2024 World Series of Poker Package – Your Chance to Buy a “Piece” of My WSOP Action

It’s time! I am once again offering the opportunity to buy a “piece” of my action in the 2024 World Series of Poker. In each of the last two years, I have sold out in less than 24 hours, so if you’re interested, read the details below and contact me ASAP.

Here is a very rough plan of the events I intend to play, as well as the number of buy-ins I am planning for:

So the total package this year is $45,000. In other words, that’s the absolute maximum I would spend on buy-ins as part of this package. In reality, I’m likely to spend a good bit less. Maybe even half that much. But don’t worry–you will get refunded a proportional amount according to the exact total I spend on buy-ins. For example, if I only spend $30,000 on buy-ins, you will get a 33.33% refund even if I don’t win a penny on any of the events I play.

Of course, with a schedule this complex, I will certainly have to make adjustments on the fly. If I run deep in one tournament, it might prevent me from entering others. If I’m just not feeling up to it for whatever reason, I might make a game-time decision to skip some events. If I find myself in the middle of a highly profitable cash game, I’m probably not going to stop (or go to bed early) just to squeeze in one of the smaller tournaments.

On the other hand, I am also likely to add in an unplanned event or two (potentially including some of the many events at other venues around Vegas). Or I might even fire an extra bullet at some event if I believe it makes sense. And if you look carefully, you’ll notice that I haven’t planned any buy-in between my Day 1 and Day 4 of the Main Event. So if disaster strikes early for me in the Main, I will certainly be firing a few other events not on this plan.

There are several other important things to note, and caveats to be aware of:

• This is only available to my personal friends and family, and only those having a US Social Security Number or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number. (Sorry, I don’t make the tax laws.)

• I’m selling this action for a few reasons:
  • Because many of you asked
  • It’s fun to know I have some interested fans cheering me on
  • It does help reduce variance, which is really massive in tournament poker (for the same reason, I am also personally taking action on several other players in various WSOP events)

• I regularly play poker cash games at a wide range of stakes, and I have been a solid winner at cash games for many years now. But I am much less experienced at tournament poker, and the difference between tournaments and cash games is bigger than most people realize. I have cashed several WSOP events over the years, as well as some other tournaments. So I know I can do it, but I don’t have enough actual tournament results to say anything statistically significant about how profitable (or not) I actually am.

• From a purely financial point of view, I’d prefer to have 100% of my own action here because I think it’s a slightly positive expected value (+EV) investment. In other words, I believe I’m a slightly overall winning player at the levels I’ll be playing, and the more I personally “invest,” the more I can be expected to “profit.”

• For those who don’t know, the absolute best tournament poker players in the world can produce a return on investment (ROI) over the long run exceeding 50%. Most solid pros are in the range of 25-30% ROI. That is, for every dollar they use to buy into a tournament, on average, they will get back $1.25 to $1.30 in payouts. Obviously, the vast majority of players are net losers lifetime. If you pressed me, I would guess my ROI in these fields to be in the neighborhood of 5-10%, maybe a little better on my best days. Of course, I wouldn’t be the first poker player to over-estimate my own skills, and I could be way off base. 🙂

• I am making this offer at zero markup. In other words, you will receive a percentage of net winnings exactly equal to your percentage of the buy-in cost paid. (Most pros charge a markup of 20-30%, commensurate with their expected ROI.)

• Minimum share this year is 0.5% of the package, or $225. The maximum is 2.00% ($900). If I get a big response (in each of the last two years, I sold out in less than 24 hours), I might have to lower the cap to 1.50 or even 1.00%. I’d like to keep the total action I sell to under 25%, and I am setting an absolute hard cap of 30% ($13,500). In other words, I will have at least 70% of my own action in any case.

• Again, I reserve the right to make adjustments to the plan above in whatever way I think is best for maximizing profit. But your percentage of the total will not change, and I will not exceed the total buy-in budget of $45,000. In fact, it’s likely that the total budget will be considerably less, and you will receive a proportional rebate in addition to any share of the winnings.

