I'm going to move this thread to the main section, so hopefully more people will read it. This section has gotten pretty annoying lately
You ask a very good question, and one that I actually thought about at the time. Quite frankly, I feel like having a backer DID help my play, if anything. It definitely didn't have a negative effect on me, but in the back of my mind, I really wanted to do an extra good job to show my backer a positive return on his investment. That was important to me, and I think (if anything), it helped my play.
Some people don't like being backed, because they don't want to have to share their winnings. A number of people told me it woldhave been very difficult to write out the $23,050 check that I wrote and mailed to my backed. For me, I actually realy enjoyed it. I appreciated the opportunity and was glad to have been a good investment for him. Had I not been backed, I probably would have still played with my own money, but who knows if things would have worked out the same way. Maybe I would have played diferently and not made it nearly as deep, ya know?
All in all, it was a good experience for me, and one I would do again.
Oh, and for the record, my backer found me (through a friend), and not the other way around...