So you think online poker is a one-man game? Think again. Meet team Bad Beat the poker pack hunting down the masses
The next time you fire up a game on your favourite online poker site, try and imagine the following scenario: one of the players at your table knows the intricacies of your play. He knows whether you like to continuation bet on a draw heavy board and how often you value bet on the river.
On top of that, one of the top pros in the world is sitting next to him, giving him advice on each and every hand. But, to cap it all off, this player plays without fear because none of the money he is sitting at the table with is his.
If this sounds worrying, it should – because this group of players already exists in the shape of a hi-tech poker team called Bad Beat.
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
Chris Smith and John Conroy hatched the idea for Bad Beat two years ago. Smith was a principle in a commodity trading company, Conroy a software developer from Dublin. Their common link was that they shared a passion for online poker, and Smith recognised there were distinct parallels between online poker and commodity trading.
Over time, the two men came up with the idea of setting up a $5 million poker hedge fund, which would serve as a bankroll to winning online poker players. The players would put in 30%, the company would put in the remaining balance and the player would take 70% of the profits.
Twenty high profile online players were invited to join the experiment with bankrolls ranging from $1,000 to $120,000. One of them was Jon ‘Skalie’ Kalmar – who recently finished fifth in the World Series of Poker main event.
Another well- known name was British pro Richard Redmond. Redmond started on $40,000, but admits that at times this ‘golden handshake’ was too much to handle, saying: ‘There was this immediate inclination to step up just because you were bankrolled.’ Although Redmond avoided making that mistake – running his bankroll up to $300,000 – he recalls how one of the traders had ‘catastrophic losses’.
Despite this, the business evolved, and started to set daily loss limits for each player. And over time, Bad Beat has turned into a highly lucrative and relatively low-risk business.
‘The $5m hedge fund could grow to $500m, because it’s all based on what can and can’t be predicted,’ says Redmond. ‘It isn’t even as volatile as the stock market. It may be affected by legislation, but as a business model, it’s bullet-proof.’
TALENT SPOTTING
You may think the candidate or ‘trainee trader’ programme is solely for the highest rolling player. But Conroy explains that the entire premise of Bad Beat is about nurturing talent. ‘We’re not interested in somebody like Johnny Lodden who’s looking to get kick-started again [Lodden is rumoured to have lost his multi-million dollar bankroll].
If he came to us, we’d make him play $5/$10, $10/$20 for 30 days to show he’s got some appetite. If you’re a 1¢/2¢ player and start off with a bankroll of $2 and your bankroll is now $35, that’s more interesting to us than if you’re a 25¢/50¢ player with a starting bankroll of $50 who has taken it up to $150.
‘Even if you lose it as quickly as you made it,’ Conroy continues, ‘if we see you’ve got a great ability to accumulate – but no bankroll management skills – that’s appealing for us. We want people who are aware of their flaws and want to become consistent. We can bring in bankroll management, mentoring and professionalism.’
As well as the aforementioned Skalie, Marc Goodwin is also one of the bankrolled players. But ‘Mr Cool’ also teaches, acting as head mentor with several proteges under his wing. In fact, Redmond is one of them. ‘Marc teaches me Omaha. It’s a reciprocal arrangement. It’s not that you’re being told what to do, you’re just sharing what you’re doing.’
But perhaps the most fearsome aspect of Bad Beat is its insistence on marrying the best poker minds in the world with the latest technology. ‘For the player on the outside, it’s a terrifying prospect,’ says Redmond. ‘Not only have you got the collective think-tank, you’ve got all our tools to fight against.’
According to Conroy, it took a five-man strong team six months and over a quarter of a million pounds to develop all the technology they have in place. He explains how one of their patented programs, ‘Fish Farm’, allows a mentor to look through the biggest winning and losing hands of one of his players. ‘He can look at the last 24 hours, last 48 hours’, says Conroy. ‘It saves people trying to read through hand histories.’
The real value, Conroy adds, is that players have to look honestly at their own performances. ‘The truth is that only 5% of poker players win over time. When it’s public and your mentor knows, you have to face it.’
Ultimately, Bad Beat’s mission is to create an unstoppable online team. ‘We’re gradually pruning the plant,’ says Conroy. ‘What we’ll be left with is the buds that will flourish.’
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