From A to Z, it was a terrific month for horses on PTP, who returned hundreds of thousands of dollars to their backers. Recounting every score would be impossible; instead we’ve got a list of the scores 5k and greater below.

The total for scores $5k and up in March – a whopping $610k.

Aje221 starts off the list with a sweet win in the Stars 11R worth $14.5k. arobinson11 did double duty with wins in both the Full Tilt Poker 32k and the Stars 50k worth a combined $18k. bigturns took the next turn, hitting for $5.5k in the PS 70k, and boojiw hit a not-so-mini win in the MFTOPS: $30k for his chop of MFTOPS Event 8.

Speaking of chops, BrandonPL took one in the PS 100k worth 13k. Callofbuty decided to just win the $3R outright for a $7,400 paycheck. ChAtBan banned all but two players in the Sunday Mulligan and took home w whopping $27k. ChristaBorg made twin deep runs in the FTP 30k and the 35k worth just a hair under $10k total. CoffeCupPoker stayed for more than just a cup in the PS 50k, winning it outright for $10k.

A trio of multiple winners: dapfunkera took down $20k+ for his combined performances in the 100k and the PS $11R (2nd and 1st). fear y loathing had his opponents feeling both as he hit 3 final table sin one day for about 15k, with the biggest score coming in the FTP 75k where he took 5th. Firaldo87 had a pretty good month as well, taking 8th in the Stars Sunday Warmup for $9.5k and chopping the 20R for $5k.

Some familiar names on PTP were at it again in March. FULMER08 took down the Stars 30k for $7.2k. HerschelW won a live event for $7.2k as well. holdmyown31 did so and more against those scores, chopping the FTP 33k for a $13 score. HosentRoger followed up with a 3rd in the PS 50k good for $6.3k and Inigknokt shoved and shoved his way to a 4th in the FTP Super Turbo that paid $5.6k.

File under ‘heartbreaker’: jackmeplz69 brought home a shade under $13k for his 9th place finish in the Sunday Million. File under ‘way less heartbreaking’: johnscon74 made his first hit on PTP count, chopping the Sunday Special for $34k. Jpips also hit on Stars, $8.2k for his 2nd in the 30k. Justparttime6 might be considering bumping up to full after his takedown of the PS 75k for $20k, and King Linc ruled the $22 on Stars, bringing back $5.5k for his backer along with the win.

Speaking of ruling, that’s what Kurt23x did to the field in the Stars $55R, taking 3rd and $20k for his trouble. kylmac85 got a better place – 1st – and only slight less money – $18k – in the Stars 80k. Loddar_m fell a little short of the Audi but still got $8k for his 11th place finish in the Stars Turbo Takedown. mdfgreat1 took the slower route but still got the money and the win (chop): $6k for first in the $11 Super Stack.

Not a month goes by without a massive Mossified84 score, and March was sweet for the rebuy fiend – $36k for his 3rd in the FTP $163R. Pizzicato_Xev stuck to freezeouts and stuck the rest of the field in the $109 Stars Turbo with a loss as he took it down for $11k. PJRounder made big money in a mini tournament, bringing backers $10k for his 6th palce finish in MFTOPS #4. ruNVNme brought in a rare iPoker score, $5.3k for his 8th in their Sunday Major.

Still a couple hundred grand to go: StackCracker accounted for $7.6k of it with a 4th in the FTP 24k. STLPride chipped in $12.6k with a 3rd in PS $215 PLO and a 2nd in the FTP 35k PLO. TaylorCG added $8.3k for his 3rd in the 40k on FTP. thepadster did exactly that to his bankroll, adding $6k for his chop of the FTP 35k.

T-Less won Cash-more, taking 2nd in a live HU match for $15k, travdawgks chopped the FTP 32k for $6k and TurnRiva had his backers seeing double with twin hits in the FTP 30k and the PS 70k good for over $22k total. wisconsinfan is no doubt a fan of Stars after winning the 40k for $11k, and x.UnLuCkY.x failed to live up to his name, with three final tables across several sites worth a whopping $24k+.

