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In July, I shared how I first became a dealer in the underground LA Poker scene. Today I will share a story from when I was dealing in those games.
I had secured a regular gig dealing a downtown LA $1/$2 poker game twice a week. It was running very smoothly. My mechanics had improved immensely, and I was very comfortable in the box. It was a fun atmosphere, I met a lot of great people, and I was settling into a nice routine. Unfortunately, that routine consisted of waking up around 4 pm, eating “breakfast” and spending a little time with my girlfriend when she got home from school or work. Then I traveled downtown around 6:30 pm. Most nights I came home around 8 am, just in time for my girlfriend to head off to class. The schedule wasn’t ideal for our relationship, but it was only two to three nights a week.
I was mainly living off some savings I had from college, and my parents were helping a little with the rent while I “looked for a job”. I did technically look for employment, and by that I mean I sent a few applications each day that I wasn’t dealing. Maybe I’ll admit to trying my luck online with some free spins, too. But at the time I had no intention of leaving my dealing life, I just needed more games. I was lucky enough to be dealing for a poker game that consistently ran twice a week and sometimes a third. It’s not often you find a twice-weekly game run by a 20-something with mainly college-aged players. I had a feeling it wasn’t normal to run so many games with this demographic. The player pool was relatively small, with seven to eight regulars and a rotating cast of 15-20 others. Between the rake and two sharks eating up most of the profit, I had a feeling our player pool was going to go broke fairly soon. I started ramping up my job applications after a few months of dealing the game and was convinced I was going to have to find a real job. That is until Greg pulled me aside.
Greg was a semi-regular player. He was there at last once a week. Greg was a fairly solid player who generally didn’t buy-in for more than one bullet, but he spoke and acted as if he was bringing the action. Players really enjoyed having him there, and so did I. He tipped great and was always striking up conversations. It didn’t take me long to realize why he was such a delight at the table. Greg had his own game. He ran a $2/$5 game in Marina Del Ray in a top-floor apartment right on the water. He didn’t talk about it a lot, only if he was asked directly or if someone inquired about a bigger game. This was my introduction to home game politics.
As a general rule, you don’t advertise competing home games at the table. Open invitations, handing out your number to everyone, talking up your game, and talking down the present game are all VERY frowned upon. People who break these rules are called poachers. They go from game to game trying to poach players. It’s part of the business to identify and get rid of poachers. Greg however, was not a poacher. Since he ran a $2/$5 game in which our clientele generally did not mix, he never brought up the game voluntarily and never spoke ill of the $1/$2 game. Most importantly, his game ran on a different night than ours. Greg knew Peter, the $1/$2 game runner, quite well, so it was agreed upon that Greg could mention his game when asked.
Greg pulled me aside one day and asked me if I was available to deal his game also. Which of course I was. I said yes instantly, as I knew it was an amazing opportunity. I would be splitting time with another dealer, but it was a great chance to deal another game. The next week I travelled down to Marina Del Rey on Friday night ready to hop in the box. As soon as I walked in the door, I realized this was a totally different ballgame.
Source: Trivago
First of all, the apartment was gorgeous. It held two poker tables, a big kitchen island serving as a bar, a large living room and dining room area, and a massive balcony. From the balcony you could see the beach, and when dark you could see the lights from the Santa Monica Pier. Secondly, there were a lot more people working. Greg had one main partner, the two owners of the apartment, three waitresses, and another dealer all working hard. It was as if I was in a restaurant an hour before opening. The waitresses were going through the stocked liquor cabinet while Greg taught them how to make the signature cocktail for the night (each night had a new cocktail). Greg’s partner was counting chips, and one of the guys living in the apartment was printing out a spreadsheet for players to sign when buying chips. It looked more like a business than a game amongst friends. As the players filed in, the waitresses took their orders. I sat waiting at a table with the cards fanned out as Greg was welcomed everyone and kept the music going. I was very impressed with the operation.
As the night progressed, it was clear that not all the players were regular poker players. You couldn’t script the absurdity some of the hands they played. A lot of the players were clearly there to party, not play serious poker. This game was merely an alternative to a club, and I quickly learned that made the game very lucrative. The players splashed the pots with chips and spilled liquor and were quick to throw a big tip my way. The true card players of the bunch went up early and they went up big. Most players bought in for $500-$800, and by the first hour, the biggest stack was around $3,000. The game played out that way for the next two months as I worked each Friday.
