I am an investor in one of this year’s WSOP November Nine final tabler’s WSOP package and we had a somewhat unusual question come up in the last couple of weeks. The player decided to obtain some high cost several months long coaching from elite high stakes players and coaches that will cost around 8% of the amount of the player’s and investors’ remaining ICM equity (which corresponds to around low 6-digit range $$$ number). I personally have 10 percent of the player’s action in WSOP.

The question that has come up in our discussion is how should the coaching costs be distributed between the player and investors? Player’s opinion was that coaching costs should be distributed directly proportionally to the percentage of the action in Main Event (i.e., 10 percent investor pays 10 percent of coaching costs, 15 percent investor pays 15 percent of coaching costs, and if the player has 50 percent of himself he pays 50 percent of coaching costs). However, some of the investors were of the opinion that the investors benefit from coaching only during the course of the Final Table play (essentially a one time high stakes sit-n-go), while the player gets to keep the benefits of several month long poker coaching with a high stakes pro for the rest of his life and therefore investors should not be held to an equal share of coaching costs. Additionally, if the player performs well in the Main Event, the player will enjoy sponsorship and other opportunities that will be solely his. So, the argument was that the player receives benefits from coaching that significantly exceed player’s monetary share in the WSOP payouts.

Here are some key facts from my perspective:
- This is an investment in this particular tournament (2015 WSOP Main). While I have invested in the player multiple times in the past, it was always strictly buying action for a particular event or series – not a long term backing deal. The player is also unlikely to sell much action after the Main is over (due to his obviously improved financial situation).
- In addition to being a great investment, the player is also a personal friend. We are interested in finding what’s a fair/equitable distribution of coaching costs between player and investors based on the consensus of those who buy/sell action in high stakes tournaments. So, I am not interested in responses, such as “the player did not include coaching provision when selling action before the Main began, so the investors should not pay anything”. We are looking for what is fair to both the player and investors.

Based on the facts listed above, how much should I contribute to these coaching costs if I am a 10 percent investor in the tournament?

a) 10 percent of the coaching costs
b) 5 percent of the coaching costs
c) Some other percentage of coaching costs (for this option state the percentage and the rationale for it)
d) Investors should not pay for coaching at all

P.S. Please do not ask who the player is or who the coaches are or try to guess that information in the thread, as it has no bearing on what the answer should be. I also think that having this question discussed in the forums should benefit the 2+2 HS MTT and Marketplace communities, as such situations are likely to occur again in the future for as long as WSOP keeps the November Nine concept.

Shouldn't come out of your investment imo. Unless he consulted you before hand and you agreed..this is on him

i think something between 3-5% is fair
if you want to find a fair solution between friends it depends a bit on how much of himself he has imo
if hes like 50%+ he is able to pay more for coaching than if he only has 10-20%

your argument that he will keep the content of the very good coach forever is oviously a very strong one

I feel like both a and d are wrong. 3-6ish I guess, its hard to know how much future value it has and if both the players and investors feel like it is directly +ev at the moment then maybe it should be closer to ten. Just because it benefits the player more, might not mean the investors deserve to pay less. If the player in question was awful, it might result in a huge roi increase for investors, in which case I'd find it hard to argue against the full 10% I think.

hi, another november 9er here (sick brag, subtle, etc)

i'm charging my investors 0% for coaching, for reference. I think it's silly that a player would charge others for the coach; it just comes out of his share, and it messes things up if the player finishes in a position where investors would make less money (9th place, since the payment would have been 9th place money but if investors are paying for coaching, they are getting less than 9th place money. Also, potentially 8th/7th place especially the way the payjumps are this year).

I wouldn't want to pay for his coaching unless you thought it'd make an extremely high difference, and if it does, i would stipulate you shouldn't get less money than what you're already guaranteed.

Lol well it's clear that I didn't read full op

yea this, but D

Uhm I can very confidently say that if the player is paying coach 10% the investors cost relies between 0-10% depending on the benefits of the immediate final table.

