard mu if he played 2 mtts busted one mincashed for exactly 2x and both were same buy in, investors would lose. In Greg's model they don't, so it can't be as bad as 67% mu, but my gut says it's still really high. Has any work been done on this?

Im not 100%...but I think its 60/40 with make up. Which, isnt "std 2+2", and isnt 50-50 with make up which is also "std" it is...IMO far from "horrible" as has been mentioned. Ive also felt for a while that its not always fair the horse pays 100% of the expenses so, Iim sorta curoous to why others feel its so unfair.

FWIW, I have played with Raymer at least half a dozen times and he still always calls me Jorj.

I know of no way to directly compare deals with make-up (like this one) to deals without make-up (like your standard marketplace tournament package).

60/40 in favor of the investor, with make-up and the player covering all expenses, is a great investment if (a) the player is truly +EV and (b) you completely trust him. But the level of trust needed to make a cash staking deal work is extremely high. Essentially you're saying, "Take my money and LMK how it works out." with no way to verify anything.

Fwiw the deal is better (for the backer) than 67% mark up and worse (for the backer) than 60/40 with makeup since it does have makeup but only for a limited time at the end of which any makeup is cancelled

As others have already pointed out, you can't equate the two. If we break even at the end of the year, it would be equivalent to having sold pieces with zero markup. If we lose, also the same as zero markup. If we win, well, it depends upon exactly how much we win. Could end up being equal to 1.0001 markup, but would never exceed 1.67 markup. Even if I won a billion, that would yield a markup equivalent to just below 1.666... . So, at the end, this investment would work the same as a markup deal at something between 1.0 (no markup) and 1.67, but no way to know where until it's over.

Now you've done it. I think I'm starting to cry. ;-)

Thanks, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

In my defense, there is more than a tiny similarity. Plus, I'm an idiot.

At this point, I don't confuse you any more, but I do remember that I confused you in the past. If I called you jorj anytime in the last year or so, it was meant as a joke. Sorry if it wasn't funny.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

Looks like my first trip to play under this deal will be in just about a week. Not a big event to start, going to Deerfoot Inn in Calgary to play in the Winter Super Stack series, and hopefully to set up a future visit later in the year to teach a seminar there. I won't be able to stay for their main event, as I will be leaving to play in the HPT at the Club One Casino in Fresno, where I will compete in that main event. This will be a pretty big event, so we will have a shot at doubling the bankroll right away if I can win that one.

If you were still considering investing, and haven't contacted me, you will need to do so quickly. Anybody who's money isn't in before action starts will be out, unless we make an exception and let them in, which would only be considered if the bankroll is down at that point.

Thanks, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)