OK. Here is the answer I promise last week. But first, the question from the Forum:

Question: Now that most ‘big name’ tournament pros have deals with on-line sites does anyone know if these deals routinely include the sites sites paying the buy-ins for these players so they are no longer risking their own money?

Anyone else have a problem with this? I’m sure I would play tournaments very differently if I wasn’t risking any of my own money … .

Answer: First, I have no problem with it. If someone wants to pay my way into events, I would play, too. Freerolls are hard to turn down.

But I do have n answer of sorts as to the motives of sponsored players. Not surprisingly, the answer is (ready?) “It depends.”

Pretty much every pro has a different contract. Terms such as length, amount of sponsorship, amount of garb required to be worn, number and types of events, other duties (press conferences, sponsor meetings, playing time on the dot-net site) are all variables. A player with a huge name tends to get a long term deal with a lot of money and entries. Lesser players will get less. Some marginal players (not by talent, but by public recognition) will only get paid if they reach a televised final table and have to pay their own way into each event.

So contracts vary. The one primary constant, much like it is in politics, is that one you get a contract (get elected) your primary thought is to get it renewed or improved. And that means generating results.

If a site pays your way into fifteen events, and you bomb out in all of them, you can easily be dropped. Of course,if you have something else going for you, such international recognition, or, say, being the most visible and popular player in your own nation, you have better chances. Cooperation with ancillary demands and representing the brand well also helps.

So the pressure on most pros to perform is enormous. If someone goes zero for a world series, their entire status is in jeopardy. So cashing and making final tables is far more important to sponsored pros that it is to players who just win a satellite or play on their own dime.

The most prominent pros have slightly less pressure, but the majority of contract players feel the clock ticking often. Most contracts are one or two years, and that is not a lot of time to preform to expectations.

Would they play differently with their own money? If that implies that can take more chances to win big since their next entry is guaranteed, I do not think so. They need to show results, and that includes cashing, as much as anyone else, in my opinion.

I remember why I do not play tournaments very often.. As you recall, during BARGE we play a number of tournaments. I entered three, and as luck would have it, I won one of them!

It was the “TOC” tournament, with a format based on the Tournament of Champions Mike Sexton developed and ran for two years. Mike was a major pioneer in this, and his vision of international poker tournaments where only winners of other tournaments were allowed to enter was a terrific one.

Anyway, the format is alternating rounds of limit hold’em, Omaha eight-or-better, and stud high for most of the event, followed by No Limit hold’em for the final two or three tables. It is nice test of all-around skill, and I am proud to have won it (167 participants). However, the event started at 10:00 AM, and ended at 11:00 PM. This totally knocked my out for a couple of days. I went to the next day’s event (No Limit tournament), got knocked out in the first two hours,and went back home to sleep.

I awoke in time for the banquet, and then played a variant of pot limit Omaha (which we call Bing-la-ha after Bingo Reick who invented it), which is a PLO except after the flop betting, the dealer rolls a die to determine whether the rest of the hand will be played high-only or high-low. We play it with $1-$2 blinds and a “mandatory” $5 straddle, and several thousand (at least) on the table. I played three hours, won a bit, then slept all the next day as well.

I was planning to use this Thought to answer a question that came up in the forum regarding whether sponsored players play differently than they would if they played their own money. I had no idea, never being sponsored, but I asked around and found out an answer. I will post it here next week. Tune in.