Bump (thread)


https://twitter.com/catehall/status/1041809346013872128

After reading through the entire twitter thread, I wanted to chime in as a horse that has been in over 70k of makeup before. Playing on a stake is a serious financial decision. Each time you sit down to play, you're leveraging someone else's cash. You have a strong obligation to that person to play your best and put in the hours necessary to get out of makeup. When you are -20k, -40k, -60k, it weighs on you more and more and each decision to play another session needs to be made consciously.

With my backer, and my understanding of backing in general, the only way to leave makeup without owing it is for your backer to absolve you of your responsibility and terminate the stake themselves. As long as you are stuck $ you only owe your time to win it back. In order to ETHICALLY leave your stake while in makeup, you need to be released. I understand others like Doug Polk have said there are backing scenarios where if you leave poker you don't owe on makeup. Chad has said that he tells all his horses about this arrangement-- only being able to be released of your responsibility to pay off/earn makeup if he terminates the relationship. In my opinion, you can just ask his other horses if this is the case and if they all say yes then you can make a strong assumption that he told this to Cate as well, as this appears to be where the miscommunication occurred.

Of course there is a clear thorn in this stipulation as the horse can play poorly/punt etc until they are released but doing so is not ethical.

After reading everything it's super clear to me that Cate owes 100% of the makeup if she is quitting. Otherwise she is simply welching on the financial responsibility that she took on when she first initiated the stake in an attempt to minimize the emotional damage from downswings while still benefiting from the EV generated from playing in large live games. To play less than 50 sessions, most of them at 5/10 or so (from my understanding) and then lose in huge live games and quit without paying back losses is in my eyes as close to stealing as possible without having taken the $$ out of chad's pockets. Given her decision to welch on her makeup in this eventuality, she effectively freerolled Chad super hard here in the larger context of their deal.

For me personally, I lost a ton of money in large live games and then grinded it all back and more online in games 1/10th of the size that I lost the $$ in. That second part-- putting the hours in to win the money back in games that you are able to beat is what you owe as the horse in this scenario.

I was really disappointed reading the arbitration paragraphs as I feel neither arbitrator grasped the failure of Cate to fulfill her duty as a horse in a situation with a substantial amount of money on the line but also a feasible way of earning it back--a year of midstakes live NL cash, that like Chad says is easily beatable. When you decide to play in a 50/100/200 game while already deep in makeup you are making a colossal decision (and a large risk of your future time) that it sounds like she either didn't grasp or intended to not make good on if it went poorly. I have very little sympathy for her as it currently has been laid out.

With all this said, my conclusions are based on the limited information that we have been exposed to from the twitter thread and I am willing to change my opinion. But as it stands, from my point of view Cate is welching on a significant financial responsibility here and there doesn't appear to be any ethical alternative aside from buying out.

When Chad agrees to follow the decision of two arbitrators and then ignores their rulings, he’s out of line.

The underlying dispute is mostly a he-said she-said and I thought the arbitrators’ rulings were shallow and somewhat careless.

One of Chad's former horses here. I was staked by Chad from November 2013 to May 2014, and then again from December 2015 to May 2016.

At the end of my first stint I was dropped by Chad with a small amount of makeup, which I knew I was not responsible for. At the end of my second stint I decided to leave the staking arrangement to get a job on the other side of the country. I was about $4k in makeup and knew it was my responsibility to pay back, which I did. I should also point out that both times I left the stake I thought I was "quitting" poker.

I've gotten to know at least a dozen of Chad's current or former horses over the years, and I am willing to bet a large sum of money that all of them were/are aware of Chad's policy when it comes to getting dropped or voluntarily ending the staking arrangement in makeup. (No, I've never met Cate)

I don't understand why leaving the poker world absolves someone of their debts. If horses could "lose" thousands of dollars then just quit poker with no repercussions, there would be no more backers. They would get scammed out of existence.

Cate is now mentally disabled and can't play poker anymore?

The only possibly explanation why cate has been losing is because there is an implicit bias against women in the poker world.

The reason she's leaving poker is because she's too smart to waste her time on a career playing a card game, when clearly she's destined to do greater things.

If your avg joe tried to walk away from their debt, we all know that it would be scummy. However, since cate has clearly been victimized by the system, she should have no obligation to repay her debt and actually she should even be thanked and praised for shedding light on such an important injustice in order to protect the community.

As an authority on all things nice, internet and otherwise, Chad freerolling Cate Hall was not very nice!

