Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

My backer and I can't figure out what to do. I'm in make-up a decent amount, and want to play some upcoming circuit prelims for $300-$1k. The issue is, I'd basically have to get 1st or 2nd for me to get out of make-up, so I have little to no incentive to play because these are such small buy-ins and fields compared to the $10ks.

I obviously want to be staked for $10ks and higher buy-ins, but I would like to play these smaller prize-pool live tournaments as well. Unfortunately it's not really in either of our best interests for me to play in these with so little to play for, I mean it'd just be way too demoralizing to get 5th or something and not even get anything out of it.

So my question is, what's a good solution? I mean I'm willing to pay my own entries, however I feel that's a little unfair to him and don't want to mess up the relationship going forward.

Is there a good way we can make it so I get some kind of percentage of the cash for these 5 tournaments, or pay some of the entry myself? What's a good solution in a situation like this?

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

huh?

why would you have no incentive?

don't you want to erase your current deep make-up?

am i not understanding something about how these deals work?

it sounds like you want to continue with the arrangement...

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

Yeah, pretty confusing there.

If your backer is going to back you and continue doing so, you have to play no matter what the prize pool is really. You can't get out of make up by NOT playing. I think you saying 'getting 5th and nothing out of it' is just ridiculous. Be happy you're being backed and would be able to pay your make-up with a FT and/or 5th place finish. That's just a foolish comment IMO.

And obviously if you're playing $300-$1K circuit events and are in a pretty big make-up situation, jumping $10K events and praying won't help anything. Moving up levels like that almost never does, unless you're Jamie Gold or Yang.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

Clearly you aren't understanding the situation.

Do you not see that it would be incredibly demoralizing to play in a tournament knowing you see no cash unless you win? Do you not see how this will affect my play?

Do you not see how it inherently leads to me wanting to gamble it up and go for first, which is obviously bad for both me and my backer?

Yes, I have to get out of make-up, but the issue is the make-up was made by playing bigger buy-ins, and 1 decent cash in a bigger buy-in and the make-up is gone. OTOH, in a small event that's only say a $300 buy-in where the prize pool isn't even $100k total, only the top two places really make a difference.

It's an inherent problem with being backed in a variety of buy-ins, and it's also a major problem with backing arrangements to begin with. If I'm down $15k (I think that's about what I'm in make-up, mostly from the ME), why would I want to play a $300 tournament where 2nd place isn't even $20k?

Don't you see the problem here? I can play online and get in hundreds of dollars worth of tournaments on my own bankroll with major +EV for me.

If I instead play a $300 live tournament that I have to get first to even see anything out of, well, that's just not a logical choice. Yes I understand eventually I have to get out of make-up, but also understand while in make-up 100% of wins go to my backer and when my largest win barely gets out of make-up, well psychologically it just isn't a good idea for myself.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

If you expect to be dealing with this backer for a long time, and you expect to eventually cash in a big event, you'll get whatever your share is after makeup. Being down $10k less in makeup will earn you that much more. This is simple/obvious.

It sounds like the real problem is that you feel that $300 live tournaments aren't worth your time. You're probably right.

But the backing/makup element doesn't really make sense IMO.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

Well, obviously your view of poker and mine are different.

I play simply to play, I love poker and not the money side of it. I think if you love to play poker, you can go in with the exact same mindset as if you were playing the Main Event. Many sports teams and players go in with the mindset (even though it may be just another regular old game) that this is the World Series, this is the SuperBowl, the Finals, etc. etc.

As I said, you may be playing for a living or to see serious cash or what not, but I'm not and that is why we differ in opinions. I don't see how anyone can say that $300 tournaments are useless. You should be playing with the exact same mindset no matter what, there may be a few more fish or donks in the lower ones, but you should be happy with them if you're a good poker player.

This is why I think Chris Ferguson is one of the best in the world - he doesn't care if he's playing a freeroll or the ME, he's still Chris Ferguson and will play hard every time.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

Just think of them as sattelites to bigger events. It makes backers much more likely to back you if you are willing to work your way out of makeup.