The most notable night I worked was when a notorious action player (we’ll call him Joe) visited the game. Joe was about 45 years old, probably 350 pounds, and a troublemaker. Joe’s reputation preceded him, as I heard from a waitress that he was banned from another game she worked. I began that night helping with game organization and getting players in the door. Another dealer, Marie, was in the box when I first heard a commotion. Joe had called a big river bet and was shown the winner by his opponent. Instead of mucking his hand, he turned his cards face up, mixed the board and the opponent’s cards into the muck, and started dragging the pot. Marie was about 130 pounds soaking wet and a little timid, so she wasn’t able to stop him. Luckily the host was at the table, and he made Joe stop. Joe apologized and pushed the pot to the winner. He wasn’t angry about the situation and actually was in good spirits, but it was way out of line. There was clear tension in the room after that.
The next few hours went as planned. The players drank and played while Joe kept causing trouble and busting. He dug into his pockets quite a few times and by 1:00 am he was in the game for $8,000. While these games did play fairly large, I had never seen anyone buy in for more than $3,000. By 1:30 we heard the classic “all-in” by a crusher and a “call” from Joe. The board was KJ956 with three spades, the crusher showed AQ of spades for the nuts, and Joe called off the last of his stack with a weak top pair. It was a $2,500 pot and Joe was out of money. Joe then said a few words that no game runner wants to hear: “let me borrow $3,000.”
I cannot stress this enough, DO NOT let poker players play on credit. It’s one thing if you have a regular who comes to every game, or a close friend, but generally, credit is a terrible idea. If you let one player borrow money, they all want to borrow. It’s much easier not to pay when you borrow. I have seen plenty of game runners decide to give lines of credit to certain players and get burned. As a game runner, you want to keep the game going so you extend credit, but you also end up paying out of pocket. It’s a bad situation. Greg was smart and didn’t extend credit to anyone…but Joe was a special case.
While Joe’s history of causing trouble is alarming, Greg was in a lose-lose situation. Say no and the game likely dies, with Joe never returning. This night was the best I had seen at the game and everyone was happy. The rake box was staying full, the waitresses got big tips, and I made a killing dealing Joe losing hands. However, if Greg extends the credit, he is risking $3,000 and the game’s “no credit” policy.
Greg pushed back at first, listing a number of reasons why he couldn’t extend credit. Joe suggested Greg follow him home after the game to ensure the debt is paid. When Greg said he couldn’t, Joe smacked me on the arm and said “have the kid do it.” At this point, Joe liked me, so I wasn’t surprised when he offered me as tribute. Greg pulled me aside and asked if I would do it. For an extra $100 we agreed that I would follow him home (only about a 15-minute detour for me) and collect the money. Joe lived near me in the valley, so I was going to hold onto the cash and bring it to Greg the next week. Greg and I both agreed there was a chance Joe would try to ditch me, but Greg decided it was worth the risk to keep the game going.
It only took another 30 minutes for that $3,000 to vanish, and once Joe busted, the game broke up. Joe went to the bathroom and Greg waited at the front door. As expected, Joe came out of the bathroom and looked as though he was going to leave while I was still being cashed out. We quickly wrapped up and I followed Joe out the door. The apartment’s garage was large, so I had to separate from Joe to get my car.
Unfortunately, Joe was closer to the gate than I was, and sure enough, as I was getting into my car, I saw him peel out. Driving out onto the street I could barely make out his minivan as he tore down the road. I did everything I could to keep up with him, but a few cars got between us. When I got caught behind an Uber drop off he took his opportunity, speeding off after a right-handed turn. I made the turn quickly and came to a fork in the road. I had no idea which way he went. There was no chance of catching him, and I wasn’t about to audition for The Fast and the Furious for $100.
I called Joe’s phone about twelve times while driving in the general direction of the valley. He finally answered, and he tried to play dumb. I asked where he was and told him to pull over. He said he needed to stop at the Burbank Best Western. On the off chance he wasn’t lying, I made my way to the Burbank Best Western. Sure enough, the parking lot was full and there was no sign of Joe’s car. I went inside to check and was grilled by the front desk considering it was past 2 am. This was way out of my comfort zone. After about 10 minutes of waiting in the parking lot, I called Greg and let him know.
Greg wasn’t surprised. He said he might be able to get the money another way, but I didn’t ask any more questions. I wanted nothing to do with Joe at that point. Greg offered to send me the $100, but I told him to just give me half since the job wasn’t done.
That was the last time I signed up for something like that. While nothing bad actually happened, I wasn’t thrilled about a car chase over a debt that wasn’t mine. After that, I stuck to dealing. Between the $1/$2, the $2/$5 game, and playing poker myself, I made enough to pay my half of living expenses and enjoy a night out with my girlfriend each week. Everything was starting to settle down and I stopped applying to jobs. I was perfectly content playing poker, dealing, and meeting new people.
