It's not as uncommon as you'd think. I definitely know of a dozen people that are backed at various levels of cash games.

the main point being you arent gonna work up a million mu online w/o playing cash, not about the nature of cash backing deals

Bump for updates.

45k 7 months not that much better now but I am optimistic

25k, 8 months, 40$ abi. fk u ftp, fk u 200's+

doubt i have cashed out a dollar since wsop. this was probably not the best idea i ever had.

gonna be in 50k from 2 months worth of grinding if i brick everything today :/

Woohoo bro me too! My volume has really sucked dick this year and kinda involved the full buy in of WSOP Main in there, but that's basically what mine is. I've dropped a few 200s from the schedule and 163s where my ROI is squadoosh.

You can never plan for every possible outcome as a backer. Last week, my outstanding makeup hit an all-time high. A few days later poker as a new it was gone.

It's been a brutal 3 months in backing. So many chances every week and a few each Sunday. Sunday was boring not being able to sweat my stable. I only had 1 player that hadn't logged off and was able to play on Tilt yesterday. He played 2 tournaments and I got a 12th for good measure then we road off into the sunset and hit the bottle pretty hard.

what's your plan as a backer in all of this. are you going to put people into live tourneys this summer still? planning on trying to convince some horses to move to another country with you to play online still? or what?

I had 14 players last week.

I dropped 4 that weren't in makeup. They're also players that I haven't backed for long and were short term deals too.

I have 2 that are in small makeup that I'm putting on hold until further notice. They can do whatever they want, but if there's a good option for them that comes up, I have the option to restart the deal where we left off.

I'm still deciding on what to do with the other 8 players. I was planning on taking 3 to Vegas but now I'm not in a position to do so with the amount of monies that I have tied up on Stars/Tilt.

4 of the 8 are in large makeup, 2 aren't and the other 2 or in small makeup. No more than 4 of them could resume playing on Merge Network and get by. Deciding who to continue with right now, who to try to scrap dollars together for Venetians and who to just holdback on till there are good online options again.

It's going to be a long couple weeks.


What are other backers doing?

19.5k mu ($55 abi) out in 12 days, back in 6k in a week when black friday hits. Trying to move to spain to play there backer cant back me all his funds are on ftp. What do



I feel like lebron james in his " what should i do " commercials except hes rich and im poor.

bai

Really curious to see how major backers will handle this

yeah, and it'll be interesting(sad) to see how messy the MP gets. All hope of a fairly clean way outta this is swift access to funds, but you and others don't seem to think that is likely. Is that because the 75 bank accounts are thought to be made up mostly of player funds? I want to have hope that FTP/PS see their future as still profitable if they can keep their non-US players feeling happy/safe, meaning a quick return of funds to their US players.

Is that just a pipe dream?

Still want to swap cash for my FTP funds...I'm about $300 liquid with student loans coming in 2 weeks. sighhh

thought of this right away. I hope you weren't holding money online specifically for me.

i only have 3 horses right now. one is in $0 of mu, but has a bunch of my money on sites right now. i may or may not put him into a few live things this summer

the 2 other horses i have are in a decent amount of mu. i have no interest in putting htem into live stuff, so i suppose they're free to do whatever they want for the time being, and if poker comes back i plan on picking up their deal where it left off and continue backing them.



i think the major gray area/problems are gonna come is when poker comes back. say you have a horse that's 20k in makeup as of last friday...

situation A: he decides he needs to make money, and goes and gets a full time job. poker comes back in some capacity on april 15th 2012...however this horse works full time and has no interest in playing poker anymore.

situation B: horse decides he needs money, and moves to another country where he can play online poker...finds a new backer...poker comes back 4/15/12 and he currently is in a little mu with a new backer...

situation C: horse decides he needs money, and starts grinding live cash and tourneys. makes a sizeable amount of money. poker comes back 4/15/12 and he is still playing poker, and is planning on playing online again, but has no need for the backer or desire to start the deal where it left off



what is a backer to do in these 3 situations...and what are the ethics of each situation.

as i'm both a horse and a backer i really am torn in some situations. i can see both sides of it, and really just don't know what the 'correct' thing to do would be

i just dont see anyone releasing any funds until this indictment gets str8n'd out, and everyone knows how messed up the court system is, and how long of a process it is

If I was stars then paying US players wouldnt be a priority for me. My first priority would be that all euro players can get access to all their money when they want it. They must keep euro players happy.

