That article is cringeworthy.

It's bad fiction.
It's weird how anyone publishes this stuff with so many logic problems but journalism is pretty much dead now across the board.
Maybe this guy scores some naive women from it or something.

More fake news from WaPost smh

It says he got banned from Maryland for counting cards??

And one of his roommates for 24th I think it was.

Chad Power... any relation to Max?

Having grown up pre-internet and pre-cable (for a bit), I used to assume kids that grow up with all this extra information would be savvier than the kids of my generation. Seems to be the opposite.

Looks like he's just banned from BJ.

so he sits in a game with $500 where the whale has $25,000 stack? Is this the white version of Iceman?

that's usually the case with card counting on your first ban.
it also doesn't necessarily mean he can count cards well(not that it would even be an accomplishment.)

I quite curious about this if anything in the article is said is true.


So this guy apparently makes 400-800k a year. How much of that profit comes from his horses? What i don't get is im going to assume those few horses of his that live in the same condo/apartment profit. So each of them give 1/2 their winnings to him. Can someone explain this? If they profit, why do they have to give half? Is that guy supplying them each with a bankroll to play? Coaching?


That literally makes no sense at all since they are living in the same house. Its not like okay... he backs the guy etc. So he essentially is taking zero risk here?

The point is, he makes zero sense.

You can't make much money off live horses. Anyone good enough to be a trustworthy horse is making a huge mistake giving you half their wins so they don't have to hold a small bankroll.

It's really hard for him to make $400K+ playing live NL where he plays.

So it really appears he is either exaggerating greatly or just making it up entirely. Probably in order to convince potential horses to live/play for him.

The state or MD Live?

I met one of his early horses and a couple previous horses frequented other forums on 2+2.

He tends to pick up under rolled 1/2 or 1/3 players that he thinks have potential. He does give them coaching specific to beating live 2/5 games. I've heard he's actually good at it.

Yes he stakes them and they settle op stakes every 2 weeks or something.

The horses that share the crash pad obv pay a fairly low rent so they can get by on winning 7bb/hr and splitting it.

So the horse gets coaching, gets to move up stakes, gets to hang with a group of likeminded players without having to put together a roll. For certain young guys grinding 1/2 or 1/3 that want to go pro but don't have the means to get a 2/5 roll together and are unsure of their skill it's an attractive situation.

Obv most Will still struggle to put a sufficient roll together to go independent kicking half their profit back. They will realize there traded the rake trap of the lowest stakes for the stake trap. The one horse I know of who left did so with about 20k after maybe 2 years.

I believe his best horses that actually move up to 5/T+ are offered a 2/3 split as incentive to stay on board longer.

I suspect his earnings claims are a bit exaggerated.

If he had 6 horses earning 7bb/hr for 1800 hrs X 50% that's 189k.

If he personally averaged 125/hr over 1200 hrs of 5T+ that's 150k

If you add in his main event score of like 250k that's 589k which is close to 600k and what the hell +/- 200k sounds reasonable.

As for the article, it sure would seem like bad business. My guess it's self promotion to advertise for new horses. I also recall after the 2015 main event coverage there was brief mention of some sort of reality show. So maybe he still is pursuing something like that. But that's just speculation on my part. Maybe just ego too.

Tldr; yeah mostly legit but likely exaggerated.

This all sounds reasonable, I only disagree on one point. What about the losers? You can't assume all 6 horses become strong winning players, it's simply not that easy.

I have a friend who is a long time winning live pro, and he told me he's gone 0-10 in trying to stake players and fix their leaks. They listen until you give them money, then go back to doing whatever they want. My personal observation is that horses behave lots differently when their backer isn't around, their game selection is worse, they sometimes play higher stakes games than they should, and essentially gamble more. Me and another friend used to joke about how tight one horse would play when their backer was in the game, and how loose they'd play when the backer wasn't.

Discipline is the key to winning poker, and the best coaching in the world still has to fight against the natural tendency of the horse to lose discipline when someone else is funding their play.

Yeah I 100% believe your friend. And the guy I met who was Power's first horse actually didn't end well.

But I think Power may have stumbled onto something with the staking house. I think he also had horses that didn't live there but those staking house guys are the nucleus of his stable. I think they help each other and watch each other. So there is a built in tribal accountability mechanism you don't have with individual horses.

Yes

What a douchebag.

+1

Surprised none of them have come in here yet

I'm not. The guy had written altercation on the marketplace (link on page 1?). I'm fairly sure he doesn't recommend 2+2 to his protégé, much to their demise.

LoL, that it didn't. I guess I've met 5 of his horses in total. All seem like good guys with pretty good poker aptitude/potential. One of them called my shove with A2 preflop. That's certainly forgivable but never forgettable.

I recall Brian Hastings had 25% of Chad for the Main. Chad was selling at 1.5. Brian finished in the top 50 that year as well so nice score for him.

I'd estimate that Chad Power is one of the top 10 live cash game players in the state of Maryland. I've never played with him or met him or even been in the state of Maryland much less played at a casino there. I seriously doubt he is top 5 but how could he not be in the top 10...he's gotta be...probably like 8th.

He had a thread on here that started back in 2011 I believe. He was staking people all the way back then and some of his horses would post in it. He was transparent about how much his staking was making and yes losing as well. As far as his play, he posted tons of hand histories and was playing in good size games back then. I can remember him having 34k runs from playing over 10 days. Or another time making 50k in one night in a 10/25/50 plo game. He also was olaying 10/25 and 25/50 anytime it runs. Played as high as 50/100 and 100/200 but only a few times because it rarely runs. I know he's had horses play at least as high as 10/25 also. He also talks about a time he played 100/200 4 handed with Hastings, Hellmuth, and someone else, and afterwards went back to Hellmuth hotel room and was playing Pineapple Open Face Chinese all night.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=526

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=532

Theres some posts from his thread playing 25/50 back in 2013.

A+

I have never played poker professionally, but it isnt that hard for me to believe that a pretty good player with an entrepreneurial bent could make between 400 and 800k over a few years, especially when he has run hot in tournaments and has played and has staked people to play in a new room with a lot of action over those years.

What makes his story even more believable to me is that, like much of the blue-collar 1%, he's the target of con artists selling undivided working interests. If you read this, Chad, put it into an index fund!

Here's a podcast from 2014 where he is interviewed by Limon about his staking house.

http://www.crushlivepoker.com/podcasts/a-staking-house