Re: Where is the money coming from in high stakes poker?
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Read "The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King." It's the story of the largest game ever. Andy Beal lost well over $10,000,000 to the world's greatest players.
He is just an extreme case. LOTS of people have more money than brains. We call them "Whales" because they are much bigger than mere fish.
In the past most of them played craps, roulette, etc. Now that poker is fashionable, some of them play poker. A few of them take lessons and become reasonably competent, but some of them are as outmatched in the big games as the newbies are in the tiny ones. In fact, occasionally someone gets drunk in a big game and throws money away just like a drunken tourist in a small game.
David Sklansky has written quite a bit about the way that the players in the really big games all live off a few fish. They don't have much edge over each other, but they have a huge edge against the fish.
Regards,
Alan
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I think it is highly inaccurate to describe andy beal as having "more money than brains." He's such a highly successful businessman, that coming up with 10M or whatever for his match with the pros was easy. The top poker players in the world however, had a tough time with it, had to pool their bankrolls, and still had to get him to reduce the stakes.
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