That is, to play in ultra high-stakes games with $10,000 blinds. I’ve heard a few of them on TV stating, rather arrogantly IMO, that they don’t play in games where the blinds are at least $10,000. Considering all the advice I’ve read on poker suggests playing with at least 50x the big blind meaning they likely bring $500K to the table.
I don’t know for sure but I can’t see all of these players being multi-imillionaires that are willing to risk half a million dollars in a single sitting.
Even if I completely loved poker and earned $2 million a year with another job, I could not see myself risking 25% of my yearly earnings on an evening of poker.
Any insights or is it simply that they are all in fact multi-millionaires that don’t mind risking a measly $500K?
I’ve heard (sorry, no cite) that some of the major players have “backers” who apparently pony up the money to cover them. How those backers are rewarded for risking their money is anyone’s guess…
If you have Game Show Network, you can watch poker players play in a high limit game on TV (not a tournament). The minimum buy in is $100K with a minimum re-buy of $50K. At least one guy brought $1 million to the game, and as of the last episode was down $500K. More than a one guy bought in with $500K, and there is a steady stream of new players entering the game, all with at least $100K to enter.
It might seem like a lot of money to you and me, they obviously can fade the heat.
I’m unaware of any regular poker games with 10k blinds. The “big game” usually is a 2k/4k limit game; sometimes 4k/8k. Andy Beal’s match with the corporation went as high as 100k (50/100 or 100/200, I’m not sure), but that was a unique situation of a dedicated billionaire playing heads up with a large coalition of players.
There are some sporadic games for those stakes–in a side game during the WSOP a few years back there was a 20k/40k game where Ted Forrest was the only player who was putting all of his own money on the line. Everyone else had numerous backers and pieces of each other. Some of the top pros play Chinese poker against each other for stakes that high.
The number of people who can afford to do this is quite small. Among poker pros, many now make more money from endorsements and business ventures than poker, which is how the elite few like Greenstein, Brunson, and Ivey have the bankroll for it. Add in backing deals, and the fact that some pros can’t afford very high stakes games but play anyway and go bust until they can get a friend to spot them some cash, and I think you have a pretty good explanation.
Yeah, but that’s sort of misleading. The buy-in is $100,000 minimum but the blinds are only $300/$600.
I’m wondering if the OP is perhaps conflating a couple of different terms. I’m thinking that the pros the OP heard about said that they don’t play tournaments with an entry fee lower than $10,000. The WSOP main event, most of the WPT events and other events have entry fees of $10,000. I’d be interested in knowing who these pros are if the OP can remember any names?
I’m not saying that it’s not a big buy-in, and I watch the show and there have been a number of pots worth well over $200,000. Most of them, though, don’t get anywhere near that amount, and that’s even with the editing out of the dozens of hands that are getting folded around to a preflop raise. I’m just saying that the $100,000 buy-in figure is as much hype as anything else. Which sounds more exciting, “Watch the world’s best players playing at $300/$600 blinds!” or “Watch the world’s best players play for $100,000!” Not that there’s anything wrong with hype…
As far as Negreanu going all in for the million, well, no one else at the table had more than about $200,000 so it’s not like we were really looking at a potential $2,000,000 pot. Negreanu wasn’t really betting a million dollars. Hype.
Even if I completely loved poker and earned $2 million a year with another job, I could not see myself risking 25% of my yearly earnings on an evening of poker.
That is the difference between us and pro gamblers. Feast of fammine with them. I doubt you could hang with that lifestyle. I know I couldn’t.
In one episode, Tony Soprano and his guys run a high-stakes poker game. At the end, they are counting acres of money. Where did the money come from? The pot comes from and goes to the players? Where does the house take its cut?
The house (i.e. the dealer) rakes chips (worth a small percentage of that total pot) from each pot worth over X amount of dollars. Typically, any pot which gets some action will be raked in a casino cash game. If only the small blind calls the big blind and both players check to the river, then that pot will not be raked (at least where I’ve played). Rake percentage and minimum pot value for rake vary among casino venues.
As has been said already sponsorship plays a large part in funding players. If you search on eBay before a large poker tournament you can always find players selling advertising space on their cap or shirts to fund their attempt at winning the big bucks. An example of this can be seen here where a player is offering to represent your company in exchange for the $10,000 buy in for the 2006 WSOP.
No. Once you get past 10/20 or so, there is no rake whatsoever. It’s an hourly fee to sit down.
The top pros still make that 1 big blind per hour… or even half a big blind per hour… n the big game that means something close to $1k/hour on average.
One thing you’ll see over and over if you read about poker and pro players is that the pros have absolutely no regard for the value of money when they’re at the table. The chips aren’t dollars; they’re units. On the aforementioned High Stakes Poker show on GSN, the commentators will sometimes say something like “he’s betting the price of a new car” or the like, and the top pros simply don’t think in those terms.
In my semi-private game (think of the old NY poker clubs that were shut down recently), there was a rake every time. Only a few players (like less than 5% of the time) ever made a stink about it because 1) they would get bounced; and, 2) they knew that this was where the best games were; also, 3) it’s relatively safe; and, 4) most of the time you’re not playing against someone’s wallet. All these venues take rakes anywhere from $1 min (for 1-2 games; btw, limit poker with rake at $1-2 betting is bogus) to 4%.
I haven’t played the high stakes of Vegas. 30/60 is my comfortable limit (every now and then, you’ll see people still playing crazy at 20/40). I don’t recall there being a rake, per se, but at least a $2-3 min before any dealing. I think the higher stake action is to draw other players. Kind of like a loss leader…
To answer the OP:
I was watching either WSOP or WCP (the one on the Travel Channel) and I one of the ladies plays regularly in a cash game where she reportedly loss $2M (that’s million :eek: ) in one weekend. Don’t be too worried, I heard these guys can be up/down $5M in the year.
There are many things at play, but I think the most prevalent is quite simply, these folks are gamblers. They love the action. And they are confident enough to feel that they will win back whatever they lose. Most of these folks are good enough that even if they do run into a rough spell and lose a lot of their money they will actually winit back at some point.
One other thing maybe worth mentioning is that sponsorship deals and players selling percentages of themselves to other players has come under increasing scrutiny with the rapid expansion of poker in the last few years. There’ve been some interesting articles in Cardplayer over the last year on the potential ethical issues surrounding them, especially the percentage deals. Lemme do some digging and see if I can find them.