[herschelw]

First, trying to cash is basically worthless. The top player will be playing a much much riskier style on the bubble in many cases. The plays you described where the player is calling off with allins in front with small pairs generally are very bad.

2ndly, imo when looking at a players stats you must do at minimum 2 things to get a more accurate picture of the player. First, remove all buyins that aren't part of thier normal schedule. So for most player basically remove all the $200+ buyins with huge fields from the results you're looking at. Second, consider stats from both stars and ftp at minimum.

3rdly, when deciding whether to invest in a BAP consider thier BR management guidelines and previous history.

If you really study before making investments it can be very profitable. I currently manage a $30k mutual fund there and am up $13kish on it at the moment. However, I only invest in very low risk BAP's.... generally by players who have good results but haven't quite broken through to the point that they can sell out the $5k+ BAP's.