A few weeks ago, I was invited to a media event by BubbleProtection.com. I'd never heard of the site before, but the premise was intriguing, yet obvious and straightforward: the opportunity to purchase insurance for bubbling an online tournament. In other words, if you finish within 10 percent of the money (what the company labels as "the new bubble"), you will receive your initial buy-in back.
The maths was equally simple due to a unified payment system and, alas, didn't require my yet-to-be-utilised A-level qualification: you receive 10 percent of the buy-in in exchange for a 12 percent (again, of the buy-in) charge, giving BubbleProtection a 2 percent edge over the average customer.
At first glance, I scoffed at the prospect and brushed the idea aside as a passing gimmick that - despite being promoted as a "rare win/win" offer - couldn't possibly hold any financial benefit to the player, but after dismounting my high horse I reconsidered my assumption: hypothetically, if a player either cashed, or fell 10 percent short of the money with 100 percent consistency, he would never lose any money, right?
Obviously, this is near to impossible, but if a player were able to surpass the 12 percent mark, it would then become a viable option. In essence, the expected value of the policy is dependent on the skill level of the player; if you have a habit of donking off your chips early doors, then you'll merely be throwing away money, but if you happen to slot into the new bubble with fiendishly high frequency, then it may be an avenue worth exploring.
You may then ask the following question: why would anyone but a highly skilled player even consider adding to their negative EV by purchasing insurance? Well, much like blackjack, insurance provides a psychological cushion to those who fail to think logically. I remain amazed that even with all the educational material available in the game, and the emergence of mental game coaches such as Jared Tendler, people still succumb to the mystical existence of the Poker Gods and consider cursed hands, magical decks and distorted odds come bubble time to be genuine phenomena.
The key for the company, therefore, is to market to these types of players rather than successful grinders, and prey on this wayward thought process and unjustified paranoia. The site is heavily promoting the protection as a “bankroll management tool”, but critics may deem this misleading as the maths suggest that there is no substantial effect on risk, and any change in variance will be relatively minor.
Where the tool could prove more useful, however, is in shot-taking, say if a player entered a one-off high buy-in event. We all know that insurance in general is minus EV, but it protects against rare, yet potentially disastrous occurrences (e.g. fire insurance) that would leave us severely out of pocket; but of course, this relies on an abundance of people requiring that safety net in order to become a profitable enterprise, rather than a handful of poker players looking to take a stab a major tournament.
There is also a question of ethics. BubbleProtection doesn’t publish the names of entrants who are playing with protection, and many believe this to be unfair on other members of the field who may make a decision based on standard bubble practice. On the flipside, however, you never truly know the financial status of your opponent. He could be rich beyond belief, a staked player (this opens up another can of worms if the protection is unreported and, consequently, abused), or maybe playing with his entire ‘roll - do you have a right to know these details? The tricky issue here is that BubbleProtection have the information at hand, so I guess the jury's out.
What no one can deny is that the dynamics of the game will undoubtedly be affected if portions of the field have purchased protection, and a tense bubble to the bubble will ensue before the inevitable gung-ho gambling during the actual bubble. For the skilled pros who thrive on such squeaky-bum periods and are able to lap up chips like a Dyson as players nervously await the splash of the bubble, the induction of protection - in addition to not knowing who has purchased it - will surely make it more difficult to build stacks in the fashion they've become accustomed to.
It's for this reason why I was surprised to see online phenomenon Chris Moorman fronting the company, and consuming the spot on the screen that is usually filled by desktop strippers and virtual pets (see website). As someone who feeds off bubble fear, if there were anyone who I thought would be against such a stipulation, it would be him. However, he clearly saw a business opportunity that more than negated this change in dynamic, and despite being initially skeptical, jumped on board after being approached during last year's World Series of Poker.
The question is this: is Chris correct to come along for the journey? Could this be a profitable enterprise?
Firstly, although this is a new market, there is competition in the form of BeatTheBubble.com, which also offers protection, but provides players a platform from which to hedge their bets and select the actual number of places as opposed to BubbleProtection’s fixed 10 percent of the field (rounded down, I can only assume, for fields that aren't multiples of 10). Despite sharing the battlefield, I think this is a contest that BubbleProtection will win: not only is their offer more suited (and slightly more mathematically rewarding for the player) to the larger fields of today, but also the system is simpler: deposit, bubble, receive buy-in back. The idea of hedging adds an extra step to the process, which may put some people off.
Secondly, although many will, legitimately, throw out comments such as: "Why don't they just play smaller stakes if they fear the bubble so much?", "It merely shifts the bubble to another location," and, "You don't need protection to enhance your strategy," recreational players don't necessary think in these ways, and there are still plenty of potential customers who would happily forgo these arguments in order to create themselves a pseudo cushion. If they're not serious players, and buying protection makes them happy, is it still a bad decision? After all, its common consensus that most poker players bubble less than they think.
To conclude, the success of the idea will be totally dependent on management's ability to convince this specific type of player that bubble protection is a desirable option that will (psychologically) make them feel more comfortable when they play. With - as far as I can see - few overheads, a simple, easy-to-explain payment process, and a respected and successful figurehead fronting the brand, it might just have a chance. I'm not affiliated with BubbleProtection, so feel free to check it out yourself and make up your own mind.
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