I also know almost nothing about the vegas non wsop tournament schedule. But there have to be some 1k events w/ more than 20k for first (bellagio?)

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

OP,

my advice would be to stop being a fishcake and payback your makeup witha win. ship

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

yeah for real, "not worth your time?" what other means do you have to pay back your backer. just play good or dont get staked jesus

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

you should be able to play knowing it's just working off your makeup...

you gotta get rid of it sometime right?

alternative would be to renegotiate to remove some makeup, but take a smaller % of the eventual profits?

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

Working off your make-up is as good as earning cash, if this arrangement is for the long term.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

am i the only one who thinks this is lewis carroll "through the looking glass" stuff ?

you have an agreement with a backer where you have significant make-up to attend to before you see cash. you state you want to play these lower prelims (he's not forcing you to play them), but you want the make-up not to apply to them ??? wtf ???

i'm not a very good player, but i did run my own small corporation for 29 years, so i know a little something about partnerships and employer/employee relations.

your backer assumes all the risk. you put up your time and expertise for a piece of the net. implicit in this deal is your backer has the reasonable expectation you will play your "best" game every time you sit down with his money riding. unless you have an agreement to the contrary, and he allows you to play on the side for your own money, he's in and you are morally obligated to play your very best.


for you to say you wouldn't play your best and rather gambool it up or it wasn't worth your time if you weren't participating in the cash profits of that smaller tourney would be a firing offense if i were your backer.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

+1 to bob

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

The good solution is to work your makeup off, I mean if youre stuck 20k and you cash for 15k, now youre only stuck 5k, I don't see how this isn't a good thing. I had a guy stuck over 30k the day he won the $10r for 10k, it all helps even if you don't get any of it in your pocket. I would hate for any of my players to take this stance when stuck deep in makeup.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

it's just part of being backed. the only way to get out of makeup is to keep playing

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

Yeah if you have to play only to get profit out of a win you shouldn't be playing tournaments. I was in an enourmous amount of makeup, won the stuper, stil had an enormous amount of makeup. Yes, it is demoralizing, but I don't play for fun. I play for a living which constitutes me doing whatever is most profitable. Now, if you just play as a hobby, then I'd only play what you had fun playing. Me, I play for a living so I have to play whatever I'm +EV in to pay the bills. If you can't play knowing it's all going towards you eventually winning money then you shouldn't play tournaments backed.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

[ QUOTE ]
+1 to bob

[/ QUOTE ]
+2 Bobarino

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

Meh sorry I brought it up, but does anyone else not just think it's bad from a psychological stand-point making you play less than your best game?

I obviously understand I have to get out of make-up, and in the end cashing in a smaller event IS the same, yes, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. Tournament poker/variance is pretty tough to learn how to handle to begin with, much less in a situation where you don't stand to gain any immediate benefit even if you do overcome the odds to outlast everyone.

There was a thread on here a while back about paying out a small % of every cash, and this was brought up for the same essential reason.


And yes this is also partially because I see these and think to myself that I could play more in EV online in a day, so maybe they aren't worth my time at all to begin with.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

I understand your point as well, but I think playing any different is just foolish. Again, I refer to sports - players play their toughest when it counts and they still play hard no matter what, they don't come to a game saying 'Meh, maybe I'll just not try today' and I think you have to have the same mentality. Personally, when I play live, I'm there to play live - everything else gets erased and I'm here to play poker, I don't even think about the money I think about beating and winning, even though that may sound corny or whatever you'd like to call it.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

you can negotiate with your backer to get a small % of your winnings if you want, just compensate him elsewhere in the deal for it. This should bea conversation between you and your backer; tell him your concerns, work somethign out.. or you could just work it off like normal.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

[ QUOTE ]
am i the only one who thinks this is lewis carroll "through the looking glass" stuff ?

you have an agreement with a backer where you have significant make-up to attend to before you see cash. you state you want to play these lower prelims (he's not forcing you to play them), but you want the make-up not to apply to them ??? wtf ???

i'm not a very good player, but i did run my own small corporation for 29 years, so i know a little something about partnerships and employer/employee relations.

your backer assumes all the risk. you put up your time and expertise for a piece of the net. implicit in this deal is your backer has the reasonable expectation you will play your "best" game every time you sit down with his money riding. unless you have an agreement to the contrary, and he allows you to play on the side for your own money, he's in and you are morally obligated to play your very best.


for you to say you wouldn't play your best and rather gambool it up or it wasn't worth your time if you weren't participating in the cash profits of that smaller tourney would be a firing offense if i were your backer.

