Brag: 100k Newhizzle Stake That Everyone Says Will Go Bad, Going Good

[AndyatSD]

Disclaimer: Like my other BBV post – this is long. Don’t hate. For the TL;DR crowd - Cliffnotes is in the title.

Newhizzle. You know his story. From the days of the PartyPoker grinder to the 2006 WPT Borgota Champion. From Brandi to Gary Wise to Neverwin. The hero turned fallen hero turned down-on-his-luck pro. Predictions all over NVG and BBV puts the over/under for Mark Newhouse to become the Pit Degen that could have or would have at something like 24 days.

Let’s cut a long story short. Mark’s committed mistakes, gone frenzy and bloodbath mode a few times, but also made some friends along the way. Pride is a funny thing though, and for the longest time those of us that considered ourselves his friend watched him agonize over his list of 30-something people that owed him money yet he never would ask for help. That’s fine – if Mark wasn’t going to go look for help; help is going to go look for him.

Earlier this month I approached Mark and told him in plain terms that I got his back. It’s not like Mark’s completely broke. He’s just short on liquid gambling funds, but more importantly he was playing without a certain level of self-confidence and composure like I’ve known from clocking in tens of thousands of hands with him the last 4-5 years. To put it simply all this non-poker stuff was affecting his poker game. Mark’s psychological game was probably at an all-time low (actually that’s not true, the January Commerce Mark was probably even worse). I think he needed some positive energy instilled in his life. Or maybe more importantly, he needed more bullets.

My staking terms to Mark was pretty simple. You play whatever limit hold’em game you want. Live or on-line, stakes doesn’t matter – whatever you’re comfortable with. Maybe stay away from on-line 500/1000 but if the game’s good go for it. You lose, it’s on me. You win, we split it 50/50. However much you need, I got it. You can end the stake deal whenever you want; just give me a heads up. Let’s start with 40k and if you lose it we can talk over dinner and re-evaluate our strategy.

I think from the get-go all my friends were against this. I got a lesson from one of my mentors that I clearly do not understand the EV of a stake deal. Mark’s EV is not the same as my EV in this staking agreement – and I was getting the short end of the stick. My counter to that was I’m not trying to make money off of Newhizzle; I’m trying to help a friend out. The old saying goes something like if you lend a friend money for gambling you’re hurting him and not helping him. I disagree. I want to help Mark stand on his own two feet and shut the haters up. The terms are to his benefit but I felt that’s what would help him feel the most comfortable. I also believed in his playing abilities enough that I thought the potential monetary gain offsets the risks I take in this staking deal.

Mark lost the 40k the very first night. I’ll be honest, when I got the text message I cringed a little. I mean, this was less than 24 hours from when I first transferred over the funds to him on Stars. But whatever, bad things happen. I think I was in my Bellagio room at the time, and I went down to Noodles to meet Mark for some food. Talked things over, understood that he just ran bad in short-handed 2-4. Nothing out of the ordinary. Life and stake deal goes on.

Another 20k down the drain the next day. At this point a good number of people familiar with what’s going on is concerned. One of my mentors urged me to protect myself by setting the terms for the stake deal more solidly before pumping even more money in. Others said I should just take a 60k loss because Mark just can’t win right now. I talked things over with Mark, and we agreed that I would stake the first 100k, and if he lost it all then he and I will jointly try to come up with funds to play but the winnings would still go into making up my loss. That way if he’s in action I’m in action. We also agreed that he won’t have the option to end the stake deal until he wins 100k for each of us (so 200k winnings). Mark has said numerous times that he probably wants to stretch this out to the 300-400kish range, but hey that’s up to him.

Over the next few nights there really wasn’t much good news to report. Although at this point I was a little scared of text messages from Mark such that no news is good news. Things went on, and before he went back to LA he had managed to currently be down 71k in the Stake. At this point – we decided that it’s time to take a break from on-line and just grind back money from the gold mine known as Commerce. I gave Mark 10k in cash so he can grind 100/200.

