Psychology of Playing Backed
Backing is becoming a very common thing in today’s poker world. Players that are traditionally very good and are known by other players or business people to be good will have all or part of their buy-ins to tournaments paid. In return for the buy-ins the players will give a decent amount of their potential winnings to the backers. This system seems to work very well - especially now that you can back players on the Internet and contracts are more heavily involved.
And one interesting thing that I’ve heard from players that are backed is they seem to play better when they are being staked by others. This has always been a fascinating concept to me since I wouldn’t think it would matter if somebody was backed or not since they’re trying to make a living no matter what (never been backed myself personally). However, the way I’ve heard it explained really makes sense.
Most players believe that they play much better when backed because they have obligations to others when they are being given buy-in money. And since they are obligated to other people, backed players play more conservatively and heady knowing that it’s not only their money on the line but their backer’s money as well.
Of course most backed players would rather not be in the situation where they are getting backed because they want all of the won money to their selves. But many staked players are able to battle their way back to being out of debt by this process so it definitely can’t be all bad for them.