[/ QUOTE ]

The issue is I have a backer for bigger buy-ins that I obviously am not rolled to play in. This I consider to be like $500+. I will probably be playing some big buy-ins in the future, $10ks, etc. So far I have only played 1 major, a handful of other WSOPs and some other various $500+ tourneys.

You're right, he didn't "ask" me to play these events per se, and I don't have to play them. I would kind of like to play live again before I play another major since it's been a while so I thought I would go to these circuit pre-lims which I played in last year (bought my own way in). I guess just the issue with me is I got backing for bigger buy-ins that I can't afford, but it's obviously not fair to play in these on my own bankroll, so is there any better solution available?

I mean, the alternative is I play online all day on my own bankroll, so isn't it better for him to somehow at least split the action with me? I'm willing to pay for part of the buy-ins for these tournaments for a part of immediate winnings, does that not seem fair to essentially "buy back" a piece of myself?

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

[ QUOTE ]
you can negotiate with your backer to get a small % of your winnings if you want, just compensate him elsewhere in the deal for it. This should bea conversation between you and your backer; tell him your concerns, work somethign out.. or you could just work it off like normal.

[/ QUOTE ]

I understand it's something we need to work out between us, I was just wondering if there was some sort of standard for this, as neither of us really knew of a good way to solve it but we both obviously want to be fair about it.

As I said this is the first staking deal I've ever had, I'm not sure what's "kosher."

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

You said earlier that you can play online rather than live and make more money than playing live and paying make-up. Why not ask your backer if he is willing to put you in the bigger online events like the 100+rebuys, Sunday majors, and 1K weekly's. Then you can play the stakes you normally play and some bigger MTT's that give you the shot at $20K+ wins you're looking for.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

The way makeup is usually enforced, is one of the reasons staking arrangements will typically fail. (I am speaking in total, on average, there are many many exceptions).

The whole point of a contract like this, is to keep everyone's incentives perfectly aligned. What I suggested in an earlier thread is to have some sort of sliding scale. The deeper underwater you are, the smaller % of your winnings you get, but always a reasonable share (10-20% maybe). The backer may make more in the short run with a full makeup, but having a fully motivated player will always work out best in the long run.

FWIW, I see everyone's point about just playing your way out of a make-up. But, you are just ignoring human nature. People should treat 30k less debt = 30k in cash, but they don't. It doesn't happen in basically any of the average person's financial dealings.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

[ QUOTE ]
. If I'm down $15k (I think that's about what I'm in make-up, mostly from the ME), why would I want to play a $300 tournament where 2nd place isn't even $20k?

[/ QUOTE ]

Huh? Based on your OP, I figured makeup was much higher...in this case, any $300 or $500 prizepool should offer plenty of incentive to scratch that makeup figure out.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Clearly you aren't understanding the situation.

Do you not see that it would be incredibly demoralizing to play in a tournament knowing you see no cash unless you win? Do you not see how this will affect my play?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I think he understands it clearly. I think your mind is a little warped because having this mindset makes you a pretty poor investment imo.

Part of making profit means eliminating makeup, and if that means playing tournaments where if you finish third you still make no money, then so what. You're just that closer to making money of your own.

This reverse martingale mindset of yours is hazardous imo. Just work the grind, and play until the makeup is erased. 300 dollar tournaments, 1k tournaments, the nightly $162, whatever.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah if you have to play only to get profit out of a win you shouldn't be playing tournaments. I was in an enourmous amount of makeup, won the stuper, stil had an enormous amount of makeup. Yes, it is demoralizing, but I don't play for fun. I play for a living which constitutes me doing whatever is most profitable. Now, if you just play as a hobby, then I'd only play what you had fun playing. Me, I play for a living so I have to play whatever I'm +EV in to pay the bills. If you can't play knowing it's all going towards you eventually winning money then you shouldn't play tournaments backed.

