So its ok for Greg to dismiss peoples opinions as not being qualified but when one in a way shows he is qualified and offers to prove it hes the dickhead. Cmon I know you love trollin but GTFO

look leave your personal vendetta against me out of this, if he's gonna spew nonsense then mention HU against me since I'm a Nvger who doesn't know how to read I'll entertain. I'm not an egomaniac, if he didn't respond to the Hu thing (which he probably wouldn't) I wouldn't have brought it up again, I don't care. if he offered me mtt cross book I would have done the same thing, im sure has more experience there. I do enjoy your posts tho so don't stop

I wouldn't have brought up my own abilities (as I said) since it's irrelevant to the discussion of his package, but as password said he was non stop saying I'm not qualified to comment, I don't get the math, I'm a hater etc. I also brought up the example of other pros like jmo offering to short his offer as pseudo evidence the deal is poor, if I had more money myself I would considering doing the same, ppl can't really "prove" this offer is bad but putting their money where their mouth is a start


you can't just call anyone who doesn't think your package is a good offer a hater, this is an easy way out, see post 122 as to why these comments are perfectly reasonable (if they are about the actual package and not personal insults etc)

IIRC I've watched entire tournaments he played on pokerstars and thought he was very solid.

I'm not saying its the case here, but if/when someone offers a deal where they know/believe its a bad deal for investors I think there is something wrong with doing so.

It should sort of go unsaid that if you offer an "investment" to someone that you believe its profitable.

I don't understand why you have to sell for your entire year in 1 shot, in some convoluted mess of a package that is super complicated for anyone to understand what the actual markup is or what mtts are even being played... Why not just sell for individual stops like everyone else does... it will make everything a lot easier and more transparent for everyone. Unless the entire point is to rip less informed people off.

Saying that investing in former ME champion is bad investment is just disrespectful to the title, the game and at best just silly.

What? did you understand what I even wrote, he registered for a wsopc main event walked by his table and told the dealer put his chips back in the rack so he can unregister and re register to get a different table. Imagine if every pro was able to do this, it would compromise the entire tournament...

this is just another example of this silly attitude that being a nice guy means that posting ("possibly") bad deals is ok, and that people aren't allowed to comment about the ev. there are tonnes of potential investors who don't know better who will see the offer, and assume/expect it to be good since someone with a generally good reputation is making it, it's unfair to these people to be mislead. people who think the package isn't a good offer aren't guaranteed to be right, so ppl who think it is incl Greg obviously have the freedom to respond hence a discussion.

this is not about whether Greg is a nice guy, or good poker ambassador.
if someone like ike posts for the pca 100k at 2.0 mu then I would expect (and "welcome") similar criticism despite him being a stand up guy with good reputation and being a good ambassador. having a good reputation is MORE reason to be willing to discuss criticism and accept the possibility of over pricing.

if he sells this package as a "product" to his fans for profit, that's fine but he clearly seems to claim and/or think the package is +ev (correct me if I'm wrong Greg, and I'm right please share with us your estimate of what kind of ev/roi investors should expect and how you came to those numbers?) despite offering signed autographs and discounts on coaching to investors for buying shares..

Okay Since I have not gotten answer from Greg, about ROI, games played, abi played, expected games to be played. I did some research and based on what I find this does look like a bad deal for investors.

So based on some numbers run,

If you are a 20% ROI player, chances of loss is more than 65% for 100 games(assuming you will be playing games for 1000 dollar buyin)

The chance of loosing over 500 games goes down to 53% (still big) if You are 20% ROI player.

Even if you 60% ROI player chance of loosing over 100 games is as high as 56%

And even if you are 100% ROI player chance of loosing over 100 games is as high as 47%.

Over 500 games the chance of loss goes down to 18% and over 5000 games it goes down to 0%

Unless you get really lucky over a small sample of 100 games you will be loosing more than half the time, that is if You play same buyin games over the year, and those odds are really not in favor of investing in bankroll players.

Technically true, you didn't say "bad", you said "you were between ok to good before compared to the fields before, and now you are likely weak to ok."

Obviously that is going to be heard by anybody as a negative comment. But more importantly, on what are you basing this opinion? Sure, the 2004 Main Event was one tournament only, luck alone can explain that. But what about the other 2.5M in winnings? The 25th place finish in the 2005 Main Event? The 4 HPT main event titles in half a year? Etc. If you're going to review my published results, your comments seem a bit off. If you're basing it upon personal experience playing against me, then there's a chance you are correct.

But, I do wish to acknowledge the positive comments you have made in this thread, and the fact that unlike the douchebags, you have stayed on point, and only talked about me and poker, and not gotten into anything personal. For that I am thankful. Just like you said you think I believe this to be a good deal for the investor, but you think I'm wrong. I believe you have good intentions in what you've said here, but you're wrong.

