The first time I staked for live cash was in the very early days of Team Moshman.

Katie and I met Simon for the first time at our house in Maryland, and we drove up to Atlantic City to meet up with Kidkash and Grind4moniez at Borgata. I staked everyone at 60-40 (my favor) with no make-up, and everyone was up. By the end of the weekend, Kidkash somehow convinced me to let Grind sit the 40-80 LHE game, which he proceeded to crush for a couple hours before heading off to his room to get stoned.

That was my high point in live staking. I've subsequently staked players for NL cash from ½ to 5/10, limit games, and low-stakes live MTT. Most have lost, particularly in cash - in fact, all the longer-term live cash stakes have ended with me eating quite a bit of makeup.

The question is - has it just been running bad, or is there something else going on?

I was talking with a casual player about it, and he said he'd never stake live because a player could simply have a good session and report lower wins. It doesn't take any premeditation and is pretty much impossible to catch. Or possibly a player makes tracking mistakes that tend to be in his favor. Either way, unlike online, there aren't clear records outside of selected MTTs.

If I've backed you before live and you're reading this, definitely don't take that to mean that I think you've done anything wrong. I'd bet strongly that most I've backed haven't. Ultimately though, I need to fully back players I stake - if something's preventing me from having full confidence in a stake and what's going on, I don't think it's a good spot for either me or the horse.

Without turning this blog into some kind of infomerical, I'm definitely excited about our current online staking program with the stake mentor system, more organized shot-taking, and an active community focused around Skype chats. If the price is never being a Sheets/Bax style baller with 100 horses in the WSOP main event, then I'm good with that.

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