[/ QUOTE ]

this did a better job explaining it than me, didnt read it first go round. listen 2 randal.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

[ QUOTE ]
You're right, he didn't "ask" me to play these events per se, and I don't have to play them. I would kind of like to play live again before I play another major since it's been a while so I thought I would go to these circuit pre-lims which I played in last year (bought my own way in). I guess just the issue with me is I got backing for bigger buy-ins that I can't afford, but it's obviously not fair to play in these on my own bankroll, so is there any better solution available?

I mean, the alternative is I play online all day on my own bankroll, so isn't it better for him to somehow at least split the action with me? I'm willing to pay for part of the buy-ins for these tournaments for a part of immediate winnings, does that not seem fair to essentially "buy back" a piece of myself?

[/ QUOTE ]


maybe because i'm an "old guy" i see things like this in black and white.

it seems to me, you entered into an agreement with someone who is putting up money you cannot afford to play for and is giving you a very big shot compared to what your roi on stars would dictate.

when things get a little rough, you really have no moral right to whine that you are obligated to make up the money you lost before you see cash.

i don't know how else to put it without sounding mean, but you have to man-up to your responsibility here. you entered into an agreement with a man, now fulfill your end of it.

you ask if there is a way to buy back part of yourself. sure their is... go out and borrow the 15 dimes and pay the man back and then start over with the original deal. either that, or work it off by playing and winning to get back to zero. this is business.... you cannot expect to buy back part of yourself with your good looks for collateral.

you really should be thankful you have a backer that will allow you to take some shots at making a real breakout in this game. i wouldn't go too far with this line of thinking if i was you. he might not take kindly to it for very long.

which reminds me of one of the albums of 1970 "lady of the canyon" by joni mitchell. in it , she has a song about relationships called "big yellow taxi". the last verse goes thusly :

Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man
Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

[ QUOTE ]

it seems to me, you entered into an agreement with someone who is putting up money you cannot afford to play for and is giving you a very big shot compared to what your roi on stars would dictate.

when things get a little rough, you really have no moral right to whine that you are obligated to make up the money you lost before you see cash.

[/ QUOTE ]

Huh? For the record just so you know we have never had any written or official agreement. He's a friend of mine and offered to stake me over the summer in bigger buy-ins live, and now that has continued after the summer. This is also a reason why this is a situation because there is no set deal like "I'm going to play $X in buy-ins" or "I'm going to play Y amount of tournaments." I accepted this offer obviously but we never had anything set as to what I was playing under him. At the time I played whatever I wanted online, and continue to play anything I want to online under my own bankroll.

That's another reason why I'm not sure what to do because where's the cut-off? I can play the Sunday Majors under my own roll, and do sometimes. Should he be staking me in that , too, to be fair? As I said I feel comfortable bank-roll wise putting myself in these tournaments but I'm not going to do that because I don't think it's fair to my backer, is it fair if I won 100k online for instance in the Mil?

And I'm not sure why you guys are giving me a hard-time, it's not like I'm saying I'm running off or trying to erase my make-up to 0, that's not what I'm doing at all. Obviously I'm going to try to play out of make-up and I feel worse about losing someone elses' money than I do about losing my own. Quite frankly Bob, you're being a huge jerk which is completely unwarranted and from someone that I've never even seen post before.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
. If I'm down $15k (I think that's about what I'm in make-up, mostly from the ME), why would I want to play a $300 tournament where 2nd place isn't even $20k?

[/ QUOTE ]

Huh? Based on your OP, I figured makeup was much higher...in this case, any $300 or $500 prizepool should offer plenty of incentive to scratch that makeup figure out.

[/ QUOTE ]

I looked at prizepools for similar circuit events this year and first place has been low 30s, meaning only 1st or 2nd would get me out of make-up.