When you get a chance, please explain the math of why my deal is bad, in your opinion. And so it can remain impersonal, imagine a player for whom you would pay a markup of 1.2 for a single event. If that player were offering my package, why would it be a bad deal? Why, mathematically, would you rather buy each event at 1.2 rather than buy in the manner I am offering?

Thanks for your honest input!

Exactly. All I asked was that he disclose his performance in recent years. Or rather the ROI his backers earned.

I noticed that he admitted that he lost his entire backers bankroll for 2015, which means those investors earned -100% ROI. Kudos for honesty.

Now the question is: how did his backers fare for 2005 - 2014?

These are valid questions. And frankly anyone who invests in his action without this info is a sucker IMO.

It's way before my time but I thought I heard that before he won the ME, Raymer was already in negotiations with the owners of this site about writing a book, because of his insightful strat posts in a predecessor of this forum - so he wasn't just a random amateur who got hit with the deck two years running, regardless of how he was presented on TV.

About deals more generally - why do you think they call it "backing horses"? Like most horses running at your local track are -EV for people who back them and for their deluded owners, but a few people with careful research can make a living as professional gamblers. Situation is the same with poker both for -EV backers and deluded players. If most deals were plus EV and you could make a passive income from investing literally at random in the 2p2 marketplace, then the amount of money chasing horses would increase till there was too much money chasing too few good horses, causing increase in mark-ups and increase in bad horses, till it was no longer the case that you could make a passive income and would need to exercise great skill and judgement - so that's where equilibrium lies, where we are now, not in easy profits.

About this deal specifically, it's true that for certain levels of return this deal is way better (e.g. he does 200K of BI on his original BR of 100K, makes a net profit of 8.333K, then everyone breaks even - the 5K investor's profits cover their 5% stakehouse fee - which would be the equivalent result of selling pieces at 1.042, because any higher markup and you lose). I'm not an expert but professional staking farms usually go for this type of deal with make-up rather than mark-up.

People are asking for maths, what's a realistic total amount of BI people are expecting him to play? Give me a number and I'll rustle up some tables for you comparing it to mark-up for various outcomes.

The only thing I would add is that he has a strong reputation for integrity, and as part of that he's saying up front that at the end of the calendar year he runs out on any makeup he might be in, so it's not directly comparable to the classic stake-farm deal where the horse has to grind out for ever. Because it's up front it's not an integrity issue but it's something to put in when you are modelling the EV of the offer.

This is a good intelligent thread written by a pro staker:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/61...aking-1531374/

OMGClayDoll, i have a great urge to smack you in the face and i am a very peaceful guy.

If you really want to be a hero there's an endless list of packages that're way worse buys listed in staking subforums.

um, I did respond to you, in the marketplace thread, twice, 2 hours ago.

What is the math if instead of my package, you bought a piece in each of the 100 events at a 1.2 markup?

Investing in MTT play is inherently one where you sustain a lot of losses. If you buy a piece of a player in 1 event, and it pays 10% of the field, you are going to lose something like 80-90% of the time, or more, depending upon the player. And of the times you win, many of those will be min-cashes or not much more than min-cashes, for very little profit. What makes a player a good investment is the long-term profitability of investing in them. When they bink a huge score, and you get a piece, and this piece is big enough, and comes along often enough, to make up for all of those prior losses and small wins.

So, pointing out how often my package will lose is of marginal utility. The question is how would you make out, on average, if you could invest in this package every year for a million years? I'm confident you would make out quite well investing in me. But I can't prove it.

The 'weak to ok' comments weren't necessary and I admit they are based on nothing but speculation/assumptions. Also ofc just like you were defensive against my comments (understandable) I was when I called some of what you said nonsense etc. This was also not the best way to respond since it's clear overall you are making a reasonable effort to respond to legitimate questions/concerns whilst having to deal with a large amount of trolling/'hate' from ppl who have no basis for what they are saying, understandably frustrating experience since I do believe you think in general you are making a good offer (I do also think you probably haven't done much math to estimate how good the offer is though).

Nevertheless don't you think it's reasonable that since you are being questioned by a number of respected players (not including myself in this category, and obviously there are a lot of douches/'haters' who have no basis in what they are saying) that the onus should be on you to give your assumptions/numbers as to why it is profitable? From there people could say why they think your numbers are wrong (such as the ROI assumptions being too high etc).

The problem with long term staking deals is that it's much harder to find which point they are +ev or -ev due to the variance mattering. For example, you mentioned buying 100 individual events at 1.2. Well, this is easy, if the person has 20% roi or higher, it's +ev, if they have 19% roi or lower, it's -ev.
For a long term staking deal it really depends on things like finish distribution, as well as roi, and is much harder to calculate. If for example someone posted a single tournament at 1.5, it would be pretty easy for someone to just say "I am confident your roi is lower than 50% in this tournament, therefore I think this offer is a -ev one)

I have gotten further involved than I wanted (as usual) and have nothing personal against you so it's not like I want your package to fail or something.

But I hope you/others see my point that questioning a package is valid (I've had my fair share of packages being questioned in the past).

