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For the first time in a long time, the topic of prop players in poker came up on social media thanks to the following tweet from Dara O’Kearney.

The first book I ever read about online poker talked a lot about “props”. I can’t remember the last time I even heard the term

— Dara O’Kearney (@daraokearney) September 14, 2018

O’Kearney (or Doke as he’s called), a professional poker player, podcaster, and one of the best player-bloggers in poker, was simply wondering aloud why the use of prop players has fallen out of fashion in the poker world.

Doke is correct. Prop players are no longer as widespread as they once were. However, they are still a thing, as I know of at least one New Jersey online poker site that used props. Basically, they’re not extinct, but they’re definitely on the endangered or protected list.

That’s particularly true in the online poker sphere, which borrowed the practice of using prop players from brick & mortar cardrooms.

Props in the early days of online poker

Props were very much a thing in the early days of online poker when new sites routinely employed props, or in some cases, simply bankrolled a bunch of players. More often than not these bankrolled players (not to be confused with props) were friends who were poker pros, who were supposed to “give action” and create juicy games with that money.

As years went on, hundreds of sites turned into dozens, and low-liquidity rooms partnered to form networks, the need for props diminished. It still exists, but it’s not at the level it was in 2004/2005.

Doke also wondered if being an online prop was all he originally thought it was cracked up to be.

Before I go any further, I should probably explain what a prop player is, and the differences between propping in the online and brick & mortar poker worlds.

Brick & mortar props

Brick & mortar props are more or less house players.

Props are paid money to do what they would be doing anyway: play poker. Of course, there are a few stipulations.

Yes, props receive some type of compensation from the cardroom, usually in the form of an hourly wage, but they have to play on their own bankroll. The cardroom doesn’t buy them into the games.

Props are also at the beck and call of the cardroom, and are used to fill seats in short-handed games that might otherwise break or help get new games started. As such, props are often moved from good games with long waitlists, to other, less desirable tables.

Put it all together and you start to get a clear picture of the typical brick & mortar prop player.

Props tend to be slight losers to small winners, with their propping pay either keeping them in action (it’s not uncommon for a prop to be out of action the last couple days before their prop check is cut each week) or allowing them to scrape out a living playing poker.

A brick & mortar prop is not a glamorous life and has a good chance of trapping the player in a bad cycle where they scrape by week-to-week, constantly depending on that prop check.

Online prop players are a little different

Online propping is a different animal. It’s also something I have some firsthand experience with.

The biggest difference being the larger upside of propping online, due to far fewer demands and the ability to multi-table. As such, you don’t simply get “nits” as online props.

As an online prop player, you can log on as often as you like, and are usually given a basic set of parameters you must abide by. The typical prop agreement is you start games or sit at short-handed tables, and leave the table when a certain number of players are seated.

Another big difference is online props are usually compensated with a rakeback deal, often 100 percent, which is a nice bonus for a player tasked with playing a lot of heads-up and shorthanded games.

The nature of online poker allowed players to prop at one site and still play their normal games at another. In a brick & mortar cardroom props didn’t have this luxury, which is why live propping tends to attract nitty players.

My experience as a prop player

For example, I used to prop at a low-traffic site that typically had a few No Limit and Limit Hold’em games running.  Instead of starting new Hold’em games (which is what most props would do) I would sit at the Omaha 8 and Stud 8 tables and wait for a taker.

While I was waiting I would play at partypoker, PokerStars or some other high traffic site.

When someone did sit (usually someone five deep on a Hold’em waiting list that was impatient) they didn’t stand a chance. Typically I’d play heads-up for a bit and the person would leave and I’d wait for another taker. But every now and then a short-handed game would get going and last several hours.

Because of my 100 percent rakeback (my memory is a little fuzzy on this, so it might have been over 100 percent), playing heads-up split pot games wasn’t costly. I could hammer one-way locks without losing money to the rake, and be called an idiot by opponents.

I’m not sure how online propping works in modern poker, but I suspect it’s still similar. However, I also suspect that the opportunities — people completely unfamiliar with non-Hold’em games or short-handed play — that were present in the early days of online poker no longer exist.

What happened to propping and should it be resurrected?

The big question is this: Is there a place for props in modern poker?

The answer is quintessential poker: It depends.

Props serve a very narrow purpose. The only benefit they bring is hiding liquidity deficiencies. Sites with solid traffic numbers have little use for prop players.

On the other hand, a new site might find employing prop players extremely beneficial.

Of course, the pool of players that tends to be interested in propping (break-even types and small winners) is shrinking as fast as the soft online poker games I used to exploit more than a decade ago.