The man of the month, however, was a guy who has been just ripping it up in 2010. terrellk11 showed no sign of slowing down in March. Check out this list:

- NAPT satty: Won seat
- FTP $55 buy in: 2nd for $14k
- FTP 75k: 5th for 8k
- FTP $1,000,000: 5th for a hair under $50k

Congrats to all of those players and their backers, along with any names we may have omitted.

PTP Staking is the largest staking site online, with nearly 15 million dollars staked. PTP backed players have multiple WSOP final tables, several six figure live wins, FTOPS wins, SCOOP wins and deep runs or wins in just about every major online tournament.

Learn more about PTP Staking.

Msusyr24 got the month started off right, shipping a huge win in the PokerStars second chance that padded his BAP by 47.5k. That score was immediately echoed by a number of impressive hits in the days that followed, including terrellk11 taking 4th in the $215 50K turbo on FTP for about 6k; StLPride winning the $20K PLO on Stars for a touch over 6k; ChAtBan chopping the PS 50k for over 14k; Phishfiend running out the field in the 3R on Stars for a second place finish worth a little under 6k and QcKimo hitting for 22.7k after finishing 3rd in the PokerStars 109 Rebuy.

As the first week in November wound down, PTPers continued to pile on the cashes. Justin58 chopped the 40k on Stars for 9.5k, Firaldo87 won the $5 2r1a on Stars, worth about 5k, Justin58 shipped the Cake $109 17.5k for a 5k win, and Fulmer08 had nice back-to-back scores with a 6th in the 80k guaranteed and a 2nd in the Stars 50k worth 5k and 12k, respectively. While those guys were crushing online, Mossified took 2nd in a Venetian Deepstack event and brought home 15.5k for his trouble.

Moving into the middle of the month, Plzbelieveme took 2nd in the Stars $109 for 8.6k, beatnutzz_ shipped the 11r for 12k, l3irdman took 2nd in $30k for 6.6k, and Implied Aces won the 27.5K on Tilt for 7.3K. If you thought Mossified would take a break after his Venetian win, you were wrong: he threw in a 6th in 105R on Full Tilt Poker for about 15k and then won the Stars 109R for 35k.

Not to be outdone, terrellk11 chopped the $320 250K PS for $46K+ the next week. Bigturns kept it going with a 2nd in 11r for 7k, and ChristaBorg chopped up the the Stars 70k nightly for a 11.5k hit. Also on Stars, Probrdr94 won the 80k taking home $16,000 and terrell followed up his earlier win with a 2nd in the $162 50k worth $10.6k. While those fellows were owning on Stars, Cvmoney15 chopped a $400 2 day event at Mohegan for 26.9k.

Wins weren’t limited to PokerStars in November; Takingdacash shipped the FTP $26 28k for 6.5k, Zenman brought home the $215 plo on Ultimate Bet for $5.8k, ChristaBorg chopped the 50×3 FTP for 5k, and Mossified showed up again (along with jonrubs) with a big win in the 109 cubed on Full Tilt Poker. Rubs took 2nd and Moss took 3rd for 8.5k and 6.4k, respectively.

Wrapping up the month, Emotivator/Yeshua_Won won the 17.5K/$75 KO on FTP for 6.2k, zekenasty took 9th in the Sunday Warmup on Stars for 7.4k, JACKMEPLZ69 pocketed 5k for his 2nd place showing in the $109 30k 6max, JPiPs tagged the 20k guaranteed for a 5.3k win, wusoc101 won the $27.5k guaranteed for $11.2k, Takingdacash closed the FTP $26 28k for 6.5k and JHill finished out the month right by winning the Full Tilt Poker Double Deuce for 31k.

PTP Staking is the largest staking site online, with nearly 15 million dollars staked. PTP backed players have multiple WSOP final tables, several six figure live wins, FTOPS wins, SCOOP wins and deep runs or wins in just about every major online tournament.

Learn more about PTP Staking.