• This offer does not include any cash game action. Sorry. The primary reason for this is that there is not really any good way to prove the dollar amounts in or out.

• Please understand that tournament poker is very high risk and high variance from a financial point of view–much more so than poker cash games. There is absolutely no guarantee of any return. If you choose to participate, please use only money that you are fully willing and able to lose without creating any financial hardship (or even worse, hard feelings against me!).

• At WSOP events, 85% of the players in any given tournament do not cash anything, and thus lose their entire buy-in. So if you assume I am an average player in this field, then the most likely outcome in any given event is that I lose the buy-in and do not make any profit. Actually, this is true even for the very best of the best players. Since an average player at random would be expected to cash 15% of the time, you might be surprised to learn that some of the best players actually cash at a rate of 13-14%. They simply play in a way that reduces their odds of making a min cash, but maximizes their chances to win, or at least finish in one of the top positions. And the very top is where all the real money is made. To give you an idea, if you finish just inside the top 15% at the Main Event, you win $15,000. But if you finish in 10th place, you will make close to $1,000,000. And the winner gets ten times that!

• In short, tournament poker involves a lot of losing. Over and over again. Every now and then, you make a small score, and on very rare occasions, you hit a big score that more than makes up for all the losing. But the normal expectation is that you’re going to lose. I can’t imagine the life of those poker pros who play only tournaments.

• Prior to 2022, I was admittedly playing a style in tournaments that improved my chances of making a “min cash,” just squeaking in to the top 13-15%. But that also limited my opportunities to make a really big score. I cashed in a very high 60% of the tournaments I entered, but made nearly the minimum payout every time I did cash.

• At WSOP 2022, I started playing a more aggressive, higher-variance style that gives me a better chance at the big money, but also increases the chances that I bust out with nothing. I made the top 2.5% in one tournament that year (my smallest buy-in, unfortunately), and busted out of all the others. I entered two small tournaments in the Philippines in early 2023 and cashed both of them, making the final table in one, and having the third biggest stack at the end of Day 1 in the other. My results for WSOP 2023 were a bit better, having made a little money in 5 of the 19 bullets I fired. Unfortunately, all my cashes were relatively small. I know I have a lot of room to improve, but I feel like I’m on the right track, and I am definitely playing in a way that improves the chances of a nice profit for all of us.

• IMPORTANT: For a number of reasons, I am requiring everyone who participates to sign a simple contract. I will make it very easy for electronic signature via Docusign. As part of that contract, you must agree that you will provide me with an IRS Form W-9 if requested. And because of the way Caesars handles payouts and taxes, if I win more than $5000 in any given event, I will be making this request of you. Then I will have to send you a 1099-MISC at the end of the year, and you will have to be sure you claim the profit on your tax return. The other bad option is that I take 50% of your winnings and pay your taxes out of that. Trust me, I don’t like this any more than you do, but this is how taxes work for anyone under the boot of the IRS.

• I will be posting live updates throughout the WSOP on X (Twitter) @N4GN. Feel free to follow the action there and cheer me on. I will probably post updates from time to time on Facebook, Instagram, Truth, Nostr, etc., but those will be far less frequent. If you really want to be among the first to know, you can hit the little bell icon in the X app to turn on notifications on your phone every time I post.

If you’re interested in participating, please contact me directly with any questions. If you are ready to participate, I will need two pieces of information from you:

1. Your e-mail address (where I will send the contract via Docusign)
2. The maximum size of the stake you would like to make (recognizing that we might have to reduce it, depending on demand):
   • 0.50% – $225.00
   • 1.00% – $450.00
   • 1.50% – $675.00
   • 2.00% – $900.00

Once I have your e-mail and we have confirmed the staking amount, you will receive an e-mail with link to sign the contract via Docusign. Once the contract is complete, you can send your staking funds using a wide array of payment methods. Please do not send payment until we have confirmed the amount of the stake. My first entry is expected to be 29 June. So I will need all contracts executed and payments completed by 28 June, or I will have to cancel your stake.