However, I kept hearing about bigger games. I knew I could get into those bigger games, I just needed to meet the right people and continue to be a solid dealer. Little did I know, I was nearing a potential career-making opportunity…
There is no denying the fact that America is facing a labor shortage in the service industry. Countless restaurants, hotels, and retail stores have displays advertising job openings. Many businesses are open for shorter hours, or not open at all due to a lack of staff. This shortage is also affecting casinos, but more specifically, it is affecting poker rooms.
It’s no surprise that casinos tend to favor table games and slots to poker rooms. Let’s face it, the casino earns a much larger profit from Caribbean Stud even (indirectly, via) offering free slot games than from $1/$2 No Limit. That is fine. As a poker player from New England, I am used to our tables being tucked in the corner with one waitress for every 100 poker players. Is it ideal? Of course not, but it makes sense. But after COVID-19 protocols shut down many casinos, the executives seemed to leave poker out of the reopening process.
As a New England native, I have always had multiple options for playing poker. Connecticut has two large casinos in Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods, Rhode Island has Twin River, and my home state of Massachusetts saw the recent openings of MGM Springfield and Encore Boston Harbor. New Hampshire, lacking casinos has numerous small poker rooms under the state’s charitable gaming laws. Having access to all of these rooms was amazing. That is until the pandemic hit.
Very pretty room. Beautiful hotel and casino. Great poker action. Boston is a lucky city to have the new @EncoreResortBH.
Cards didn’t fall my way this evening, but had a fun time in my short 2.5-hour session ? pic.twitter.com/iskVhnbhiK
— Robbie Strazynski (@cardplayerlife) August 14, 2019
All of these properties shut down for some time in 2020 due to COVID. It was expected, as most of the world shut down. We all did our time in quarantine and slowly businesses started opening their doors, casinos included. Other than the plexiglass, the massive thermometers, and hand sanitizer stations, the New England casinos looked the same…minus the poker rooms.
While New Hampshire’s poker rooms reopened as soon as the law allowed, all five of New England’s larger casinos reopened without poker. It made sense at first, as certain states had a per table maximum of four players, and it’s hard to navigate poker with plexiglass at the tables. Foxwoods and Mohegan made it work after being open for a few months, at first with plexiglass and 7-max tables but they are mostly back to normal. The rooms have limited hours, reduced table counts, and have generally forgone tournaments, but cash poker is definitely back. The other three properties have still not shown much interest in opening their poker rooms. Recently, the Massachusetts gaming commission, in response to thousands of player complaints have been putting pressure on MGM and Encore to bring back poker. In response, MGM Springfield has agreed to reopen their poker room in “Q4” of this year. The stated explanation for the closed rooms and reduced hours are the same: there aren’t enough dealers.
Congratulations to the winners of the Hold’em Bad Beat Jackpot paying out a total of $203,841.Losing hand getting $101,921! ??
Our Wed night $280 NLH at a total of 391 entries totaling a $87,011 prize pool! 1st is a cool $18,856
Is it even possible to pay out more money?!??
— Foxwoods Poker (@FoxwoodsPoker) August 26, 2021
The floor staff I have spoken with at Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods agree that they simply don’t have enough dealers to staff a 24/7 room, but they are happy to be able to provide a room for most of the day. They have recently extended hours on weekends, which is wonderful, and Foxwoods brought back a singly weekly tournament with a strict table limit. While it is easy to be angry with the other three casinos, I like to remember that dealing poker is quite different than dealing table games, and you cannot simply hire someone with no training or experience.
There are many nuances to dealing poker, but the most important is controlling the game. As a dealer, you are responsible for ensuring the players adhere to the rules of the game, but also that the game runs smoothly and at a good pace. Mis-deals, players not paying attention, and arguments between players can slow a game down, and the dealer is responsible for keeping these slowdowns to a minimum. Not only do dealers have those responsibilities, but they also must ensure there is no cheating in the game, as team play through signaling and protection betting are popular methods for partners to find an unfair edge in the game. Since dealing poker comes with many responsibilities, unfortunately, casinos cannot relax their qualifications when looking to hire dealers.
But why do poker rooms need to hire more dealers anyway? Where did they all go? Well, this question doesn’t have a simple answer.