Kapow got the month started off right with a series of back-to-back-to-back final tables worth almost 9k total. Following right behind were a couple of impressive hits – AAEveryhand took down the FTP $55 cubed for a sweet $13k score, and cradshark continued the rebuy streak by taking second in the PokerStars 11R for a bit over 10k. Not content with one massive hit, PJRounder responded with a win in the $11R for 9k.

TumppiTour continued the $11 theme by shipping a $11 turbo for a 5k win. The$kysTheLimit did him slightly better with a $6,200 cash for his 2nd place finish in the FTP 40k guaranteed. Jefe dos Perros added another sweet win on Full Tilt by knocking out 16 players on his way to a victory in the $23K KO.

PTP kept going strong through the middle of the month, with Chomper4 pulling down 9k for his second place finish in the PokerStars 70k. Indariva took a chop in the Canterbury $230 O8 (live) for $6.9k. Back on the virtual felt, terrellk11 came through for backers with a $7300 score in the FTP $55 cubed and arobinson11 matched it by bringing home $7200 for a second place finish in the Stars 40k.

Turbos? We do those ok. MUtigers chopped the $109 turbo on PokerStars for $6.8k. Cubed? Fulmer took home 11k for taking down the FTP $55 cubed. SNGs? Thrash370 turned 4k of backing into a 16k return in a month for backers. PTP closed the month strong with TriBeCa’s final table in the Daily 80k (4th for $6,546), bc38 2nd in FTP 50/50 for 6.8K, Cashcid Linc taking 3rd in the 40k on Stars for $5500, JACKMEPLZ69 winning the Stars 11r for 13.6k and terrellk11 taking 4th in the $215 50K turbo on FTP ($5.7K).

Finally, indariva sent it home with a chop in the 5k Main Event of the WSOP-C event at Horsehoe Southern Indiana worth 47k.

PTP Staking is the largest staking site online, with nearly 15 million dollars staked. PTP backed players have multiple WSOP final tables, several six figure live wins, FTOPS wins, SCOOP wins and deep runs or wins in just about every major online tournament.

Learn more about PTP Staking.

Freezeouts were PTP stomping grounds this month, with a ton of deep runs and big wins. Mossified84 took 2nd in the $320 100k Gtd for $23.2k. nsinger chopped the Double Deuce for over 24k. Abigfish chopped the nightly 70k on Stars for 9k+, while over on FTP takindacash, NBFB42, Chesterdsdad and Miamihawk99 all shipped impressive scores at 13k, 7k, 7k and 6k respectively.

Rounding out the regular freezeout wins: AAeveryhand to 3rd in the FTP 50k guaranteed for 22k+, xblah brought in almost 30k for a win on FTP and another 25k for a win on Bodog and Vedder1980 brought in almost 11k for his win in the Stars $55.

Rebuys were also profitable for PTPers. xblah made waves there as well with a win in the FTP 100R worth 20k. Pcobblmt took down the 40k rebuy for 5.5k, while Chardrian took 6th in the 55R for 8k+ and Billinga chopped the 8R on Stars for 7.6k. QcKimo took 2nd in the 100r on Stars for 15k+.

When it came to the WCOOP and mFTOPS, PTPers were expecting big wins, and players delivered. TeamShizz shipped the miniFTOPS HORSE event for 17k. GambleAB took 4th in WCOOP 41 for a 15k+ payday and topping it all off was DrKamiKaze with a 2nd place finish in WCOOP #35 that paid out 47k.

PTP Staking is the largest staking site online, with nearly 15 million dollars staked. PTP backed players have multiple WSOP final tables, several six figure live wins, FTOPS wins, SCOOP wins and deep runs or wins in just about every major online tournament.

Learn more about PTP Staking.

At the top of the pile: GambleAB, a FTP red pro who sells his action on PartTimePoker and delivered in a big way for his backers during the current installment of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series. Gamble chopped event #15 for about 70k. Right behind him on the leaderboard: Fulmer08, who took an impressive 2nd place in one of the toughest tournaments online – The PokerStars Sunday $500 – for a win totaling just around 69k.

