Perhaps the most famous backing deal that ever took place was when Billy Baxter put Stu Ungar into the 1997 World Series of Poker main event and Ungar went on to win his third bracelet. What’s not widely known is that in 1990 Baxter had backed Ungar who was found unconscious in his hotel room during day 3 from a drug overdose.
Ungar had so many chips at the time that he still managed a 9th place finish in the event. One can only imagine the doubt that Baxter had in ‘97 when Ungar asked for help and Baxter told Ungar at first no. Finally, with just minutes left before the main event was starting, Baxter gave in to Ungar’s pleas and put him into the event.
Ungar was still battling his demons and struggled at times to make it through a day of play, but in the end he was the victor and Baxter was half a million dollars richer because of his gamble on a gamble.
You can’t walk through a poker room without hearing about who is backing who. Here is an interesting one for you… Phil Ivey was backing Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi at the World Series of Poker. Doesn’t make much sense does it, but Mizrachi verified it for the media. Some other fun ones include Michael Craig backing Shannon Elizabeth, Michael Binger stakes his brother Nick (with good results), and Cliff Josephy, aka JohnnyBax, is well known for the number of online players that he puts into events.
Isaac Haxton has used his considerable winnings to support his friends forays into big tournament poker. Greg Mueller had a big piece of Chino Rheem as he went deep in the 2008 WSOP Main Event. There is of course the infamous backing deal that Jamie Gold had that ended up being settled in the court rooms and placed a stigma over Gold’s championship reign. Erick Lindgren, at one time, was known to back numerous players including Josh Arieh before his 3rd place finish in the 2004 main event.
In that same 2004 event, Greg Raymer went on to win five million dollars. What many people don’t know is that Raymer had help to get into the event. He had posted on internet message boards soliciting investors even though he knew he would receive grief from his peers from doing so.
He received e-mail from friends and people he had never heard of including someone from Poland. Raymer sold $500 shares and bought about a third of the shares for himself. In the first session, he lost a bit and the shares value went down a small amount. After two more sessions prior to his big win, the shares were up to about $600 apiece. After the win? $36,000. That’s right… $500 turned into $36,000. Now that’s reward!
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