Quote:
Originally Posted by auralex14
This is the dumbest way to calculate markup that I’ve ever heard before. It makes absolutely no sense.
People can make -EV investments in players they like just for the sweat, but that’s not at all what you’re talking about above. You always seemed like a reasonable—albeit long-winded—poster and I’m kind of surprised you’d even posit Option #2 as a way to calculate markup.
It's not so much the way I'm calculating markup, but rather something I might consider when deciding whether or not I would be willing to pay for someone else's markup. Would I be willing to pay $6 for a $5 raffle ticket if I somehow knew this particular ticket was twice as likely to win?
Here's an extreme example, one based not on buying a piece but on buying 100 percent of someone's action. I don't know how good a poker player you are, so let's assume for a moment that you are a studied, experienced MTT veteran who happens to live in Las Vegas. And let's further suppose that I'm thinking about playing in a $1000 tourney at Aria next weekend, but that I'm a total beginner who has never played in anything more than a kitchen table game with friends, to say nothing of the fact that my kitchen table is 600 miles away from Vegas.
Instead, I think, wait... I'll just call my friend auralex. He actually knows how to play this Texas All-In Hold Them game I see on TV.
"Auralex," I say, "You're not doing anything this weekend. There's a $1K at Aria. I'll give you $1,500. You play in the tourney, and whatever prize you win, I get. But you pocket the extra $500, win or lose."
"So I'm getting a flat $500 fee to put your money into play?" you ask.
"That's one way to look at it," I say. "I know my $1,000 is better off in your hands, so much so that I'm willing to give you $500 for the effort, plus you're saving me what I would spend on airfare, hotel room and bottle service at Sapphire."
"I should remind you that even if I min-cash, you'll come out a loser because of the extra $500 fee you're giving me," you say.
"Yes, I get that. But our skill difference offsets that chance. You're an experienced MTT grinder, while my poker expertise consists of watching WPT shows trying to figure out who was the elephant and who was the jackal."
"And how do you know I'm not gonna pocket the entire $1,500, tell you that I busted out, then save myself a day's worth of sitting next to eight social deviants with body odor?" you further inquire. "You actually trust me with that? I'm surprised at this, given that you not only read NVG but you're usually a reasonable albeit long-winded poster."
"Well, let me ask you something," I say. "Are you a scammer?"
"No."
"Are you a theif, where the word 'thief' is purposely misspelled?"
"No."
"Is your real name Chino?"
"No."
"Then I feel perfectly safe. Go run good, and I'll call you next week."
Agreed, it's not how markup actually works. After all, even with all of this, one could just find another player charging less or no markup, and the comparative advantage would still exist.
I'm just saying it might be a factor that plays into the purchasing decision – particularly from a buyer who wants to sweat of WSOP action but who has none of the skills to go with it. And let's be honest, that's probably almost 100 percent of the people who buy pieces of Matusow or Hellmuth or anyone else marking up their stakes. Sure, Matusow still might be a dog in some of these fields, but he's not dead money like the buyers would be, he's doing the "work," and those extra considerations are worth the extra shekels.