First, many career poker dealers had to find new work or new card rooms after the COVID shutdowns. I know many dealers left casinos and found home games to deal instead. Since relocating to Cape Cod in Massachusetts, two of the three home games I have attended had former Encore or Twin River dealers sitting in the box. When I asked them if they plan to return to casinos, they both said no. Something I learned firsthand while dealing in Los Angeles remains true in New England: home games pay more. Both dealers were more than happy to remain dealing home games as they enjoy the atmosphere much more and are taking home more money. Along with home games, some dealers found income running tournaments among friend groups online, using PokerStars, or other platforms to organize large online “home games”. These games were very popular when live poker was not available, and many have continued beyond the restrictions.
Also, since certain areas of the country opened sooner than others, some dealers migrated to states with fewer COVID restrictions. Texas has been taking over the poker scene in America in the last few years. Their private poker rooms are seeing huge amounts of action, a wide variety of games being spread, and a switch to paying time instead of raking pots. Texas poker rooms were also some of the first to reopen in the country. I was recently in Austin, Texas with my family, and I met three dealers from the New England area. All had moved to Texas during the pandemic in search of work as dealers. I asked if they are planning to return to deal at the New England casinos, and they all said no. There are many advantages to living in Texas besides poker, but the dealers all agreed they would rather deal at a private Texas club than a casino in New England. For those that did not want to migrate so far away, the rooms in New Hampshire opened up quickly, and dealers across New England had plenty of work there.
Lastly, dealers found income outside of the industry. Restaurants, hotels, and casinos have lost staff members to corporate or government jobs. With many companies migrating to a work-from-home model and keeping that model, there are numerous jobs available that are more attractive than sitting at a poker table. Additionally, the digital age offers people more room to work for themselves. The pandemic gave many people the push they needed to go out on their own.
Many factors go into the New England casino dealer shortage. Whether it be a move toward better paid home games, migration, or finding income away from poker. One thing is certain: the dealer shortage is bad for the game. Poker cannot hope to be back to its pre-pandemic heights until poker rooms have enough dealers to open and run 24/7, and to hold tournaments along with cash tables. While online poker may have boomed during the pandemic, if you prefer the feel of cards and the sound of shuffling chips, this dealer shortage is a thorn in your side.
I am a poker content super consumer. I watch vlogs on YouTube, old WSOP bracelet events, training videos, streamed cash games, and episodes of High Stakes Poker. You name it, I watch it. As I am two hours away from the closest casino in a state without regulated online poker, my options for playing are limited. So when it comes to being able to play at the best casino sites online, that’s unfortunately a no-go until I enter a regulated jurisdiction. The poker content I watch holds me over until the next casino trip, and (hopefully) improves my game.
Thanks to the popularity of vloggers and PokerGO, there is a wealth of content to watch. You would think with all this amazing content there would be a huge representation across poker variants. You’d be wrong. It’s safe to say that about 98% of poker content available is for No Limit Holdem. I get it, NLH is the variant everyone knows how to play. It’s easy to explain, easy to deal, and makes good use of RFID cards. But I love the other games.
Mixed games, short deck hold ‘em, and Pot Limit Omaha are all amazing games that don’t get televised as often as they should. So here are my top five televised non-NLH hands.
partypoker hosted the Big Game Germany, in which an online qualifier got to play in a massive PLO and NLH mixed cash game with some pros. This game saw two of the biggest mixed game names return to the limelight, with Viktor “Isuldur” Blom and Tony G sitting down at the table. It appears this was a €50/€100 game, but in true high roller fashion, a frenzy of straddles turned this particular hand into €50/€100/€200/€400/€800/€1,600/€3,200/€6,400. No, I am not kidding; six straddles were put in after the blinds.
After a few folds, The Wolf decides to limp in with a raggedy KQ45 three heart hand from the €800 straddle, Rob Yong then looks down at AA22 single suited in spades from the €3,200 straddle. Rob, knowing who is left to act, decides to just call. Now, on to the €6,400 straddle and one of my favorite poker personalities, Tony G. Tony looks down at A987 double suited with the red suits and decides to raise. Tony pumps it up to €20k and the Wolf puts in the call. Rob’s trap worked and he decides to spring it, potting it to €82,400. This would put The Wolf all in, so he folds his junk, and Tony puts in the call leaving himself €118k behind.
The flop is Jc9s6s, giving Rob the nut flush draw along with his AA, and giving Tony G second pair and an open ender. With the flush draw Tony loses a few outs, but when Rob pots the flop, Tony calls off his remaining €118k. Tony needs to make two pair or hit his straight with a non-spade 5 or 10, while Rob can seal it with a spade or just dodge the previously mentioned outs. The turn comes Qd which is no help, but the 8d river gives Tony the magic two pair.