As I said that make-up was from WSOP prelims, the Main Event (most of it obv), and other $2k buy-ins. I would like to play some live again before playing anything bigger, but I just don't think I will be motivated enough to play in a tournament with this situation as I'm not going to be playing my best, and I just feel like I would feel so awful playing all day and not getting anything out of it.

And before you quote me saying "not getting anything out of it" and go off, trust me I know I am getting something out of it, and paying off make-up is something I have to do. I know this. I was in make-up over summer and won a $1k event which got me out of make-up (temporarily, before the ME). I know the feeling to play 12+ hours, get paid, then give it all back to my backer. I'm okay with that, but again it's just demoralizing to know that for me to "make anything" I have to get 1st, and only 1st.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

Again, I just don't understand why you HAVE to make money.

You should be happy to have a backer in the first place, something many of us do not have. Why do you HAVE to get 1st? What is wrong with getting a FT and just paying something back? Any FT is a helluva lot better than another $300 in the hole.

Playing with the attitude that you have to win is great, sure, but you should not go in there saying "Meh, I dont really care anyway, 1st or nothing". You have to play poker one step at a time and stop trying to jump to the FT, HU for 1st.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Clearly you aren't understanding the situation.

Do you not see that it would be incredibly demoralizing to play in a tournament knowing you see no cash unless you win? Do you not see how this will affect my play?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I think he understands it clearly. I think your mind is a little warped because having this mindset makes you a pretty poor investment imo.

Part of making profit means eliminating makeup, and if that means playing tournaments where if you finish third you still make no money, then so what. You're just that closer to making money of your own.

This reverse martingale mindset of yours is hazardous imo. Just work the grind, and play until the makeup is erased. 300 dollar tournaments, 1k tournaments, the nightly $162, whatever.

[/ QUOTE ]

I understand the grind, I mean I do it day to day for myself. The thing that's bothering me about this I think is the disproportion between the buy-ins I'm looking to play here ($300-500) and the buy-ins/prize-pools that were played to get this make-up in the first place.

Since the staking deal was made for "bigger" buy-ins that I couldn't afford, naturally the make-up is going to be bigger. I think I've played 1 live $300 tournament under him at the very beginning of the summer (1st tournament played just as a warm-up for WSOP).

We never really discussed at the time the chances of me playing tournaments like these going forward. Also, over the past 12 months (prior to this summer though, before he staked me in anything) I bought myself into several $500-$1k events at Circuit events and at PCA pre-lims. Is it "fair" to me to not let me buy parts of myself back? I mean I don't know what's fair when dealing with such a high-variance game. I could very easily have a huge score online on my own roll - I'd feel really bad about my backer not getting a cut since he's put money up for me, is that fair?

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Again, I just don't understand why you HAVE to make money.

You should be happy to have a backer in the first place, something many of us do not have. Why do you HAVE to get 1st? What is wrong with getting a FT and just paying something back? Any FT is a helluva lot better than another $300 in the hole.

Playing with the attitude that you have to win is great, sure, but you should not go in there saying "Meh, I dont really care anyway, 1st or nothing". You have to play poker one step at a time and stop trying to jump to the FT, HU for 1st.

[/ QUOTE ]

Because I have to drive 6 hours, pay for a hotel, etc. etc. to go play in these. I also can't play online if I'm playing live, both these things "cost" me time money, not him.

I'm grateful to have someone backing me, trust me.

Maybe the solution is to just not play these if I don't think it's worth it.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

do you have a brain?

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Because I have to drive 6 hours, pay for a hotel, etc. etc. to go play in these. I also can't play online if I'm playing live, both these things "cost" me time money, not him.

[/ QUOTE ]

Obviously it's costing him money if you have make-up. Sorry, but saying that it costs you time and money and you get nothing out of it and he does nothing is just plain ignorance. The only person you can blame for being in make-up is yourself. Maybe you're just not fit for live high buy in poker, especially if you're going to have an attitude that you can't seem to change.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
. If I'm down $15k (I think that's about what I'm in make-up, mostly from the ME), why would I want to play a $300 tournament where 2nd place isn't even $20k?

