During the last few weeks of the build-up to the WPT UK Festival, a lot of players around the UK have been selling action to their friends, family, and other players via the various forums around the web and on social media. This is great to see as it helps build the community and camaraderie between the people involved.
However, after seeing a lot of the discussions around the buying and selling of action that has been going on recently, I thought I’d touch upon a subject that may ruffle a few feathers to help make sure that when people are buying action from other players, they know exactly what they are getting when they buy a percentage of action that has been made available by another player. Also help make sure that the player they are investing in is being honest from the get-go and is providing all the information about themselves, their playing style, and the full history of their results ensuring their backers are making a good investment and not just paying for the player involved to play a big event cheaply.
What is buying action in poker?
The term ‘buying action’ in poker basically means when a player decides to play a poker tournament or attend a poker festival and play a schedule of events, they may decide to sell a piece of themselves to other people in exchange for a percentage cut of any winnings they make.
This is basically a money-in, money-out transaction and is typically done on a percentage basis and is based on the player buying directly into the event themselves paying out of their own pocket or by using a ticket they may have won previously.
So, if a player wanted to play a $500 +$50 buy-in event like the ‘WPT UK Opener’ and they decide to sell 40% action of themselves to other people they will be putting up $220 of the total buy-in cost and making this available to people to buy pieces of. People who decide to buy a piece of the action from this player can either buy a smaller piece or they can buy the entire 40% made in a single transaction.
Typically, what you will find is people prefer to spread their risk and buy lots of smaller pieces from lots of different players. Everyone knows how volatile tournament poker can be so it is better to have lots of small pieces of many players rather than place all your eggs in one basket by buying a bigger chunk of just one.
What is marking up in poker?
When selling action some poker players will add a mark-up to the cost of buying action from them. This mark-up is to cover the player’s expenses such as travel, accommodation, and sustenance while they attend the poker event.
You can expect to see mark-ups ranging from an additional 1% right up to 1.6%, and sometimes more, depending on the player involved. Good players who know they have an edge in the game they plan to play, and unfortunately, some very arrogant players who also think they can will sell action at a higher mark-up as they know people will pay a premium to back someone who has a proven track record in similar events.
What is poker staking?
Staking is a little different from buying action in that the player involved will be playing the tournament however they won’t have contributed anything towards the cost of the buy-in for the event. Instead, they will have an investor (or backer) who will put up 100% of the cost of the entry fee and the player will just turn up and play.
Typically, in this situation, if the player does make it into the money they will only get to keep a small percentage of the winnings and the lion’s share will go to the investor. Percentage deals will usually range from 50/50 right through to 80/20 in the investor’s favour depending on the buy-in levels and any negotiations made between both parties involved.
When a player is staked, they have absolutely no risk to their bankroll as they don’t have to pay to play, all the risk sits with the investor. However, in some situations, a contract may be agreed upon where if a player who is staked goes on a bad losing streak, due to the sheer variance there is in poker or maybe they are just a bad player in general who should never have been staked in the first place, they may fall into what is known as ‘makeup’.
Makeup is basically a negative amount a player has accrued after being paid into a number of events however hasn’t managed to get into the money and return any profit to their investor. Typically, the agreement will be that from that point on the player will have to get out of makeup before they can take a cut from any future winnings won from any future investments.
What information should you be looking at?
Obviously, the main thing to look for in any player is whether they are any good or not. Now you’ll likely have seen players who are selling action throwing their ‘Hendon Mob’ profiles pages around like it’s a license for them to sell any amount of action at any mark-up cost. Although this is a great resource to check out a player’s previous results the numbers you see can be a bit hazy and sometimes inaccurate.
In general, you should treat buying action from any player like a formal business transaction. To do this you want to know as much information about the player’s previous results as possible (both good and bad). Rather than relying on them only showing you their best results which may only be that one tournament they binked 2 years ago for $50K which for all you know they were just running well at the time and they may have had 6 buy-ins to hit that score. Ask them where’s that $50K gone and how many tournaments and scores have they had since.
Using that example, if you were backing that particular guy at that time then that would’ve been a good return on your investment but only if you had action on all 6 bullets they had. When buying action from any player you’re making an investment and not punting. You want to know as much information about the player involved so we’d recommend you to ask questions like:
- What’s your current bankroll at now?
- Why are you selling action and not using money from your own bankroll?