Those two scores alone saw tens of thousands of dollars shipped back to investors, a number actually exceeded by the multitude of recent five figure scores by PTP backed players. MDD GFC took 3rd in the PokerStars Sunday 109 for just under 14k. Just a day before, Madorno managed a sweet second in the Stars 80k for an 18k+ payday. ChristaBorg recorded two HOF scores, final tabling the 30k KO on Full Tilt Poker and winning the 22.5k guaranteed for a total hit of nearly 12k.

PTP players had good showing in a variety of rebuy tournaments as well. SHARP.INFO won the 5.50+R for 9.3k. BD58 came out on top in the PokerStars $3 Rebuy for $13k. Mossified also had a nice rebuy hit, bringing in over 10k for his 4th place finish in the FTP $109 1R 1A.

Also impressive: two PTPers at the same final table, Emotivator and live4yng in the PokerStars 200k guarantee. The pair finished 1st and 5th, respectively, for a combined cash of just about 45k. PTP also double-dipped the final table of the 30k 6 max o n FTP, with bigturns and xunluckyx finishing 3rd and 1st respectively for just under 10k combined.

Congrats to all of the players (and everyone we left out) who made this month an extremely successful one for their backers over at PTP.

PTP Staking is the largest staking site online, with nearly 15 million dollars staked. PTP backed players have multiple WSOP final tables, several six figure live wins, FTOPS wins, SCOOP wins and deep runs or wins in just about every major online tournament.

Learn more about PTP Staking.

arobinson11 won the 30k guaranteed on FTP for $8,996.40; DerbyStatus took down the $50k Guaranteed on FTP for $14k. Wins on FTP continued with Kleberson13 shipping the 35k Guaranteed for 8k. Over on PokerStars, x.UnLuCkY.x managed a chop in the 11R on PokerStars.

The highlight of the week, however, was clear: a massive ship from jonrubs, who took down the Full Tilt Poker 750k guaranteed for a massive 135k plus.

Congrats to jon and all of the other players who made this week an extremely successful one for their backers over at PTP.

PTP Staking is the largest staking site online, with nearly 15 million dollars staked. PTP backed players have multiple WSOP final tables, several six figure live wins, FTOPS wins, SCOOP wins and deep runs or wins in just about every major online tournament.

Learn more about PTP Staking.

The highlight of the period has to be allofit29’s sick run in WSOP #34. While it didn’t bring the bracelet win he would have liked, 6th place was still good for over 89k, a great win for him and his backers. In other WSOP hits, clayraiken took 16th for $8,570, IStakeYou 38th for $4566 in the $1500 PLO8 WSOP event.

A serious second goes to drkamikaze, who brought home a MSOP title in event #49, $535 H.O.R.S.E. . The win was good for $32k, a take down surely appreciated by drkamikaze’s backers on PTP.

Other scores and highlights include: HerschelW taking down three tournaments in the week to win the Pocket Fives Triple Crown and return a few thousand to his backers; danger0us shipping three 5k+ final table scores in a week; Chomper4 (4th-$12k) and cardsfan04 (7th-$5.2k) both final tabling in Nightly 100k on Stars; christaborg winning the ftp 75/40k for over 12k and Allofit29 topping of his WSOP score by taking down the NHG on Stars for 17k.

PTP Staking is the largest staking site online, with nearly 15 million dollars staked. PTP backed players have multiple WSOP final tables, several six figure live wins, FTOPS wins, SCOOP wins and deep runs or wins in just about every major online tournament.

Learn more about PTP Staking.

Drawbacks

Potential Loss of Profit
The biggest drawback of staking is the most obvious one – as a player, you’re giving up part of your profit to your backer (usually around half, although it can vary wildly. The riskier the investment is for the backer, the higher their cut usually is). While there are certainly advantages to being staked that offset or exceed that loss, the bottom line is that, in real terms, you’re risking some of the profit you’ve become accustomed to earning in the status quo simply by entering into a staking arrangement.

