Something interesting happened to me the other day...  A long time blog reader emailed me and asked me if I wanted to stake him.  For the non-poker players out there, a "stake" is where one person puts up the cash and another person plays.  It's not that different from when I was a trader.  The bank theoretically gave me a "bankroll" ("capital"), and I used that money to make more money, and they paid me a share of what I made (usually 10-12%).  Maybe I'll talk about how this worked in a later post, in case people are curious how this works in finance.

In a nutshell, he has a full time job, lost a small chunk on FT, promised someone not to deposit until the landscape became clearer, hasn't played since then, and is now getting the itch to play.  I hadn't really thought about staking before, but after some thought, I figured why not?

Having basically raised myself in NYC, I'm not some clueless schlub.  New Yorkers are cynics by nature.  But at the end of the day, I think it could be "interesting" and we're not talking about a lot of money (maybe just a few grand).  And what can I say, I like my loyal readers.

So what's in it for me?
* Allegedly staking "can" be profitable if you find the right people - I seem to be getting some mixed reviews on this.
* I get another pseudo-member in the Poker Coop.  The benefits are different, but the more the merrier.
* I want to see if I can help a marginal winning player be a better player.  I helped "Mark" last year, but I'll have a little more at stake with this one.  When I was a little kid, I always wanted to be a teacher.  That was before I later found out how much they made.  LOL.
* Breaks up the monotony of watching the interest rate curve do nothing all day.
* Maybe I make a poker buddy.

What's in it for him?
* Zero risk of bankroll loss from DOJ or other site-related issues, since it's all my money.
* Zero risk of poker losses. It's like buying a (smaller quantity) call option on a stock instead of buying the stock itself.  Upside with no downside.
* Free leak-finding, some hand analysis and other pseudo-coaching.  He had a million hands on PTR and was a little better than flat over the last several hundred thousand hands at nl200 on FT.  I think the Merge nl100 games might be comparable to those games.  When your win rate is close to zero, 50-70% of something is better than 100% of nothing.
* Free cashouts.  Considering my last Lock cashouts are taking 7 weeks (poker side) and 13 weeks (casino side) AND COUNTING!!!, this is no small benefit.  Just one poker player trading with another poker player, in case anyone from the DOJ is reading.  ;-)

I think you could easily argue that the above is worth at least 30%.  I mean people are regularly paying 15% on 2+2 for every cashout, small to mid stakes coaching isn't cheap (even tho I'm not offering "full" coaching, but that's still worth something - we cover a little bit every month), and he has ZERO financial downside in a volatile and challenging market.  Anyway, we're going to start at 50-50 (winnings+VIP benefits+BBJ; he gets deposit bonus and other minor promos) and see where that goes.

It seemed like it could be win-win.  But in a few months I may be singing a different tune.  But hey!  Sometimes you have to try something to know.

Like that's what I told Mrs. Fly about those hand cuffs and the duct tape, before she punched me in the head.  Eh hem.

I'm starting to talk to another blog reader, so maybe this will make for some interesting posts.