What happens next is why I love Tony G so much. Tony proclaims “Date with an eight,” asks the table if he is the greatest, and orders a round of champagne for the casino. He then gets up and starts spouting out catchphrases, saying in that Aussie accent that he has the heart, he took everything, he qualified, and then ultimately, that he played it like a set, alluding to a famous NLH hand he played some years ago. Add a couple of needles about how Rob is on full tilt and that The Wolf needs to play the hand to win, and it’s a classic Tony G monologue. As entertaining as he is, I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of one of those speeches. Rob takes it like a great sport.
2018 saw more partypoker PLO cash games. Each day the game got bigger and bigger, culminating in a short-handed $1,000 / $2,000 (or so it seems) PLO cash game. This hand starts in the middle of the action, so I am not sure if the blinds are $1k/$2k with a $4k straddle, or if it was simply $2k/$4k blinds. Either way, Leon Tsoukernik and Sam Trickett call $4k before Matt Kirk raises to $20k with AAQ3 (Ace high spades). Rob Yong with QJT4 (Jack high hearts), Leon with A887 (three clubs), and Sam with J62 (Jack high spades and a mystery card) all call.
With $80k in the middle, the flop is 69T with two hearts. Leon flops the nuts with his A887, while Rob has a pair, open ender, and flush draw with his QJT4. Leon checks his option, Sam and Matt follow, then Rob bets $30k. With the action back on Leon, he pots it to $170k and it folds to Rob. Rob has just over $400k behind as he ponders his decision. After checking his cards and crunching some numbers in his head, Rob decides to go with the hand and shoves all in for his remaining $400k. Leon snap calls.
The two casino owners head into the turn and river only running the hand once, which I believe was standard for this cash game series. The 5c on the turn changes nothing, but the 9h on the river seals the hand for Rob. Rob lets out a sigh of relief as $941,000 is pushed his way in an absolutely massive pot.
The Triton High Roller Cash Games showcased some of the greatest pros and biggest whales in the world as they played in Macau. It is no surprise that a lot of the biggest names in poker are in China playing these crazy nosebleed games. That community of high rollers gave birth to a new form of poker: short deck hold ‘em. I know what you’re thinking, I thought this was a list of non-NLH hands? Well it is. Short deck may be a variant of NLH, but it is certainly not NLH. The equity runs much closer, straight draws are more valuable, and flushes actually beat full houses. Short deck plays similar to NLH, with the exception of hand orders and the fact that all of the 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s have been removed from the deck. You may also occasionally see the game played with an ante and a single blind on the button rather than traditional small and big blinds.
The buy-in for this game was US $300k, and the stacks were pretty large, but not in terms of the blinds. The players are playing with Korean Won instead of US Dollars, and there is a 4 million Won ante with a single blind of 8 million on the button in this hand. This equates to roughly a $3.5k ante and $7k blind using today’s conversion rate. The game is televised with a US$ total, but each individual bet is shown in Won. Elton Tsang starts the action by limping with 10Jdd, a very strong hand in short deck. Jason Koon calls behind with 68hh, Mikita Badziakouski calls with 10Jo, Tan Xuan comes along with black 77, and Rui Cao wakes up with KKhd and raises to 54 million (~$47k). Tsang calls with his suited 10J, Koon throws his 86 away, and the remaining two limpers (Badziakouski and Xuan) feel they have enough to call.
With the pot already at US$ 212,400, we see a flop of Q97 with two clubs. The clubs don’t really matter, but both Tsang and Badziakouski flop open-ended straight draws, which in Short Deck is quite valuable. Meanwhile Xuan flops bottom set, and the preflop raiser, Cao, has an over-pair. Action starts on Tsang, who open jams his remaining 225 million Won. After some thought Badziakouski comes over the top for his 324 million. Xuan and Cao are deeper stacked than the other two, and Xuan doesn’t think long before shoving his 546 million with his bottom set, getting a surprising snap call from Cao with 526 million left.
After this string of all-ins, the pot has ballooned to US $1,022,400. To recap, we have two open-ended straight draws, bottom set, and an overpair. The straight draws can go ahead and hit the cashier, because the Q on the turn seals their fate, giving Xuan a full house. This leaves only four outs for Cao (one of the remaining two kings or queens). However, the river is the 6c locking up the full pot for Xuan.
After this monster pot, the billionaires at the table are laughing and joking as if they just lost $5 and it doesn’t matter whatsoever. It’s clear that losing that money doesn’t mean much to them, but it certainly wasn’t $5. This is an incredibly entertaining hand, and it makes you feel like someone snuck a camera into one of those super high roller games in the movie Molly’s Game.