Impact on Game
Any significant change to how you approach poker risks a negative impact on your game (and therefore, your results), and staking is certainly no exception to that rule. Different players respond in different ways to playing on someone else’s dollar. Some respond favorably (we’ll discuss that path in more detail below); some feel a pressure that didn’t exist when they were playing with their own money, especially if they go on a losing streak. This pressure may cause an otherwise reasonable player to starting making unnecessary adjustments in their game in a misguided attempt to show better short-term results to their backer, a plan that almost always produces the opposite of the intended result.

Reliance on Backer
Relying on another person for critical things like buy ins or approval to play a certain event can be a terrible hassle, even when that person has the best of intentions and is generally on top of their game. Even the best backers are subject to the same whims of life – forgetfulness, accidents, crises and the like – that cause people to frequently skip out on simple responsibilities. It’s not something that will likely occur frequently with a competent backer, but it’s still a reality that you should be prepared and account for, especially if you’re of a personality type that is bothered by snags of this sort.

Logistical Complications
Backing arrangements bring with them a range of tasks. Some players may not be bothered by the basic tasks (bankroll reporting, tournament result reporting) involved in simple staking arrangements, but as the arrangement gets more complex (or involves multiple investors), the player may have to calculate payouts, make multiple transfers on a regular basis, and so on. There’s certainly a substantial segment of the poker playing population that is no fan of the spreadsheet, so if you’re one of those averse to record-keeping you might want to keep this one in mind.

Make-up
Most staking arrangements include some sort of provision for makeup. If you’re not familiar with makeup, it’s actually a pretty simple concept. Makeup is simply the amount of the staker’s money you’ve gone through without making a profit, an amount that generally has to be accounted for before any profit split occurs. So let’s say you’re on a 10k stake with a 50/50 cut and you’re down 3k. Then you win a tournament for 6k. You generally wouldn’t just split the 6k with your backer – instead, 3k would go to paying off your makeup (basically bringing the bankroll for the stake back to even) and then the remaining 3k would be available for profit sharing. Makeup can be annoying psychologically as well – knowing you need a big score just to get yourself even can cause many players to engage in more reckless behavior. Also, makeup generally follows a backed player from one backer to another – essentially, it’s a thing you’re going to want to pay off before you end the stake or move to another backer, which can result in you feeling a bit trapped in a situation that may no longer be as favorable to you as it used to be.

Online, the week saw a number of mid-sized scores, capped off with two big wins – NateTrib shipped a win in the 50/50 on FTP, resulting in a 10k boost for his backers, and TaylorCG took down the FTP 80k a couple of days later, resulting in a $18,800 score.

Live, PTPers are starting to heat up as the WSOP really gets underway. Jesse “Fulmer08″ Fulmer made a deep run in Event #7, taking 21st for just around 20k. Chris “indariva” Tryba was busted by Daniel Negreanu in Event #14 with 16 players left. The biggest hit of the week, however, clearly belongs to Adrian “chardrian” Dresel, who steamrolled his way to the final table of Event #11 (2k NLHE) before running into a cooler or two and taking 6th for just under 100k.

PTP Staking is the largest staking site online, with nearly 15 million dollars staked since 2007. PTP backed players have multiple WSOP final tables, several six figure live wins, FTOPS wins, SCOOP wins and deep runs or wins in just about every major online tournament.

Learn more about PTP Staking.

Online, the highlight of the weekend was definitely
Vedder1980, who delivered a 60k win with a great showing in the FTOPs main event. Stu battled a tough final table and ended up in 3rd, resulting in a massive score for his BAP.

On the live front, two big takedowns by PTP members – xBlah continued his hot run by chopping the Turing Stone 1k Main Event for a 25k payday and Spektah won the Canadian Heads Up Poker Championship (5k buy in) for 85k.

PTP Staking is the largest staking site online, with nearly 15 million dollars staked since 2007. PTP backed players have multiple WSOP final tables, several six figure live wins, FTOPS wins, SCOOP wins and deep runs or wins in just about every major online tournament.

Learn more about PTP Staking.