Learn Texas Holdem

Question/Comment: I've played in some tournaments, but in general have always paid my own way and never anything particularly large. I recently received an offer to help pay for a WSOP entry in exchange for a cut of the winnings. I have heard of players selling "shares" of themselves to raise money for tournaments (in fact, I believe I read that both Moneymaker and Raymer did it.) Do you have any guidance for how best to do this? Do you know how players generally work it?

Thanks in advance, Matt

Answer: Yeah, players do that all the time in both tournament poker and live/cash poker. Sometimes what happens is you have a person that comes in with the money, like an investment, and "backs" your play. When you win you play them back and they get a little extra. If you lose then it depends on the deal. You might not pay them anything back or you may still owe them. It sounds like loan sharking but it isn't. Often time players, who are friends, do it amongst themselves to help offset the ups and downs of poker.

For example, if you were having a bad month I would lend you $20k so you could stay in action and keep playing at the games you normally do. Professional poker players go broke too and when they go broke someone usually comes in and helps them get back on their feet again. You specifically asked about tournaments and people selling shares. I didn't know that Moneymaker or Raymer sold pieces of their tournament action because I thought they both got in by satellites but I could very well be mistaken. Either way though, trading pieces of your action is fairly common with tournament poker players.

An example of that would be that say if we were both in a big tourney, I give you 10% of my winnings in exchange for 10% of your winnings. That increases both of our chances of getting into the money. There was just an article in Card Player Magazine about this recently and how people shouldn't be able to trade more than 10% in one another for fairness. I agree that author (whoever he was). I don't think it's cool if the final table is made up of all people who have a piece in eachother's action. That just seems shady to me.

For live games, often times people who are backing other people don't let them play in their same games because you wouldn't want someone how owes you money to be playing against you with your own money. I wouldn't worry too much about getting backers for tournaments. Most likely if you don't already know some people in that position, it wouldn't be a good idea to borrow from them until you are more experienced (then you probably won't need the money).

Until then, I would use the satellites. The good thing about the satellites is that you get real world experience with the players who you'll be up against in the real events.