billsaysthis: Hal, all I can tell you is that people who win the money have nothing to lose by saying they want the bracelet more than the cash
And I promptly noted that he didn't actually give up the cash, but only used that as an example of how at least among the top players, the money is less and less of a concern. Do you think guys like Chan, Doyle Brunson, or Phil Hellmuth, who have spent the last 3-4 years in a crazy race to hold the most bracelets, where they
each won two tourneys in the 2003 WSOP to stay tied, where Brunson and Chan won their 10th within 4 days of each other in the 2005 WSOP, and Hellmuth got to the final table but couldn't convert... do you think these guys are thinking about the
money when they try to win, or about getting another bracelet to shove in the face of the other two? My point, and I thought I sure put enough words to not be misunderstood here: the top players aren't going to throw a tournament for the mere few thousand dollars they put into one player; there's as much risk of non-backing players to collude or cheat in some fashion as any two players where one backed the other- in part because the ability to control table position is not there for a player who's backing another player.
grum: Actually, they probably make more money from cash games than they do from tournaments.
Were you too freakin' lazy to finish quoting my
very next goddamned sentence, when I said "
they are making even more from various private tournaments and private games (I'm sure guys like Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth can make a tidy sum just playing privately against well-to-do people who won't even mind losing tens of thousands just to brag to their friends that they played at a table with Johnny Chan)." (
emphasis added) What the fuck, grum?! Seriously, this thread makes me wonder if 2006 is the "Year of Misunderstanding and Selectively Misquoting Hal Incandenza"!!! Harumph. New Year's is a Humbug...
Im not sure what to do. There is controversy before i've posted. Anyway, I think poker is another attempt to hold the black man down. How come phil ivey and phil helmuth have the same first name, but you see helmuth twice as much?......Calmdown, im kidding. Quick side note, greg rahmer was accused of collusion on pokerstars before he won the world series. While i understand what greenstien means when he says "why back a player who cant scrape up the buy-in himself". I would say because they may turn out to be a rahmer (who was backed the year he won) or moneymaker (who won his seat from a $40 buy in satellite thus being backed by pokerstars) thats why. Is it ethical to back a player in a tournament in which you yourself are competing? Maybe not, but I cant remember the last "ethical" card game i was in.
I don't think it's being "backed" by a site to enter a low buy-in tournament and win it, thus securing a seat bought by the site... in lieu of the cash equivalent. If PS.N hosts a tournament, and thousands of people pay $40 each to play and the top few people get a seat, they're no more being backed by the site than you would say that the WSOP itself "backed" the players with a multi-million dollar seat at the final table by hosting the first few days of the tournament for a low, low $10,000 buyin. See what I mean? A pokerstars.net site is really just like an internet version of trolling private card rooms around the city to raise the $10G for the main event buy-in. The idea of earning your way to a seat via winning lower-level cash games is a long-established one: Rahmer beat out many other people to earn that seat first, proving that he had some poker chops (had not heard that collusion rumor). PS.N hosted a free tournament with several tens of thousands of players, and "backed" only a few of them. Greenstein's point implies that someone who plays a cashless tourney and wins is no different than someone who plays a low buy-in local tournament and wins, and puts that money towards a seat at the WSOP ME: in both cases, they've proven their ability to win. Ultimately, if you want to be in the Main Event, you either have to have disposable cash, or be a consistent enough winner you can raise the money with your card playing. If you just flat out give someone the $10k to enter the WSOP Main Event because you think they are a good player, they haven't proven they can actually be net profitable by winning, have they? And that, not the Rahmer's or Moneymakers cases, is what Greenstein means when he says backing a player is a losing proposition....
A lack of ethics in Poker.... For shame. They may want the bracelets, but 1,000,000 bucks is still alot of money. And frankly, there's alot safer ways to bet it than going up against all of the best players in the world. By backing multiple players you increase the odds of winning back what you've spent to attend the tourney. It's called hedging your bets. Since the players more than anyone know the sport is 25% skill and 75% luck, why not teach and back say... 10 players. You average out the luck that way. Plenty of players compete very well with only 6 months of experience... Consider that splitting the Pot for the #4 spot is 1 Million, and you still have 10-1 odds against any one of ten guys finishing in the top few. Heck, if you win the bracelet against a player you sponsored, you would stand to make over $6 Million. Not bad for betting 100-200 thousand...
Do you think guys like Chan, Doyle Brunson, or Phil Hellmuth, who have spent the last 3-4 years in a crazy race to hold the most bracelets, where they each won two tourneys in the 2003 WSOP to stay tied, where Brunson and Chan won their 10th within 4 days of each other in the 2005 WSOP, and Hellmuth got to the final table but couldn't convert... do you think these guys are thinking about the money when they try to win, or about getting another bracelet to shove in the face of the other two? I think the bracelets represent money, winning the tournament represents money, beating the other players means money and finally I think you vastly understate the importance of the money to these people. The ability to shove a representational object in the face of the other competitors is ego, certainly something most competitors at this level of accomplishment in any field (sports, business, politics, entertainment) have in spades, and moainly icing on the cake. (LOL, I made a pun.)
I think high stakes tournament players are in it to win it - it would explain a lot of the play that happens around the bubble. Ethically, there is nothing wrong with backing other players - provided they are up front about it (as Hasan and Lee were in the example stated) - because, frankly, it is extremely difficult to run a team game at a pro final table. That shit works on the dead money, in non-tourney scenarios far more than it does at a thousand person event, where the odds of being put in a position to do anything team oriented are low to begin with. Besides - the way that backing works doesn't necessarily translate immediately into a beneficial situation where either the guy backing, or the guy being backed benefit from a avoidance/chip dumping strategy. The best strategy is to play your hands well and pay attention to your game. Don't be cute with millions at stake.
Actually, the only reason i considered that a form of backing was due to the fact that they (rahmer, moneymaker) did have financial obligations to ps.n after winning. So, in comparison, i meant that if you back someone that otherwise cant pay their own way into the tourny, maybe theres a chance that they would end up like a rahmer or a moneymaker, thats all. It was a response to "why back someone that cant pay their own way into the main event". My answer was, they may end up like a moneymaker or a rahmer. Ya just never know. Some of these guys look at it like they're betting on horses. Even if there are long odds against, they see it as buying a lottery ticket for say 5 grand, the prize pool being a % of 7.5 million. You just never know how the cards are going to fall. And God forbid if you end up at the same table as the person you backed, you just increased your odds by a truck load. Some of these die hards are just all out gamblholics.
