Outsourcing Poker

Shaman · #1 03-02-2005, 04:31 PM

This is just hypothetical.

What steps would you take to make a math PhD or chess wiz (or both) from a third world country good enough to make one big bet/hour per table 8-tabling at 4-8 holdem or lower?

Phd's in places like India and Thailand make less than $100 per month. Chess champions who are school dropouts make far less. What would you do to train them? How about if you just bankrolled them at microlimits and gave them good reading materials (having a PhD implies that they know how to study) so that they could just teach themselves? And when they're ready, you can make them play higher.

Better yet, you bankroll them at microlimits. Once they've built it up to a 2-4 bankroll, you start paying them a salary and bonuses. But not until they get to this level. Remember, many of these people make less than 100 bucks per month.

Are math PhDs and chess wizzes the best candidates in the first place?

steaknshake925 · #2 03-02-2005, 05:42 PM

You would probly have to make them sign contracts to play a certain number of years because after awhile they'd be smart enough to figure out that its more profitable to just play for themselves.

k_squared · #3 03-02-2005, 06:05 PM

No one who will have access to the resources to play poker online successfully will play for less money than they would make playing... especially at the limits you are talking about. They are seeing the bottom line that they are producing and they would have no need of you to bankroll them at those limits. They could build their own bankroll relatively quickly even to play at 2-4.... especially with bonuses.

It might work at higher limits, but then the bankroll risk is a lot higher... For example you could train and then pay people to play at 30-60 limit paying them a percentage of their winnings... because getting a bankroll to play that high is not easy, and they would probably make more money by just taking the percentage and playing for you then by playing at a lower limit...

But then the issue is that the difference between the difficulty in building a sufficient bankroll and the payoff needs to be in such a way that they make more by playing for you than by simply playing for themselves.

-k_squared

Shaman · #4 03-02-2005, 06:22 PM

You could lock them into you by paying them their share "commission" only after they have already played 10,000,000 hands or so. As long as they have not yet played this many hands, they'll just receive a very low salary of less than $100 per month. If they have already played their 4,000,000th hand, they are just going to have to conclude that they might as well go for 10,000,000.

But you have to be ready for their resignations once they hit this number because at that point, they'll just say "to hell with you for exploiting my dire financial situation".

dr_venkman · #5 03-02-2005, 06:41 PM

[ QUOTE ]
You would probly have to make them sign contracts to play a certain number of years because after awhile they'd be smart enough to figure out that its more profitable to just play for themselves.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't forget this is India and Thailand we're talking about. At the slightest inssurection you always have the option of beating your employees with a rattan cane.

BarronVangorToth · #6 03-02-2005, 07:33 PM

The key would be to have a level of middle management in the, er, middle, so that the people at the end didn't know what they were making. Just that they had to "play well."

Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com

Shaman · #7 03-02-2005, 07:46 PM

You have perked up my curiousity! But the question is, How would you do that?

And how would the people in the end know how well they are playing if they do not have access to their own long term results? Should the middle manager just give them grades like, "You scored a B+ in the past 500,000 hands"?

irongarden · #8 03-02-2005, 07:48 PM

[ QUOTE ]
You would probly have to make them sign contracts to play a certain number of years because after awhile they'd be smart enough to figure out that its more profitable to just play for themselves.

[/ QUOTE ]

The problem is that such contracts are basically unenforcable in 3rd world countries. If someone is smart enough to play poker for you in Bangkok, he's also smart enough to take the first $100 you give him and start building a bankroll at Microlimits.

The only thing going in your favor is that doing the type of banking required to play from Thailand isn't trivial. Neteller won't let you withdraw from Thailand, and you can't do online checks with Thai banks.

JihadOnTheRiver · #9 03-02-2005, 08:10 PM

Dangle a bowl of rice in front of the computer and break out the whip...

-Durka Durka

BluffTHIS! · #10 03-02-2005, 10:04 PM

Well then hypothetically what you do is to ship them to a remote island in the pacific with no regualer forms of transportation, a container load of computers and poker books, seeds for growing their own vegetables and fish hooks for catching same, several bicycle powered generators to provide electricity and of course a satellite T1 line. Now then, you make them sign contracts for the cost of getting them there and all the materials, and charge in the neighborhood of 75% interest compounded monthly. You promise them that when they have worked off their debt, you will deposit them with their new-found poker pro abilities, back to a port in their home countries with 10K cash in their pockets. However since they have no chance of working this debt off even making 10bb/hour, you also ship in women to work the fields and provide the next generation of your poker slaves. All you have to figure out is what ominous sounding name to go by as their king/owner.