- Can I see your entire results both wins and losses?
- How often do you play?
- Do you play live or online or both?
- How many buy-ins per tournament do you typically have?
- How often do you make it into the money?
- Are you part of any poker coaching program?
- Who are you currently learning from?
- Are you under any staking agreements with anyone?
Also, ask anything else that’s relevant that helps build trust and gives you confidence helping to paint a clearer picture of the player you’re investing in. Good players won’t just rely on online databases (which not all track or document all results) they will be keeping a disciplined track record (probably in Excel or Google Docs) of every game, cost of the buy-in, the number of re-entries, the position achieved and any cashes made. This may sound like a lot of work to your regular player, however, this should be the standard admin for anyone playing poker professionally who’s a good and honest player.
A bit about statistics and previous results available online
Sites such as thehendonmob.com are great however they are not always accurate and they only show winning results. They don’t show the player’s positions across all of the tournaments they’ve ever played which can make some players seem a lot better than they actually are. They also don’t show individual players’ entire winning results as some information doesn’t even get submitted by the cardroom where the tournament was held.
Another piece of information that I think should also be added is the number of re-entries that player has had in each tournament they participated in. The data is collected by each cardroom however only the players who make it into the money, the positions they placed in and the amount of money they won are transferred over to The Hendon Mob.
If you could see an individual player’s entire tournament performance do you think this may sway your decision to buy action from them? I know it would certainly affect my decision.
Do multiple re-entries or being staked make for a good investment?
When a player promotes their action for sale, as I touched upon earlier, they will happily send you to their Hendon Mob profile where you can see a list of all their results and cashes however what you don’t get to see are the number of attempts they made or if they had to pay out any of their winnings to a backer.
A player who plays tournament poker should be sickened to have to re-enter a tournament however re-entry structures are part and parcel of today’s game. Although no one plans to go fire multiple bullets at a tournament a player who is happy to re-enter a tournament should be making this part of their package when selling action.
Yes, it may cost the investor more money initially however if you only buy action on the first bullet and you find later on that the player went on to win the tournament and you get nothing back because they had more than one bullet will only leave you with a foul taste in your mouth. Also, you only have the player’s word that they had more than one bullet as this information hasn’t been logged anywhere.
A few examples to think about
Here are a few examples of situations where a player is playing a tournament and has sold a percentage of their action:
- Player sells 40% action on the first bullet of a $550 by-in event with no mark-up costing $220. The player places 10th cashing for $3500. In this situation the player would get to keep 60%/$2100 and 40%/$1400 is distributed amongst the people who bought the 40% action depending on how much they bought.
- Player sells 40% action on the first bullet of a $550 buy-in event with a mark-up of 1.2 to cover expenses costing $264. Player places 10th cashing for $3500. In this situation the player would get to keep 60%/$2100 and 40%/$1400 is distributed amongst the people who bought the 40% action depending on how much they bought however this time you get less back because the initial investment including the mark-up cost you more.
- Player sells 40% action on the first bullet of a $550 buy-in event with a mark-up of 1.2 to cover expenses costing $264. Player busts the first bullet however goes on to have a second, third and fourth bullet placing 10th and cashing for $3500. In this situation the player would get to keep 100%/$3500 however the profitability would only be $1300 because of the number of re-entries and the backers who bought the initial action get $0.
Final thoughts
Selling action and having a pool of people that you’re accountable for can help you as a player play much better in the tournament you’ve entered. However, whenever you’re selling action you should be honest and upfront about who you are, your full history of playing poker, and what you’re offering.
If you’re promoting yourself based on one big score you had last year however to enter that tournament you either 1) didn’t pay a penny towards the buy-in because you were staked and had to give 80% of anything you cashed to your backer or 2) you had a negative EV result because you fired 6 bullets at $550 each to only min-cash for $1000 giving you a -$2300 result. You really should be disclosing this information when you advertise your action.
From a buyer’s perspective, it’s down to you to find out as much information about any player you plan to buy action from and make sure what you’re investing in is sound. Players won’t talk about whether they were staked all last year, if they’re in makeup or if the average number of buy-ins they have for each event is high so you need to find this out – honest players will be open with you about this.
Make sure from both sides you stay safe and always protect yourselves from any bad investment or potential scam. If you can relate and found this useful please give this post a share and help make sure anyone you know who buys action from other players doesn’t fall foul or lose money to any possible bad situations.