At the final table of the 2019 $50k Player’s Championship, which most pros will tell you is the most prestigious WSOP bracelet, we saw quite possibly the worst bad beat ever. With about four big bets left, the game is 2-7 Triple Draw. For those who don’t know, the best possible hand in Triple Draw is 23457 unsuited. The goal of 2-7 is to make the lowest hand possible, straights and flushes count, and aces are bad. Thus the nuts (or “wheel”) is 23457. The blinds are 75k / 150k, so the big bet in these limit games is 300k.
With four players left in the tournament, the massive chip leader Josh Arieh looks down at AQ653 on the button and completes for 300k. The short stack, Bryce Yockey, who started the hand with just under four big bets, re-raises to 450k with the second nuts (or number 2), 23467. This is a beautiful pat hand for Yockey, and he does just that after Arieh calls. Facing a 3-bet pat, Arieh jokes about getting out of line and throws away his A and Q. Nick Schulman on the broadcast points out there is a path to a win here if Arieh draws a 2 and 4, then gets rid of the 6 and draws a 7. But all of this is incredibly unlikely, with the odds being less than 1%.
The first draw brings Arieh a 2 and a Q, so he has improved to a 2346 draw, which is a tricky draw, since a 4 gives him a straight. Yockey throws in 150k and Arieh calls before throwing his Q away. The second draw brings in that annoying 4, giving Arieh a 6 high straight. Yockey bets 300k, leaving himself only 280k behind. After some thought Arieh calls, thinking a 7, 8 or even sometimes a 9 will make him good. Little does he know that he is drawing to only a 7. Yockey bets his last 280k before Arieh looks and the RFID gives away that, incredibly, he makes the wheel with the 7 of clubs. After some confusion over whether or not he threw the right card away, Arieh starts to slowly peel up his card (as those mixed-game players do) first revealing that it is a 3 across and warning his opponent, then finally revealing that he made a wheel.
Yockey is in disbelief as he flips hip his pat number 2. You can’t help but feel for him as he looks stunned, seeing a pure double up get pushed the wrong way. An absolutely insane hand in a very high stakes scenario. Yockey took $325k home for his efforts that day, and Arieh fell short in the 5-hour heads up match against Phillip Hui. However, Arieh still took home 680k for his runner-up finish, thanks in part to the worst mixed game bad beat I’ve ever seen.
My favorite non-NLH poker hand was played by Patrik Antonius against Andrew Robl in what has to be without a doubt the greatest PLO hand ever televised. It has everything I love: big name pros from the mid-2000s, the deal-making negotiation of a big pot, needling, and the statistical anomaly of a bad beat. In the hand, we have some high rollers playing $500/$1,000 PLO and it folds around to Antonius in late position. Antonius looks at 5689 with three diamonds and opens to $3,500. Robl is in the small blind with AQQJ with Ace high spades and decides to re-pot it for $11,500, Antonius puts in the flat call.
On an A47 flop with two diamonds, Robl keeps the betting lead and fires 2/3 pot for $16,000. Antonius has a monster draw with a wrap and flush draw, albeit a weak one. It’s a flop he wants to pile money into, and that he does. Antonius pots it to $72,000 and after thinking for a bit, Robl decides to go with his top pair and shoves all in for $119,100 total and gets a snap call from Antonius. The pot is $262,200 and Robl has only top pair!
The two then decide how many runouts they want to see, an interesting aspect of the live high stakes cash games that I enjoy. Robl suggests three and Antonius needles him a bit about complicating things, so he changes the suggestion to four. Antonius agrees. With Robl showing top pair and no draw (to be fair he has a diamond blocker) he holds only 27% equity in the hand. Antonius says “Wow, good luck buddy, good call by the way…oh good raise, good re-re-raise.” I love this hand so much, with the not-so-subtle needle Antonius sends for calling with top pair, and Robl deciding to run it four times with only about 1/4 of the equity.
Then comes one of the craziest beats in PLO I’ve ever seen.
The first turn card is awesome for Robl, with Kh and another brick on the river in the 2h securing him 1/4 of the pot. Equity-wise, Robl should now lose the next three runouts. It looks as if that is the case on the second turn when a Jd gives Antonius a flush. but the Ac on the river changes everything, giving Robl a full house. Robl is now running above his equity with half of the pot secured. Amazingly, the third runout comes 10h and Ks, again giving Robl another third of the pot. Okay, time for the last runout. This one HAS to go to Antonius right? The turn is the 3s, giving Antonius a straight. But lo and behold the 10s hitting the river gives Robl the back door flush.