I don't understand why Cate would get staked in the first place. Especially under such terrible terms. Where did all her money go?

That said, it is very clear to me that Cate doesn't owe anything here.

Also, this doesn't really seem like the right thread for this, over even the right forum.

If I'm seeking staking, it is because I (a) do not have any money or (b) have some money but cannot afford to lose it or (c) I'm so good at poker that people beg me to take their staking money even though I do not want or need it.

For (a), I would think a staker would give me money to build up a small BR of my own while they get the upside of sharing in a small amount of profit for themselves. The horse has little to no leverage so the advantage is to the staker.

For (b) I would think a staker would see a huge upside and a huge potential downside but conclude that I'm worth the risk. The staker believes he can invest $10k in return for $50k+ in profits vs. $10k in losses. Something like that. Leverage should be fairly even.

For (c), I would think a staker would need to take on semi-onerous terms. The staker may have to take a 30/70 or 40/60 deal since the player does not want nor need the money. The advantage goes to the horse.

For (a), the horse gets a bad deal because they are the one who needs the money more. The desperate usually accept disadvantageous terms. I can picture two sides agreeing to makeup.

For (b) and (c), I cannot fathom why a horse would promise makeup in cash staking. And, I cannot equally fathom why a staker would expect to be paid back losses.

Just guessing but perhaps in this case, Chad thought of the relationship as (a) while Cate thought the deal was a (b) or (c).

I've never had a staker before and never realized staking is synonymous with freerolling.

I've crushed 5/10 NL for thousands of hours and would love to freeroll when 25/50/100NL occasionally runs to turbo boost my roll. I have money to play but just don't want to risk my own bankroll in a high variance game.

Would backers seriously be interested in staking me with no make up? Are they basically willing to let me freeroll presumably because of my skills so they see it as +EV for them too?

As a homely unfamous middle aged guy it never occurred to me to ask...

Is it presumptuous for Cate to think she could get a freeroll deal based on her looks, talent, and fame?

There's no make-up as long as you quit playing poker if you lose.

First Off how does a guy enter into this many deals and not have a writing. He clearly needs to hire a lawyer. Secondly how does a guy enter into a vague deal with a lawyer. She is gonna out lawyer him every time. Lastly how does he pick an arbitrator who so easily turns on him. You need a pitbull.

That concept seems absurd to me. Very few (<5%) of people I know who was competent at the game ever quits poker for good. Remember when Vanessa Selbst said she quit poker? She got a new career and all, but was seen playing at the wsop not long after.

Is the term “quitting” used loosely here, as in they can take a year break to pursue other things and when they come back they won’t owe makeup anymore? Can they still play recreationally? Or does quitting mean they are not to be seen playing poker anywhere in the world again?

Two players staked by the same stable have no financial incentive to collude?

How is this even remotely true? Can you expand on why?

Yeah, this was the part that I had the most trouble grasping. The makeup or no makeup part is pretty straightforward. Someone gets the worse end of any deal but an agreement is an agreement.

The "quitting" part is very gray. And I do agree with you that it's hard to imagine a poker player "quitting" as in never playing again for life.

What is absurd about it? The backee is not a slave who can be forced to play poker forever. It's very reasonable that they are able to walk away from poker as long as they are quitting completely and pursue other ways to make money if poker isn't working for them for whatever reason. The fact that you think no one actually completely quits is irrelevant. If she ends up coming back to poker later she owes chad that action and if she doesn't offer it to him and plays than she is now doing something wrong and scummy.

No it's not used loosely. If she comes back she has to give chad the action if he wants it. No they can't play recreationally. If she wanted to play at all she would need to either give him the action or get him to agree to a buyout. Otherwise she's doing something scummy.

She is definitely allowed to walk away. In this specific instance based on the details being provided it does seem like she probably should have made more of a good faith effort to grind back some of the makeup before walking away, but we don't know what her mental state is. If she is in a bad mental state and will play poorly and potentially -ev she is doing right by chad by not burning his money and playing in a bad state. Backing people has risks. There is the risk they get to a point where they are no longer a winning player, that they steal, and there is also a risk that the person feels they cannot play poker any longer as their income and needs to leave and pursue other things.

From this thread I’ve developed my exit strategy from poker:

On my next downswing, when I'm ready to rage quit poker, ask for a stake to play a much bigger game in which I'll owe no makeup if i quit poker

If I run good during the stake, my bankroll is quickly replenished, I'm robusto and keep playing.


