The deal of the year? Or just a scam?

It sounds good. One well known poker magazine together with online poker site offer possibility to win 2 year professional poker player deal. All expenses paid to various big tournaments etc. That is great!

Or is it?

The rules are simple: who ever makes most profit in between April 1st to April 31th will win that sponsorship deal. The profit can be made by playing cash games, sit & gos or multi-table tournaments. That is simple. In fact too simple.

Naturally the purpose of this promotion is to attract as many new players as possible to register in to that poker site, by selling the dream of becoming poker pro to all of those players who have been dreaming about it for years. Well, you don't need to be Einstein to realize those dreamers won't have a chance.

Why?

Let's compare two players. Player A from Greece and player B from France.

Player A is extremely skillful player. After seeing this promotion, he register in and deposits 100 dollars. He starts to play there every day. From day one he makes impressive results and profit. His ROI is extremely good. In just 31 days he manage to raise his bankroll from 100 dollars to 62'000 dollars. With that unbelievable achievement he makes even Phil Ferguson jealous! Historical success.

Player B has money, friends and connections. He deposits 50'000 dollars, which is the maximum allowed. His friends have already deposited before and played there earlier, just to make sure no one knows they are friends. Player B sits down in to the biggest cash table available. In 6 hours he wins 244'000 dollars. It is enough to take the number one position from the leaderboard. Next day he opens 20 cash tables, the smallest micro-tables the site offers. He plays there as many hours as needed to achieve total minimum of 2'000 raked hands required to be eligible to promotion. Even so he loses all the time in all of those 20 micro-tables, he loses only 677 dollars that day. His number 1 leaderboard position was not in danger at any time.

After careful investigation it was announced that player B hasn't violated any rules or terms of the promotion. Player B is the fair winner of the 2 year deal.

Player A couldn't believe what just happened. He went to closest taverna and ordered the biggest bottle of ouzo they had. This time without water, only with ice. After 90 minutes he ordered another bottle. Now without ice.

This hypothetical example shows that if the rules are too simple, at least two things occur:
1. There is always possibilities to manipulate the competition. And if there is even the slightest chance, someone will do it or at least someone will try to do it.
2. The competition isn't fair even without manipulation, if compared two players with different starting bankrolls. Player who could be the best of the best ever lived on this planet, just doesn't have a chance against player who have hundreds times bigger bankroll to start with.

Yes, it sounded like a good deal. But. As usual, if it sounds too good to be true, it isn't true. It isn't true for those skillful players who doesn't have huge bankroll to start with. And this means, not necessarily the best player will win that 2 years sponsorship deal. It is a shame, because the idea was good.