A problem will arise when a player is backed more than 100%... especially when you're now well known in the poker circuit, you'll likely be taken advantage of as a backer. For instance. Player get you to back him... and some other chump who doesn't know his left elbow from his right when it comes to poker... so he's backed say 150%. He loses... but he makes money... He's not going to win, since he knows he's got too much backing... So, there's an incentive not to win in this case. Happened before... a few years ago some dude won a major live tournament and was backed over 100%... shit hit the fan....
I'm noticing that more and more of the good players are becoming 'mentors' or 'coaches', they rather teach and collect fee income than play. Poker as a business has been a dying business for years. I realized this trend and bailed out of it in late 2011. The vast majority of players are money losers and the few that win, don't win that much (with some exceptions, of course). The ones that ask for backing might be on average, worse than a random player. Be very careful with this stuff
-if you are bad at reading people, you might as well not read them, like playing online -some people play 3-4 games at once, more efficient use of their time -no traveling involved, less cost -nowadays use of bots, illegal but hey.... -etc.etc.
I played online full time for about 8 years total. I was never backed but it does make sense for the player. When you add the need to withdraw money on a regular basis to volatility analysis, bankroll requirements become astronomical in terms of # of bets. In my case I earned over 1.5 million lifetime and never exceeded a bankroll of 20k for any extended period of time due to taxes and the expense of having a family. I would never back a player myself. I worked for a prop company and I knew only one other player out of hundreds that lasted more than a year. He quit the day he finished law school. We both hated playing after years of it and were just trying to pay our way through something. Emotions will get the best of almost everyone and they will burn your money when that happens. The skill level when I quit around 8 years ago was very high. It is probably higher now. I was playing relatively small games with buy-in of under $500 for nl and limit, and you would be surprised at how good the tools and skills of good players are at that level.
That is not how it works. A player over backed doesn't make money when he loses. Nobody makes money when the trader loses, period. The problem comes up when he wins, because there are MORE people to be paid, than prize there is. So the player basicly has to give up his own stake to pay BOTH backers. Thus over backed players never make money. Unless they were paying him a salary/% instead of paying the entry fee... But then the player is incentivized to lose, so the backers don't find out about each other...
Haha, just like with hugely profitable ex-traders. It is much easier to sign a sponsorship than actually win a tournament... Once they realize their edge is gone, they go the mentor route...
That isn't necessarily true. It makes more sense mathematically for most people to sell a service than it does to make bets. Or even better would be to do both, and invest business profits into the trading or poker gambling business. That reverses the mathematical problem I experienced as a professional player, and allows one to make much larger bets with the same risk of ruin.
3 or 4 games at once? If efficiency is the issue.... why not just set up an automated system similar to what these HFT operations use? Hell play 10,000 games at once and scalp a few pennies/100 hands. Who enforces the "no bots allowed" thing? Any coder can get around that I'm sure. And traveling... hell thats half the fun I would think. Online poker is like online porn. The underlying concept is there.... but its NOT the same game. We're turning into a nation full of zombies imo.
As I said, bots are illegal. When you are a pro, time is money, waiting for 4-5 other people to make up their minds is wasting your time. You have your system so you make decissions quickly, you might as well sit at 2-3 tables at least. If you live in Bumfuck City, USA, your chances of playing live poker are limited, but your cost of living is low, compared to living close to a casino. It is all about efficiency and hourly wage... There are ways they can catch you with bots, and if you get banned from your fav website, you have to find another one where eventually you will get banned again. Or maybe you are just allergic to sitting next to assholes, so the internet acts as a filter...
I don't know enough about it to be honest. The online aspect that is. I wouldn't do it. Who deals the cards? Who's keeping that bot honest!? Christ almighty... dealers have been cheating under the scrutiny of 50 cameras for the last 3 decades... you think I'm gonna trust a fucking server in fucking Gibraltar? Call me old school. But whatever floats ya'll's boats I guess. I'll stick to trading. (Short NKE btw on anything above $54.20 on Monday... best short on the DOW)