If I run bad during the stake... Oh noez I'm having a midlife crisis. I’m not gonna go back to grinding 5/10 after losing 50k in 100/200. I'm quitting poker. Sorry about the 50k. C YA

They obviously have no financial incentive to collude. If a backer stakes player A and player B, their results have nothing to do with the other persons results. Player A doesn't benefit from player B making money. They don't have any more incentive to collude than any other two random people sitting at the same table.

Sure and if you do that you'd be a scumbag. From what we can see that is not what happened here.

Sorry in advance for the tl;dr. I will put cliffs at the bottom. Also, before I get started, let me just state that I know Cate is not going to pay me anything, and I'm not saying all of this to try to get any money. I just know as someone who backs people and has been ripped off before, I always hear the warnings after the fact, and I wish I was warned before hand. So, this is my warning to anyone who might consider backing Cate Hall in the future.

My relevant staking deal terms with over 40 horses including Cate Hall are as follows:
-You may only play stakes/games that I've permitted
-You can't be on drugs/drink alcohol while you play
-If I drop you, you owe nothing, but if for any reason you leave the stake, you owe your makeup.

I explained these alone with all the other rules/profits splits etc with Cate over the phone. I gave her permission to play $5/$10 (as she requested) but also made it clear that lower stakes games were also on stake. I know not everyone will agree with someone quitting poker and owing their makeup, but I also give horses 2/3 of their profit, and give them the opportunity to play in very good high stakes games, some I coach and invest a lot of time in etc. I'm allowed to make my terms and it's up to the other party as to whether or not they want to have a business partnership under my terms. More importantly, whether you agree these terms are standard or not, Cate - as well as all of my other horses - agreed to them.

Cate has a tweet hinting that I insisted all things be done on the phone (presumably so that there is no text trail and I can scum people at will) but this obviously isn't true. I'm obviously not staking someone hoping that when they lose $60k of my money so I can scum them later for some kind of buyout. I've had people be in deeper makeup than Cate with no problem. I've also had people quit poker and I forgave their makeup because we had a good staking/personal relationship.

History:
I had seen Cate Hall around at Maryland Live Poker room a while back. At some point she approached me for coaching. I quoted her a price - which is high and I tell everyone who asks that they're better off getting a subscription to a training site than paying me. She does not pay for the coaching, but we remain friendly.
She goes on her tournament heater, and starts playing bigger cash games (went from $5/$10 to $10/$25 which is the biggest game that ran). Sometimes $25/$50 would go and she would sell me action. As she gained notoriety and got invites to bigger games - if the lineup was good, I would buy all the action she wanted to sell. For instance, when she played the all ladies Poker Night In America, I had 66% of her action (maybe 60%). When she played Mike Dentale heads up, I had 80% of her action. This continued when she played in games like Live At The Bike too with me taking huge pieces of her. This information is only relevant because she makes the following claim:
"A deal like the one Chad describes — where the player is on the hook for 100% of losses, regardless of whether they keep playing on roll, keep playing off roll, or stop playing — isn’t a staking deal, it’s a loan. And it’s a usurious loan — one where the player is paying 50% of profits in perpetuity as interest.
A deal like this is also equivalent to selling action at an enormous markdown.
In a recent exchange, Chad said that if I’d wanted a deal like I described, I should have just kept selling action to him (which I frequently did for big games in the past). But that’s the point: If I sold 50% of my action to Chad, I bore 50% of losses and got 50% of gains. Why would I ever move from that to a relationship where I bore 100% of losses and got 50% of gains?
A deal like this would make no sense for me to enter: I had no liquidity issues, as Chad and I explicitly discussed. My only consideration in entering into this deal was to have downside protection — which we also explicitly discussed. The deal that Chad says we had would offer me no downside protection, and would charge me 50% of profits for nothing but access to cash that I could have equally borrowed from myself for 0%. I would not have agreed to play 1/3 under those terms, much less 50/100/200."

Why would I go from putting up 80% of the money and getting 80% of the profit, to 100% of the money with 100% of the loss? Backers have to protect themselves, and staking is not a freeroll. This post sums up how staking is in my situation (I do not know or stake this person).
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=469

So, even if Cate assumed she didn't owe any makeup if she quit, then it was still scummy to take a huge shot and then quit poker.