What american players think of stars and tilt now is irrelevent.

A - Not sure there is really anything that can or should be done in this case. If backer can't provide a way to play online or the horse can't play without moving (not an option for many I'd guess)

B - The moment he moves to another country and you are unable to put forth funds to be his backer I think the deal is terminated.

C - Slightly more interesting, I think it really comes down to a timetable on these deals. If poker shows up in 2 months then I think it is reasonable to assume people will resume deals as were (very unlikely obv). But if it takes 1 year, I am not sure your expectation to keep them if it comes back is extremely reasonable unless you agreed to a live deal and or potentially could agree to a payment plan (in lieu of playing short term and adding to makeup...which is probably crazy). Then there is the case of what if it is 18mnths, 2 year, 5 years until it comes back, in which case I'd assume 95%+ deal would never restart.


I think the interesting part is the latter. How long are these deals viable if poker has a 3-6 month break I think it would be a pretty reasonable thing for most to reassume their deals. But after a year+ I am not so sure that is reasonable. To basically be suspended without pay until online poker resumes seems pretty unrealistic after a certain period of time.

A seems really obvious that he has no obligation to keep playing poker (this was covered extensively in some other thread recently, started by agame iirc). C seems really obvious that he's still obligated to play under your deal, although he can buy out of his makeup if you both agree or w/e

A - He is clearly free to move on from poker if he wants and his makeup goes POOF

C - I think a buyout should be negotiated here between the two parties

I don't really understand the B scenario, he moves but you are still in the US and you can't fund him so he has to find a new non-US backer?

agreed. this was my thoughts on it and my plan. i'm either doing c or grinding live while backed with them, might also move to another country in like 6 months n grind online under them. prolly gonna do live so i can use my own funds for life n **** n dont have to sell most of what i own to bankroll myself barely for 1-2 live.

Yeah, I was waiting for you to come to Madison -- but everything got fkd and I knew I wouldn't be able to xfer.

----

On another note, I have 25k makeup with smokrokflock - highest was around 40k at one point, but I was playing in games that I wasn't currently profitable in and didn't know any better.

A major component that a poker player needs in his arsenal is game selection, especially in this day and age with players poker skills becoming better due to coaching sites helping with fundamentals and situations that weren't normally discussed 2004-2006.

Once online poker comes back, some players will have forgotten what they have known and their 2010-2011 results won't matter that much. I'm sure many of the guys that will be/have been playing live poker won't forget as much, but they will be missing out on playing the thousands of hands they normally did during the week.

I'm very thankful for smokrokflock's coaching and help and if I'm able to play within the next few months or years I'll be paying off my makeup as a gesture of goodwill to repay for smokrok's faith in me as a player evidenced by his investment of hard earned money.

I know I don't have a onus to repay him, my principles tell me to make good on my promise and honor the original contract.

/rant

If, for example, Merge offered the exact games/stakes that my current horses play, I couldn't afford to back them all. I too much money frozen in Stars/Tilt. I could back some, but not my entire current stable.

My players are free of their makeup once I can no longer afford to back them. This has never happened. That rule shouldn't apply in this scenario. I did nothing wrong to not have available funds to back them elsewhere. A situation arose that was out of my control. I shouldn't be punished for that as the backer, but I also agree that the horse shouldn't be allowed to play for someone else either.

I've always had a very open line of communication with my players. I encourage every backer and player to communicate with one another as to handle this situation as best as you can given the circumstances.