Although I mentioned the whole range, it should never be 0 and never be 10, it should fall in between somewhere. If player is paying the coach 100% it might be +EV for him to not take any coaching at all and go in blind.
And I assume as an investor you want to maximize your EV, so you should pay a fair share of the coaching.

Considering the likelihood of the player reaching such a spot again, I'd say somewhere between 4-6% instead of the total pool.

The worse the player is to begin with = higher %
The better the coach is = higher %
The tougher the table is = lower %
The shallower stack = lower %

I'd factor all these in and maybe couple more things and go from there

I agree. You don't want disincentivize the player to the point where it's not worth it for him to obtain the coaching. Though this would only really happen if the player had like 10% of himself.

You paying 5% sounds reasonably fair to me.

So he hired coaching before consulting investors? Sorta a ****ty move IMO to do that then expect a proportional burden by investors.

if you didnt stipulate coaching beforehand why should you now? if you bought him pre main because he was a good investment why should you lose stake because it turned out to be true? if he isnt confident enough in his ability any more why does that come from your pocket?

only reason i could see to pay is if you agree that coaching is the best option and agree on a price before its booked (cause 8% of winnings seems like a lot). he shouldnt be able to lessen your shares without your consent imo.

and yeah cause its lifelong info, even if you agree to coaching i think your number should be pretty low

I am with gambonee and sux - I agree the player should take care of it and I think its shoddy that he would even bring it up especially since he hired them without speaking to you all first. I also cant believe how much the coaches are charging - wow that's eye opening.

Lol though... 8% - wtf? I think he's trying to skate all of you for an extra chunk and convinced the coaches to say its 8% to lower your chunks and in all reality is probably paying less than half of that...

I mean 8% is 6 figures man

He should have consulted his investors before receiving coaching. I think you do not need to pay any coaching costs at all. It's really up to you how much you want to give him.

You should not give him a single $ for his coaching.

If he doesn't win as much as ICM suggests he should, I think he should pay 100%, or very close to that, of the cost of the coaching.

If he wins more than his ICM equity I think you should consider defraying part of the coaching costs. How much of the coaching costs you pay should depend on mark-up (if any), and how well he performs.

He should have discussed it with you and/or offered the coach an equity chunk.

If I was an investor I would be happy to pay for coaching costs if they were reasonable, but 8% of his equity is way too high. That can't possibly be a good investment for an investor, unless the player is very inexperienced. If the player wanted to spend $20k or $30k on coaching, I would be cool with paying my full share because it's probably going to be a good investment, but $150k or whatever it is for coaching is unreasonable IMO.

Wonder who the coach is who managed to Grab ahold of that 8%

^^^ like I said... I bet him and his coach just stated that so the player could leach more from investors and in reality is probably paying a quarter of that.

0%

i mean the investor doesn't HAVE to pay for any but they should due to mutual interest of getting best (within reason) coaching possible

What do you think is reasonable to pay for coaching for the main event final table?

Depending how many sessions/who it is. Smth like 500-1k/hr
Anything more is robbery imo

yeah would say 1k is about the max for the most part (obv there are exceptions)
needa pay more in some form if they are a mentor too (such as railing the ft live to help etc) spending time/travel other than just formal hours of coaching

doing with (part or full) equity instead of $/hr is likely a good idea too

also depending on the coach and what the coaching is for it could def be less than 1k. for example a short stack asking for icm coaching shouldn't pay more than the normal rate of a coach (for example a decent icm coach for a very short stack like 10bb going into ft could be $200 or less) just because it's the FT. maybe in the form of giving icm equity at face instead of the coaching rate, this incentives the coach + gives some EV if player has edge on field (which coach should obv help with)

I think that the fair equitable percentage is slightly less than 10%.

If the FT participant is getting 100hrs+ of coaching over 3+ months, I don't think that anything out of the ordinary is going on in terms of pricing.