Questioning a package does not automatically prove or state the said package is a bad one

Just because a seller is a good guy/good poker ambassador/nice guy/etc, does not mean their package is for sure a good offer, nor does it mean they shouldn't be questioned (if anything it's the opposite, as buyers who don't know better are more likely to buy without doing math/research/asking opinions etc)

don't really have a need to respond to such troll comments but i'll bite, what did i say that you disagree with/don't like? my tone was not always entirely polite and i probably wouldn't stand 100% by every single thing i said but overall i think i was pretty reasonable and not out of line with what I said and my reasoning.
i see that some of your comments in this thread indicate you are a fan of Greg (nothing wrong this that, really) and mostly you disagree with questioning someone with a good reputation etc but i think i did a honestly decent job at explaining why that's not a good way of looking at it, and as Greg himself said i am doing it with an honest opinion and not a 'hater' attitude etc. in fact I would guess whilst this has nothing to do with saying or admitting his package is or isn't a good offer, Greg himself welcomes questions or reasonable, constructive criticism..

Not sure if this is serious considering previous post boom ME winners also include Jamie Gold & Jerry Yang. If so, you are clueless. Being a ME champion (more specifically winning ONE tournament) doesn't entitle you to anything.

The math is not this simple, long term staking is very hard to estimate since it largely depends on finish distribtion. To look at it 'simply' imagine this extreme example - a 10 tournament package which two players sell. They both play the same tournaments, and both have 100% roi, but one comprises a player who has a finish distribution where he wins the tournament x%, but almost never cashes smaller, whereas the other player with the exact same roi never does better than to min cash. in a deal like the one greg offers, the latter is a much better deal for the investor in general.

and i apologise for my general disrespect for the english language in most of my posts, i am writing a lot of them from the phone so the grammar/formatting especially (and some spelling) is very poor

Except that's not what happened. I walked up to an empty table, the first to arrive, while there were 1-2 empty seats at the 20 or so tables already in action. I then went to the TD, asked why we were opening up new tables rather than filling the ones going, didn't like the answer, and asked if it was ok for me to unregister and just come back in an hour or so when he was no longer starting new tables. He said that was fine. Then, 20 or so minutes later, I am sitting at an empty table reading some stuff on my phone, and happen to be 2-3 tables away from the table where my original registration was at. And I see the dealer about to finally start play at that table, and that he is putting out the stack for what had been my seat. So I yelled over at him to not put out that stack, that I was not in the game. And one of the players at that table assumed I was choosing to sit out because of a bad table draw, and posted as such on twitter. But the decision to unregister was made before even 1 other player had arrived, so there is no integrity issue here at all.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

See this is the thing though, you are right about this of course but if you say the ending of it it also means you haven't even made any math based on assumptions which is the minimum you should do otherwise it means you are making absolute pure guesses. You should at least have an idea what the ev for investors is under this structure will be if your roi is x in y list of tournament schedule.

little over my head on some of this math, but it could be useful to assume a typical distribution of outcomes for each cohort/tier and calculate MU if greg is top 5 percent of pros, solid grinder, FPP pro, or even steven

I still think it deserves respect, regardless.

On the 2p2 marketplace, the most common by far method of selling is a package or individual event with a specific mark up. As I said in an above post, it is 'easy' to figure out how +ev/-ev the buy is, you estimate the roi in each tournament and compare it to the MU. For example selling 50% of the Sunday Million at 1.2.

A less common way to do it is a 'freeroll' usually 'with stakeback' (which is similar to or often combined with a long term deal). This would mean something like 100% of the Sunday Million at 75/25 after stakeback (investor gets their buy-in back first from any cash, then any profit is split based on the cut). So in this case, if the player cashes for 400$, the seller gets to keep 25% of 400-215.

The second way is actually much harder to estimate (people often think it means 100/75 = mu but this is wrong when there is stakeback, they think you pay 100% of the BI for 75% of the cashes but this isn't the case) as it depends how often the horse cashes. as a result, this is often severely mispriced (sometimes intentionally, often not). This is what I think is happening here

Ola if you win a large tourney in the middle of the series say a few mill will you continue to play out the series or do you have the option to end the stake at that point?

the problem is, what you're asking for is a no-win scenario for me. If I say my ROI is small, then this package, and all staking deals, for that matter, look bad for the investor. If I say my ROI is large, then the math says my deal is a good one, but then I'm left with all the trolls and haters going on about how I'm full of myself and ridiculously overestimating my edge.

Let me ask you this instead. What ROI do you think I need to have for my package to be a +EV deal for investors?

Thanks, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

well that depends on how many mtts you play, what buy in (and of course what % on the stake), thats also why i am asking you to do it, i understand what you are saying. if you had said for example i will play 100x 1ks with 100 players its easier to do so, but your package basically means you can kind of play anything you want (which is fair enough, since investors trust your judgement and game selection) but does mean you should make some estimates of an average schedule you will play etc