What an absolutely insane runout! It should have been an easy fold from Robl, but instead he won all four runouts, which has a 1% chance of happening. Watching the dealer slowly crucify Antonius one quarter at a time is absurd. You can’t help but feel for someone who hits their draws twice and still loses four out of four runs.
I hope you enjoyed these hands. Hopefully with the current poker content boom we will start to see some more mixed games and other non-NLH streamed games. Who knows, maybe in a few years Cardplayer Lifestyle can have a feature table streaming mixed games at the Mixed Game Festival?
Money changes hands over and over in the poker community. Even those of us who sit on a table with our best friends are trying to take all their chips. Poker is a cash business, and the poker community is small. As a result, there are plenty of ways to make deals with other players, and it is important to understand the differences between them. In this article, I’m going to break down what it means to buy / sell action, swap action, stake another player, and back another player long-term.
This is the most common arrangement in the poker world. It is especially common among tournament players. Players sell part of their action as a way to mitigate their risk, or as a way to have their friends get in on the action of a big game. Selling action can be done at face value or at a markup. Winning players and well-known players tend to sell action at a markup, since they have a better chance at having a positive return on investment (or ROI). Let’s say Phil Hellmuth is playing the WSOP Main Event for $10,000 and he decides to sell some action. As a 15-time bracelet winner with just shy of $25 million in earnings, $1,000 is not getting you 10% of his action. Hellmuth has a proven track record of winning, so if you want 10% of his action, you’re paying at least $1,100, probably more. That extra $100 is his markup, since he has a good shot at getting you a positive ROI.
READ MORE: Interview with Phil Hellmuth
Now, if I wanted to sell action for the World Series of Poker Main Event, given that I don’t even show up on the Hendon Mob Database, your $1,000 will more likely get you 10%. Let’s say you buy 10% of me. You will get 10% of however much I win. If I lose, you don’t get anything. That is the nature of buying action. You are gambling along with the player.
You can find plenty of websites where you will see well-known players selling part of their action in a tournament or a series of tournaments. This crowd-funding method of selling action is a nice way to reduce risk for the player, and a fun way for fans to have a dog in the fight. Most of us aren’t selling a massive WSOP package to our thousands of fans, so what does selling action look like to us? Well, you might be entering a tournament and want to sell a small piece of yourself to some friends. Or maybe you see a juicy $2/$5 game, but you aren’t properly bankrolled for it. These are great spots to sell action. I sell 10-25% of myself in larger tournaments so my friends can have a sweat and I can risk a little less.
Personally, I’m never selling action in a cash game, but often trying to sell some in a tournament. If I take a multi-table Tournament (MTT) down for first place, I’m not going to mind losing 10-25% of the prize. My profit will still be massive compared to my buy-in. However, in a cash game I’d much rather play a lower stake and have 100% of myself. That is a personal preference, and I definitely have friends who would rather play a bigger cash game for 60-75% of themselves. Selling action is a great way to mitigate your risk, and buying action can be a great way to earn extra cash. I usually buy action from my study partners because they buy from me. It gives us a reason to really have a stake in one another’s tournaments. It makes the experience of studying together that much more fun when we can discuss hands that affect both of us.
My one piece of advice about staking is to be careful and know who you’re selling / buying action with. If you’re buying on a large site, then it’s regulated and there is a paper trail. If you are making deals with friends, make sure to put the details in a text message or email so it is in writing and everyone is in agreement concerning the arrangement. My friends and I present an offer in our group text and the lock emoji seals the deal.
Much like selling action, swapping occurs when both parties are playing poker and, instead of exchanging money for a percentage, you just swap a percentage. This is much more common in tournaments than cash games, but you can swap action in both. If my friend and I are both playing the same MTT, we may swap 15%. So, if one of us busts and the other cashes, the one who cashed forks over 15%. If we both cash, then the bigger winner sends 15% of the difference to the other. If we both lose, then we… have a silent car ride home.
I would much rather take 15% of someone else’s MTT than have them give me 15% of the buy-in. If I sell 15% of a $100 tournament, I’m always only getting $15 if I bust. I’m just making the buy-in smaller. If I swap for 15% of someone else’s tournament, they might win that event and I am in the black! Swapping is not as effective as selling a piece of myself at mitigating risk, but it’s way more fun.
I have also seen swapping in cash games, but it doesn’t make as much sense to me personally. Yes, there is risk in poker no matter what game you play, but at the end of the day MTTs have more spots where you are forced to gamble. Cash games don’t necessarily support making risky plays, so if you have enough money to buy into the cash game, there is no need to swap a piece for someone else’s game. If you can’t afford the whole buy-in, then I suggest selling some action, not swapping for it. If you have a buddy who wants to swap action when you both go to the casino, suggest instead that the biggest winner pay for dinner.
