Does anyone have some places they use as 'benchmark' for mark-ups for players selling pieces? I used to use Pokershares and infer MU based on other events posted of that player etc. while accounting for assumed house edge of Pokershares. Clearly Pokershares stopped, so I was wondering if people have an alternative, or maybe a database/sheet with old lines on Pokershares or something similar. Or even some own analysis. I have some lines on events from the WSOP 2021, but not a lot.

So far I only bought pieces on sites like Stakekings and Pocketfives from well known players that are obvious value (things like Dnegs selling at no MU), but want to get into it a bit more. Wondering if others have a systematic approach on determining profitable stakes or even a Discord or whatever where they share/discuss worthwhile offers.

Not a direct stake offer, but hope this is the best place to post this question.

top players regularly sell at no markup or 1.1

but you regularly see people charging 1.2+ i've seen as high as 1.4 iirc

no markup - i look at what they are doing and figure out why - it's often a rec just selling to friends for shared action, a rec wanting to stretch their wsop budget (why just play the main event when if i sell 30% I can also play some other stuff) or often a top pro trying to lower their exposure and not too concerned with pocketing $100 along the way in fees from backers and i often snap invest regardless of pro or rec status because i think it's a safe assumption any rec seeking a stake is going to be at least ev neutral vs the field

1.1 - does this person have an edge over the field?

1.2 - is this someone with a tremendous track record who is playing in extremely weak fields?

1.2+ - lol no ffing way, if you're an incredibly good player than an ROI of 20% or less is kind of to be expected, there are obviously edge cases but this is just crap shoot, "i hope he binks it and justifies the markup" mentality

i've invested in 1.2+ guys before but just for micro amounts and only in one off packages where the sample size is small enough that it's either going to be a big hit or total wipe - but in general i think it's bad to pay more than 1.1

i get that there should be fees involved, especially for playing live where the player has real world expenses associated with playing, but i feel too many people aren't markup sensitive enough, just want that gambool rush and are thinking of owning 5% of the main event winner and not that they paid 7% for 5% of action which is just a terrible rate

and then factoring in the risk of getting scammed...

if you back 10 horses at 1.2 and as a group they have a good series at 20% ROI you should have crushed it with a profitable series but instead you broke even
but one of them scams, he didn't buy in for the second bullet like he said he did or he wins and ghosts, etc etc and now you've lost money

this is why 99% of due diligence is regarding the risk of scam, which i also think is a bit easier to quantify than someone's actual poker skill based on their hendon mob etc

Thanks for the elaborate reply, helps a lot! Most of it I completely agree with. I am wanting to get into 2+2 staking as well, as soon as I have some more experience, but I plan to start with some more volume on sites like Pocketfives (P5) and Stakekings (SK) so I think the risk of scamming is reasonably low there. Some follow-up if you don't mind:

I see 1.4+ come by regularly on something like SK, I fail to see that would be a profitable stake indeed. I have even seen some (well known) players sell over the price Pokershares had them on in that exact event, meaning that either Pokershares was drastically off (which I doubt) or these players were drastically overselling because Pokershares factors in a house edge.

Interesting. I would think that given a casino takes like 5-10 percent from the prizepool and most events have pros in them, that most recs would be -EV, even the ones serious enough to look for staking. But I get your point too, that this is already a subset of the playerpool that is better than average.


In a general sense I have the same feeling. But how do you look at special tournaments like the WSOP ME then? Pokershares had players up to like 4.5 MU last year, although I assume they take a significant edge there given they have huge exposure, even with like a house edge of 25 percent these are very high values and I have not really a reason to assume they are that wrong, given PS even gave the option to short on some events.


Below some examples, very interested on your/others thoughts. Also no shots meant at these players selling pieces, its a free market, I am just trying to find value for myself.

Some examples:
- Joe Cada WSOP <=10k package (excl. main) @1.1, seems like a steal to me so very surprised its not sold out yet, been up for like a week now
- A player like Allen Kessler, charges something like 1.05-1.2 for WSOP (mix) events. He has ME up for 1.35, PS had him at 1.65 ME last year, he tends to get a lot of ****, but not sure how to rate him. Maria Konnikova has similar MU, as sortof protege of Seidel I am gonna assume she plays a reasonable hand of poker
- Ryan Riess/Shaun Deeb in 25k/50k WSOP NLH highrollers, Deeb at no-markup and RR 1.05-1.1. I really wonder what edges are in these highrollers, looking at entries from last year it is almost all (well known/good) pros, so my initial idea was that even at no mark-up its not worth it, but then I saw in my old sheets that RR was quoted at like 1.2-1.3 in WSOP 50ks last year

Really interested in some input on that and what you think about these packages.

you're talking about top pros with extensive networks who'd have no problem at all getting staked at a fair market rate from their network

they saw those sites for what they were, pools of funds coming from total idiots who just wanted a taste of some player they saw on tv and figured let's see how much markup i can charge and get away with

do not use those as examples of fair market rates, it's exploitative bs taking money from suckers who saw them on tv and don't know any better because they're just buying $50 anyway so they don't even care nor notice

re: that deeb example, that's what i'm talking about, he's thinking about reducing his exposure and not picking up some pocket change, that's what i'm looking for, i've bought pieces of a lot of top players at no markup and yet you will find a ton of part time players with 1.3 and 1.25 wsop packages currently posted - i really feel like they are aren't trying to reduce exposure but rather figure "if i sell this full 10k then i just made 3k" and when that's the intention behind selling action i run away as fast as i can

this guy was charging 1.175 which i thought was at the point where i was fine saying no but he was at least aware of it (see his op) and then after he posted this, i bought 1% after confirming it was indeed real