The idea of sitting around at a low traffic site waiting for players isn’t going to pique the interest of a solid winner (playing a loose-aggressive style) that can beat the games at big sites.

Fifteen years ago it made sense to wait for random players to show up. They were easy pickings. That’s not the case anymore, especially in an era where people specialize in heads-up and short-handed play.

As such, most modern props resemble the traditional brick & mortar prop. Meaning, they’re nitty. And nits on a rakeback deal based on contributed rake aren’t going to make much money propping, so you’re left with the nittiest of the nits who are willing to prop for peanuts.

That dynamic has the potential to be more harmful than low traffic numbers. A site with low traffic numbers is off-putting enough, couple it with rock garden games and you have the kiss of death for a poker room.

Bottom line

A poker room thinking about using prop players needs to carefully weigh the pros and cons. As important as traffic is, it’s not the only thing that’s important.

There are some unique situations where using props makes sense, but by and large it’s a practice from a bygone era of poker.

As I mentioned on Twitter, I was probably bad for gamed because I beat bad players so fast, and as Barry Carter quipped, why use props when people will swarm to a table of a fish:

I could have been a good prop, for some reason whenever I sit at a poker table it fills up right away

— Barry Carter (@Barry_Carter) September 14, 2018

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Americans don’t seem to like William Kassouf.

He’s loud, obnoxious, and boorish. He’s everything bad that people in the rest of the world have been saying about American tourists for decades and now’s their chance to pin it on someone else.

But it’s about a lot more than that.

Many ESPN-watching Americans may have found his vaunted speech play somewhat entertaining and certainly interesting during the broadcast of the 2016 World Series of Poker Main Event. However, they caught only snippets of it. The highlight reel. Anyone playing with him in the tournament, or for that matter, anyone at the Rio Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada throughout the event, was witness to the whole grindingly slow, mind-numbingly repetitive, and insanely annoying Kassouf show.

‘Nobody likes you, everybody hates you’

As many viewers might remember, things got so bad that the normally very composed and always cool poker legend Cliff Josephy sank as low as singing his own version of the nobody likes you-everybody hates you song. It very nearly bordered on collusion. Everybody at the table backed Johnny Bax in his effort to get Kassouf to shut up and go home. Or at the very least, play at a reasonable pace.

American poker players hate few things more than a player who takes too long to make what should be easy decisions. If there is one thing more loathed, it’s a player who continually wastes time with the same one-liners he’s be trying to lay on them for days. A stodgy sounding British accent doesn’t help either.

One might think the Americans that played with him were satisfied when Griffin Benger picked up aces against his kings, told him to check his privilege and finally sent him packing. However, I suspect many were dissatisfied with the fact it took a Canadian to finally shut Kassouf down. Americans have always preferred to fight their own battles.

Kassouf haters rejoice

Regardless, more than a few Kassouf-hating US poker players rejoiced over what appeared to be his downfall this week. The events that unfolded include Kassouf getting drunk on the Leeds leg of his sponsor’s Grosvenor UK Poker Tour. Then the casino caught him palming $100 chips at the roulette table. The fallout appears to be Kassouf receiving a ban from all Grosvenor properties and losing his Grosvenor sponsorship.

American Shaun Deeb broke the news on Twitter with what had to be a huge smile on his face. He’s got all kinds of reasons to hate Kassouf.

Outside of buying a PokerStars High Roller trophy over in Europe, Kassouf hasn’t done much on the felt since 2016. However, with his grip on poker fame loosening fast, Kassouf made a Phil Hellmuth-like appearance on the rail of the 2018 WSOP Main Event final table this summer. It was there that he apparently tried to chat up Deeb’s wife.

In the aftermath, Kassouf took to Twitter claiming he’d only been asking if she was Deeb’s sister. That’s an insult in almost all 50 states.

Kassouf fans attacked Deeb for spreading the rumors until Kassouf finally owned up to what happened:

It is with great sadness that I write the following statement but I feel it necessary to clarify the situation now that I’m at liberty to do so. pic.twitter.com/x7vvhTMMUE

— William Kassouf (@WilliamKassouf) September 18, 2018

Make poker fun again

Kassouf’s plan to “bring the fun and entertainment factor back to poker,” means poker hasn’t seen the last of him.

However, solid, flag-waving, apple-pie eating, red-blooded Americans like Deeb, Josephy, and anyone else who saw Kassouf’s 2016 WSOP Main Event run as anything but fun and entertaining can take solace in the fact his 15 minutes of poker fame are just about up.

Guys who palm chips at the roulette table are a lot like those who beg for buy-ins in the bathroom. They never last.

Lead image courtesy of WPT/Flickr

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