This goes without saying for all methods discussed here, but BE CAREFUL who you are swapping with. It may feel easy to swap action with someone since no cash is exchanging hands, but that doesn’t mean you always should. I believe it was Barry Greenstein on Joey Ingram’s Poker Life Podcast who told a story about being in the bathroom on break from an MTT in Los Angeles when two regulars walked in. One asked the other if they want to swap 10% and the other agreed. After the deal was done, the man who suggested the swap left and Barry told the other player that his friend had already busted the tournament. To that, the man replied, “that’s fine, I’m not even playing it.”
So maybe only swap with someone you also see outside of the casino. Always remember to protect yourself when making financial transactions with others.
My first introduction to staking was in Rounders when Knish offers to stake Mike for the “standard deal,” in which the profits are split 50/50 and any losses are on the stake, not the player. If you don’t want to risk any of your own money, then getting staked may be for you. Staking is a straightforward operation. The staker pays 100% of the buy-in and is responsible for 100% of the losses. They then get 50% of any profit made by the player. Some players say they feel freer when they are not required to lay down the money, and therefore they can play better. Others feel they play tighter when staked, since they feel bad losing someone else’s money. I have been staked once or twice, but only in situations where I needed to conserve cash and had someone who believed in me enough to put me in a game. You sometimes see staking at home games when the host needs extra players, so they back a friend. This also occurs when someone is coaching their buddy on poker and thinks they’re ready to play higher limits, so they stake them.
Many poker pros have lost a lot of money attempting to stake other pros. There are countless stories of someone hitting a big score and then trying to stake people they know in the poker community. Often these deals don’t work out, and they just end up losing money and creating bad blood between the players. Staking certainly can work, but as always, BE CAREFUL. Know who you are staking and know what game they are playing. If they are playing online, get their hand histories and protect yourself. Don’t walk into the Venetian and start handing out buy-ins to players who “look good.”
There isn’t any operational difference between long-term backing and staking. It is still the same 50/50 deal but with a twist. Usually, in a long-term situation if the player loses they go into what is called makeup. Makeup is not a fun place to be. Let’s say someone wants to back me playing $2/$5 NLH. They may send me $10,000 to start and we settle the profit at the end of a month. Now, for my first month I lose $6,000. Not a great start. I am now in $6,000 of makeup. This means my 50% share of the profit going forward goes against the $6,000. So I need to make that money back before I start getting any cash. This is not an ideal spot because while my bank account didn’t get any smaller, I now need to profit $12,000 before I can ever make a dollar. Most backers realize that this is a raw deal, so instead of taking all the profit they may change the split to 75/25 during makeup. So you still walk away with some cash, but you don’t get the full 50/50 split until the makeup is repaid. On the other side, if you are a very profitable player but still don’t want to go out on your own, you can negotiate a more favorable profit share, maybe 65/35 or more in your favor.
READ MORE: Grzegorz Bochniak on why you should consider getting staked
One-time staking usually doesn’t feature makeup. These backing deals, however, may go on for years. So the backer is going to want some sort of makeup agreement for the deal. Another feature of backing deals is that any makeup is assuming the player continues to be a full-time poker player. There have been instances of a player going $80k into makeup and deciding that poker is not the career for them. Once they retire from poker, they are generally not liable for the makeup anymore. That makeup is paid by poker profits. If there are no more poker profits, the makeup isn’t paid. Now if that player were to then pop back up a year later with a new backer, the previous backer would be very unhappy.
Backing became a business during the poker boom of the early 2000s. Talk to any Vegas pro who was playing during that time, and they’ll probably mention Bax and Sheets. Eric “Sheets” Haber and Cliff “Bax” Josephy ran a massive backing operation. They had so many players under them that it felt like they final tabled dozens of Main Events through their players. Many others have attempted to replicate their backing success. Some have, and plenty have not, but there is a backing business today thanks to them.
To bring it all together, there are plenty of ways to sell or buy action in poker. Whether it’s a percentage trade, a partial stake, a full stake, or a longer-term backing deal, there are many ways to mitigate risk or swap with your buddies in poker. The main thing to remember is to protect yourself. Get everything in writing. In a tournament, make sure all deals are handled before the MTT starts, and whenever possible, get the money up front. While precautions are always necessary, most of the time you will have no issues with selling or buying action, especially if you know the player personally. Just remember to protect yourself, and if you’re buying action do your best to pick the winners! If done right, buying and selling action is fun, and can even make or save you a lot of money.