This a portion of an article I was going to publish but decided not to...it is certainly not cleaned up, but this forum has shown such interest in these topics that...well here you go.......
(from "the ugliness", by eric haber)
"....Before the legislation, there were quite a number of players who were making good money in mtts. Some of them were good players, and some were just average to poor players who were simply better than the casual player. The problem was that these players, who were not very good, yet were winning players, made certain life choices and self-assessments based on these results. The disappearance of the casual hopeless player after the legislation set in motion a very nasty chain of events for these folks; and the real nasty part of it is that these events took quite some time to materialize.
The thing that we must remember is that the legislation did not instantly remove the casual player from the fields. Likewise, the development of training sites and increased education did not instantly improve the players who utilized them. Rather, this was a slow moving transition from an average field of 50% hopeless casual players and 50% decent to good players, to one of 10% hopeless casual players. Obviously these %’s are arbitrary and just examples, but I think you get the point.
So what happens to these poor/decent players who have dropped out of college, turned pro, quit their jobs, or whatever, who were not good players, but merely good enough to beat the casual mtt player of the prelegislation era? Well, it isn’t pretty.
The first thing to remember is that, again, it takes a large sample size of tourneys before realistic conclusions can be drawn about a players profitability. The problem is that all of these players know this, so the first downswing is simply attributed to variance. These players know they are good (they really are not, but they do not know better, so they are actually being truthful with themselves), so they just keep plugging away.
The next downswing is usually attributed to bad luck, bad calls by other players, rigged sites, whatever. They accept some downswing due to variance, but this extended downswing has got to be a joke of some kind! They used to win, and they have not gotten worse, and it will all turn around!!
Unfortunately, the endgame is not pretty. In a perfectly rational universe, these players would realize that the game has simply gotten harder, that they have not kept up or cannot keep up with the learning curve of the regulars, and either move down in limits to where they can compete favorably, or quit the game professionally and return to school/work etc.
The reality, though, is that a number of these players, feeling left with no other options, resort to unethical behavior at best, and criminal behavior at worst, to attempt to survive in the existence they have created for themselves. I have unfortunately seen way too many examples of this first hand, and in some cases these actions were fairly predictable. I do not cite these examples as a way to humiliate people. I have been asked to share the names of these people on many forums, but that is not my style. Additionally, I genuinely feel bad for these folks, as they were drawn into a game where they thought they could succeed, and due to circumstances beyond their control in some cases, they became losing players, and became trapped in a world of disbelief.
I share some of these examples with you, in case you are one of these people who are in danger of going off the deep end, to hopefully see some of the signs in advance so you can think better of it. Additionally, I want to show what can happen to otherwise honest people (I think), when their delusions get the best of them and they get stuck in the quicksand of a failing endeavor.
1. Players, backed in mtts, transfer stake money from their account to another account (wife friend etc) in an attempt to play cash games. If they win, they replace the borrowed money to the account after cashing out the profits. If they lose, they either disappear, apologize, or at the most extreme, pretend the money is still in their account for as long as possible until it is discovered.
2. Players, backed in mtts, realizing that transferring money from their account will set off red flags, play hu sngs with a second account, dumping the money to that player, then play cash games on the second account as previously described.
3. Player backed in mtts, taking example 2 to the extreme, doesn’t bother using the 2nd account to play cash games. He just dumps money heads up, then cashes it off the 2nd account, $200 a day, every day, for a whole year, while reporting very small losses in mtts to his backer.
(Keep in mind that all of these players were winning, semi well known players for a long time)
4. Player in makeup seeks backing from another person and multi-accounts.
5.Player wins money in live event, but not enough to warrant a payout, then simply steals it rather than give to the backer. Crude and simple but still efficient.
5. This is perhaps the coup de gras:
Player backed at live events, after losing a few legitimately, simply pockets a whole bunch of buyins, and actually reports chip counts at the breaks for a few hours before inventing a bustout hand. A few get reported to cardplayer lol. When called upon for receipts, he claims they were lost, and when asked to get copies from the cage, finally has to come clean.
I could go on and on, and I am sure there are far more creative things going on, but this is what happens to normally honest people (are they?..maybe I am naïve) when they become losing players. Remember that these changes do not take place overnight, and people should be very honest with themselves about their games before risking becoming one of these lost souls.
Sorry to bring all of this negativity, but it is part of the state of poker nowadays, and I feel it is important to share it with the community."