[/ QUOTE ]

Huh? Based on your OP, I figured makeup was much higher...in this case, any $300 or $500 prizepool should offer plenty of incentive to scratch that makeup figure out.

[/ QUOTE ]

this thread is very lol. i also figured you were down at least 100k the way you were talking. lol at you getting stressed out with makeup in the 15k range. wtf, how is that going to make you change your game? lol. dude, play $300s and heck play $50s, lol.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

Again I'm not "stressing" over $15k in make-up, that's not the point. The amount of make-up isn't really an issue here, the issue is the size of the live tournaments I would like to play. Since we never had any kind of agreement on what exactly I'm being staked in (again this was originally just a for-the-summer deal) it brings up these issues - I guess the lesson to be learned is have all terms of length of the deal, etc. clear ahead of time.

The point is there's a point where it's obviously much more beneficial to me to play under my own roll than be staked if I'm only playing in $300 or whatever of buy-ins in a day. That's my point the entire time, and maybe I'm being a bad stakee, but if I'm getting a certain % of wins and I'm only playing in a $300 buy-in live, or I can play in more where I get 100% of myself (albeit with risk) then I'm making more by playing online by myself. The reason I'm staked in the first place is to play high buy-in events so (obviously) I can hope to make more. But where is the cut-off on what I'm staked?

W/e, sorry I brought it up, I guess it boils down to I don't know where the cut-off on where I'm staked is because we didn't have clearly defined rules setup ahead of time. Can I play a $100 live? I don't know. I mean I play $215s online, etc. on my own, can I play a $215 live? Well why not a $300? I don't know.

As I said I'm just trying to figure out what's "fair" in these situations. I don't think it's fair for him to pay for $1k+ buy-ins and shoulder all that risk and then I go pay for smaller ones and say I run hot there and win, well then that's really [censored] for him obviously.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

I also have a backer for live events. But we have a deal that I'm playing all <$500 buy-ins with my own money. And I'm backed for all $500+ events.

May be this is also a solution in this case, if your backer agrees. Though I will definitely play on the same level even if all the winnings go to him in some tournament...

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I also have a backer for live events. But we have a deal that I'm playing all <$500 buy-ins with my own money. And I'm backed for all $500+ events.

May be this is also a solution in this case, if your backer agrees. Though I will definitely play on the same level even if all the winnings go to him in some tournament...

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Although I agree with much of what's been said, instead of taking shots at you I'm going to try to offer a suggestion. I think a lot of this comes from the fact that you didn't hammer out specifics in the staking agreement, and now you're not sure exactly what your responsibilities are. My suggestion would be to get together with your backer and decide what he wants you to play and what you're comfortable playing, and then you don't have to worry about whether you "should" be playing this or that and feeling guilty or whatnot. Making things very clear benefits everyone and doesn't leave you feeling bad for not playing this tourney or having to play that tourney. Once you hammer things out, then you can go play on the side with your own roll and not feel bad about whatever happens, and also not feel obligated to go play tourneys that you'd rather not play.

Re: Staking/Make-up question: What to do with lower prize-pools?
 

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I also have a backer for live events. But we have a deal that I'm playing all <$500 buy-ins with my own money. And I'm backed for all $500+ events.

May be this is also a solution in this case, if your backer agrees. Though I will definitely play on the same level even if all the winnings go to him in some tournament...

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Although I agree with much of what's been said, instead of taking shots at you I'm going to try to offer a suggestion. I think a lot of this comes from the fact that you didn't hammer out specifics in the staking agreement, and now you're not sure exactly what your responsibilities are. My suggestion would be to get together with your backer and decide what he wants you to play and what you're comfortable playing, and then you don't have to worry about whether you "should" be playing this or that and feeling guilty or whatnot. Making things very clear benefits everyone and doesn't leave you feeling bad for not playing this tourney or having to play that tourney. Once you hammer things out, then you can go play on the side with your own roll and not feel bad about whatever happens, and also not feel obligated to go play tourneys that you'd rather not play.

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Thank you, and I guess this is the gist of what I was getting at from the start because it really brings up situations when you don't have clearly defined what the terms are.