Day 2 of the $3k shootout . Go Phil !!!

Buying/Selling shares has always been a sellers market. The seller always gets the perceived better end of the deal, a person would never sell themselves for less than what they think the value is. It's capitalism 101. The seller sets his/her price and the buyer decides whether it's a good deal or not. Both parties willingly agree to the terms, nobody is holding a gun to their heads. If he can fill up at 1.8 why should he ask for less?

I've called PH a pos multiple times in this thread. Is anyone saying different? The only newsworthy/ funny thing about all this is the fact that the new generation of hustlers are calling out an old school hustler for being better at it than they are.

To a professional gambler, really anything gambling related is just another potential edge/mark. From that perspective PH is just doing his "job" and a damn good one at that. I mean who the hell would pay 1.8?

Also, you guys are coming off as really obtuse/ don't understand a person like PH. He's the guy who loves to brag about how much better he is than everyone else. I would bet money he needled those nerds in the first place just so he could bring his own markup to light. The man just can't help himself from insulting people he deems "inferior".

What are you talking about. If a player has a 50% ROI and sells at 25%, both him and investor wins.

So the player is losing EV it's not hard to understand, and definitely a zero sum game.

So if a player's bankroll only allows him to play $1000 donkaments at 50% ROI, he loses EV when entering a $10k donkament selling 90% at 1.25 having a 50% ROI?

Yes, obviously he wins less than he would on his own dime, but he can still make more profit in one tournament by selling. It's not hard to understand.

Phil is mindbendingly stupid/self-deluded and incapable of critical thought when it comes to himself. Either that or he's just knowingly scamming his investors here. I'm going to go with the former.

Why does he need the 1.8 mu anyway? Doesn't he have tons of money and shouldn't he just sell off to reduce variance at a more reasonable price?

Yes, the player loses EV if their ROI is 50% and they sell at 1.25

Selling action is literally a zero sum game. The markup can be agreeable or "fair" to both parties, but the net $EV doesn't change. However, there are other considerations besides $EV, like bankroll and reducing variance due to the stochastic nature of roi in poker.

If selling the action is +EV for both parties why don't they turn around and sell it back immediately to create EV out of nothing? Why stop there? Just repeat the cycle indefinitely and collect infinity dollars?

The EV comes from the other players in the tournament. If player is able to play 10k donkaments instead of 1k, he increases his EV by simply playing higher. If he could play that on his own dime that would of course be better but compared to just playing the 1k his EV is up and so is the investor's.

reread what you wrote

talking about ev in this situation is ******ed

this is a bankroll situation

Maybe that should be the norm, but it definitely isn't. Take the 2 largest sellers at @ Stakekings i.e. who charge an unjustified markup based on years old results and live of that markup while barely being a break-even player.




Maybe at some places profitable deals for both parties can be found, but it's rarely on the common sites as 2+2 or Stakekings, which is also proven by Pokershares that often charges a smaller markup than the players selling themselves.

Is it really the norm? Maybe the high stakes swappers and piece-sellers have "fair" prices, because those games are played by a small community in which personal reputation is important, but most people selling action (at lower stakes) aren't offering good value, are they?
(I haven't looked at the 2+2 marketplace for ages, but whenever I did in the past it was full of sellers charging outrageous mark-up).

Phil is a little delusional. I wouldnt be impressed if he thought that for some reason, coming late gave him ''good luck'' or some kind of tempo because he won big in a tourney where he came late in the past

I really believe he think he did nothing wrong

I got the impression that sauce was using the word "norm" in the, well, normative sense. i.e. selling pieces that are profitable for both the player and the buyer is what should happen in the poker community.

I don't think he meant "norm" in the descriptive sense, i.e. that pieces sold are generally profitable for both the player and the buyer. There certainly seems to be strong evidence that many players' markup is too high, but much less evidence that this is due to ill intent instead of the players' overestimation of their ability or other factors.

Characterizing this as a scam is ignorant and an injustice to those who are victims of actual scams. Scams involve deception. There is absolutely nothing deceptive going on here. Phil's tournament history is a public record. Anyone interested in looking up his prior results can find them with just a few minutes of googling. If someone chooses to make a foolish purchase, that doesn't make it a scam. If you sell oranges on the corner for $10 each, and people buy them, you aren't scamming them - they are either very stupid or the orange is worth $10 to them for whatever reason. There is a word for a system that seperates foolish people from their money - capitalism. Its perfectly fine to call Phil a douchebag for charging that much of a markup, just like its fine to call the guy who offers oranges for $10 a douchebag, but its wrong to call either one a scammer.

This is just not true. I'm not saying this is a scam, but when Phil gives an example of past sells and the sample is a whole 2 tournaments, quotes his 300% ROI in the history of the wsop that includes tournaments from different eras and with much better structures as reasons why he is worth 1.8, then yes, that is deception. Whether it's intentional or not and whether investors should see through that BS is another thing, but it's definitely some % of the way towards a scam.

Phil could easily be worth 1.8 in the wsop main or a 1k, and I don't think anyone would mind him charging that, but in a 10k turbo bounty thing or a 300k with world class players it's bonkers.

It's not deception when what he says is accurate, especially when the results are all public record. Your argument boils down to, "people are too lazy and/or stupid to look up his results, which are public record, so its a scam". Its not incumbent on Phil (or anyone else) to go the extra mile to break down his results by buy-in (or any other way) in order to better inform those too lazy and/or stupid to look it up for themselves. If the breakdown of his ROI isn't granular enough for someone looking to buy a piece, they are perfectly capable of looking up his tournament history and breaking it down any way they want. This is in no way a scam.

Hi Soepgroente:

This is an interesting question better suited for a psychologist than me. But I suspect that some people, especially those with extreme narcissistic personalities, have a need to always win, and getting a markup far higher than normal, in Phil’s mind, may be a form of winning.

Best wishes,
Mason

Bang, bang!

Not necessarily. If selling action allows a player to play at higher stakes than normal he can actually gain EV if the game/tournament appears exceptionally good. In my psychology book I talk about something similar where a player plays higher stakes than normal but plays extremely tight to reduce fluctuations, but if the game is good enough he can increase his EV.

Best wishes,
Mason

This and end of thread.

Hi Arty:

Just to add to this, there is something called “regression to the mean.” In this case it often means that recent players good results will deeptively indicate that the player in question is better than he really is.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Frenbar:

I don’t quite buy this. What you really need to know for no deception to be involved is thief ROI. Usually you’re only told how much they cashed for and not their profit/lost results.

Best wishes,
Mason

So, you are saying he's a sociopath.

What % of himself did he sell?
I agree if he mislead people by what he said then it was wrong, however if he sold out @ 1.8 then maybe he should of sold at 2.8

Most people who invested in ph must of known who they were investing in and most likely just wanted a sweat in the biggest tourney of the year no matter the cost

If the mrkup was not fair then don’t pay it...