Cate as a horse and integrity of our stake:
On April 6th I gave Cate $10,000 to start our staking deal. She played 9 sessions that month, and a session on the 1st of May. The next 4 months time she does not play. August 22nd she starts putting in volume again. I am rarely at the casino (once or twice a month usually), and there is a trust as a backer that horses are following the rules we outlined. I hear from a few people she's playing tough $10/$25 lineups that she isn't supposed to while she "waits for $5/$10" and I hear that she's "on another planet" and "couldn't beat $1/$3 right now" from multiple regs who don't even know I stake her when I do return to the casino. All this is around the time she is huffing nitrous to the point where she was struggling to walk. I don't know for certain if she was ever high while playing, but certainly I wouldn't want her playing while doing drugs as I've already had a bad experience with a horse doing that.
She plays a normal grinder schedule with losing results for three weeks from August 22nd-September 15th and then doesn't play the rest of the year. She told me she had health issues etc, and I did not bother her about putting in volume while she was in her nitrous huffing phase, but I did feel slighted because she was stuck around $23k at the time and had hardly put in any volume.
January 6th she came back and played 3 sessions losing $12,500 and saying she came back too soon. Not sure if that meant she was still doing heavy drugs or what, but I heard she was punting. I was not upset and tried to be understanding. Late in January I had another horse pass away from an overdose. She shared with me that she had offered to split the drugs he had OD'd on - which again I have a rule that you aren't allowed to be on drugs while playing so this shows her lack of interest and integrity towards the stake and her makeup figure. After his death, she begins to play short sessions for the rest of February. 14 sessions total and wins $2,800.

In March I organized a handful of games while Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow and Brandon Cantu were in town. Cate played in two of the games (they were $25/$50 with a $200 ante or $25/$50/$100 with a $300 ante, can't remember which ones she played) and she lost $27,000.

I send her the following message in our poker results group chat, and she makes no attempt to continue stake or even communicate for months (and this is before any bad blood). She never responded in it or addressed that I even requested her to put in volume. Months later she just claimed she was going to quit poker.



So, whether or not you like my rule of *you owe makeup anytime you quit stake* or not, this is the exact reason I do it. So someone can't agree to play a huge game, lose a bunch of money and then simply quit to avoid the time it takes to grind it back. Even if she did think this she was freerolling makeup, a backer deserves to know whether or not someone is quitting stake/contemplating quitting stake before they put them in a game 10x higher than they normally play, and it's pretty scummy to shot take something like that and bail even if the agreement was as she says - which it was not and never has been with any horse I've staked.

Arbitration:
Once I tell her she owes her makeup if she leaves stake we agree to a binding arbitration. I know I'm owed all the money, but I did think it was my own fault for not having proof of our specific terms (really my fault for a poor judge in character and ignoring warnings to not stake her) so I agree to only take half. Arbitrators say she should buy out or stay on stake. I don't know why she says I haven't agreed to this because I have never said that. I continue to agree to it.

In the emails she shared I try to make a point in my last email that if her intention is to say "I'll play on stake and grind out of makeup instead of buying out" but then scum me by never actually grinding on stake and I'm left waiting around for ten years with no action, that I would also be able to bend the agreement and out her because that is also not technically against our staking agreement. I was trying to say "lets both play fair" and not being sure it was interpreted that way, I sent her the following text after reading her email response.



She goes off to attack my character etc after that.

(she posted all the emails on her twitter if you want to read them, trying not to make this post even longer.)


Cliffs:
-Cate Hall claims she does not remember out staking terms and she owes no makeup.
-She got $60k in makeup and then stopped grinding or responding to me. She showed no interest in grinding out of her makeup figure.
-She has "quit poker" but not returned what's let of her bankroll.
-She has made false claims about how I have threatened her with lawsuits.
-She makes a false claim about how I agreed to arbitration and then refused to accept their agreement.

I haven't read everything on Twitter yet, but happy to answer any questions in here that I haven't already addressed.

Tl;dr- nitrous huffing ITT

meh, sounds like she is just cutting your losses for you anyway

I’m a newb. Is nitrous huffing really a thing or is chad just speculating and suspects she is doing some sort of drugs ?


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I played 5/10 and 10/25 with her in Feb at MGM NH, she wasn't playing that bad.

Allan was talking **** about her, but Allan talks **** about everyone at the table except for Jeremy S, while getting crushed by everyone at the table because he is a ****in tilt maniac that sucks at poker.

I know nothing about drugs, but this is what she told me. I thought she posted it on her Twitter too. I saw some post about how she would bring it on an island or something, I wasn't trying to post a revelation about her.