That first night he’s back he dropped about half of it. I think over the next couple of nights that amount slowly dwindled down to 3k, 2k, to where it really wasn’t enough to short stack 100/200. It’s at about this time that I went on my -170k day (I think it was more like -250k in 2 days) so disposable poker funds were a little bit low. Couldn’t say that we had a good ending to the WSOP, at least I was back in LA. Since I took two weeks of vacation for WSOP, I had to first concentrate on my job before I can meet Mark at Commerce. Trying to do three weeks worth of work in 4 days was tough, but I got through it and felt great.

This brings us to last week. On Saturday I was well rested and went to Commerce to play, and gave Mark another 15k in cash and brought our stake darn close to 100k (98k). We start a 200-400 game, and Newhizzle finally goes on his first heater in weeks, and finishes the session with a $27,500 win. The next day I head back to Commerce to play in the 200-400. Mark was with his girlfriend at Disneyland and was pretty tired when he got back to Commerce, but like a machine once he heard that we kicked the game up to 300-600 he came downstairs to waitlist for the game.

Throughout the night Mark ran good and played good. During this last two live sessions I’m beginning to see the Newhizzle I once knew and respected. Towards the end of the night when the game got short-handed we kicked it up to 400-800. In the end, Mark booked a monumental win that put him positive in the staking agreement. He continues his streak by winning another small session today, and we’re well on our road to something great.

On a side note, the game was so good I don’t think I’ve ever been so disappointed that I was *only* up 20k over the weekend.

So yeah – what’s the point? The point is that this staking deal that so many people said was going to burn me is coming around. Honestly, I think a lot of people would have pulled out or cut losses at the 20k point, 40k point, or whatever. I think Mark can attest that I never backed down from the deal and kept reloading him whenever he needed. Buying him confidence, I guess you can say. And right now, Mark Newhouse is an animal that can’t be contained at the Commerce white chip games.

Hopefully the next update I post will contain better news. There’s always a possibility that things will turn for the worst but I like my chances. So…

BRAG: I backed a friend – and feel damn good about how it’s going too.

Note 1: I am not interested in staking anyone else at this time.

Note 2: When the game gets short handed we make it clear to the people we play against that I have a piece of Mark – not that it’s a big secret anyway. We talk about it openly. I don’t think there is any shame for Mark to accept a stake from me. We viewed it as a friend helping another friend helping out and in the end we are expecting it to work out for both of us.

~andy
TanShuiWen

[brazilio]

I consider you staking newhizzle to be advance payment for him making yet another truly abysmal life decision for my own entertainment, so good luck with all of that and I'm hoping for the best.

[cbnz]

gl to you both

[idrinkcoors]

[ QUOTE ]
Mark lost the 40k the very first night.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. You are a good friend.

[ QUOTE ]
I gave Mark 10k in cash so he can grind 100/200.

[/ QUOTE ]

[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] lol at "Grind"

P.S. It's not too long. Would read again.

[tautomer]

Nice, hope it works out. Good friends are tough to find.

[baronzeus]

congratz man, how much have you made off of this deal?

[AndyatSD]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Mark lost the 40k the very first night.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. You are a good friend.

[ QUOTE ]
I gave Mark 10k in cash so he can grind 100/200.

[/ QUOTE ]

[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] lol at "Grind"

P.S. It's not too long. Would read again.

[/ QUOTE ]

My last thread (and only other thread I started in BBV) was considered pretty long - so I tried to tone this one down but it still got longer than most of the other posts I see around here.

I think if you are accustomed to 4 tables of 100/200 or 2 tables of 200/400 minimum on-line, then playing 1 table of 100/200 live poker is indeed a grind. ; )

~andy

[NLfool]

I've got to say Mark is lucky to have a friend like you. It's nice that you are so willing and don't care about making money off him but if you keep this up you're going to get rift raft coming at you 6 ways. If I were you I'd learn the words "f$%k off" but you seem too nice for this kind of attitude.

On a side note another mean machine was tongni back in the day. Is he busto?

[centaurmyth]

how bout some nosebleed LHE players post their career vs. Newhizzle as a vigil?

[AndyatSD]

[ QUOTE ]
congratz man, how much have you made off of this deal?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not too much yet - but we finally just got our hands on some on-line bullets (kind of tough to try to find some when I've always been the one selling).

Right now Mark is living at Commerce so he's got a goldmine downstairs and an ATM machine on his desk - I'm optimistic that when I make a mass update in 2 weeks or so it'll be sweet.

~andy