This Poker Life: Karl "discomonkey" FentonCard Player Catches Up With Karl Fenton After Recent Online Success |
|
Karl Fenton is a 25-year-old living and studying in the UK and really coming into his own in the world of poker. Card Player Europe chatted to “discomonkey” only days after his latest online win to find out more about him.
In Part I of this interview, Fenton discusses the rollercoaster ride he experienced in his early days of playing poker…
Rebecca McAdam: Tell me more about you… where you’re from, what you were doing before poker, and so on.
Karl Fenton: Ok well I was born in Scunthorpe, and live with my parents in a small town called Caistor in Lincolnshire until I went to University at 21 to study advertising and marketing. Poker success and uni coincided to be honest. I won my first major score in August ‘08 for 6k, when I was totally life busto and deposited my last $60 in true degen style.
RM: Where did you discover poker?
KF: Well, I used to play a lot of pool (barely missing out on an England trial in ‘09) and one of the guys I used to play with thought I might like it, I downloaded a poker client and swiftly lost $200, this was back in late ’07.
RM: So you didn’t do too good in the beginning then?
KF: Not really. I made some small money when I moved sites.
RM: How did you improve your game?
KF: Well, I was in a very bad go-karting accident in March ’08, broke both my ankles and my finger, and was off work for eight weeks. I played/ watched/ studied 17 hours a day and slept for seven on my parents sofa as I couldn’t get upstairs, and was making £200 a week which was about my wage at the time.
RM: So would you be of the belief that it takes a lot more than just the amount of hands you play to improve?
KF: Yes, in my opinion you have to have innate skills in certain areas, you have to be patient, logical (even the crazy poker players have logic behind their plays), and hard working for the most part.
RM: Were you playing cash online mostly?
KF: No, tournaments. They were short field multi-table tournaments, 30-60 runners, and I played all the £10 and £20 buy-ins on Sky through the night
and invariably won.
RM: Had you played much live at this point?
KF: Not at all. I started to play in a pub poker league. It was friendly with a lot of people from the pool league. At first I wasn’t too successful as live is obviously different to online, but once I adapted I was one of only two people to win the league multiple times which obviously isn’t a big achievement but it was to me at the time.
RM: What did you have to do to adapt?
KF: The stacks are shorter in those games and people don’t look at stack size, bet size, or anything like that in those games. They are mostly there for fun, and just to play cards.
RM: What about your first major live event?
KF: I think my first live major MTT was PKR Live, the first one.
RM: When I speak to players who call themselves live players they largely believe that the main thing online players have a problem with in live fields is tells. Did you have a problem with this?
KF: Yes, while playing PKR Live, one of the dealers told me from seeing the play
that I did a specific thing when I was strong.
RM: Can you say what it is?
KF: Yeah I don’t do it now. I used to put my arms out in front of me, in a very strong looking position when I had a hand and fold my arms or do something else when I was weak. I have studied some psychology at college so I understand some stuff about body language and the like so I immediately knew what he was saying was correct. I’m taking a strong body language pose when I have a good hand, and something weak when I’m weak.
RM: Did you get the feeling you should play more live after that, so you could improve, or did you prefer online?
KF: It’s a non-contest really. Living in Lincoln at Uni, the nearest casino is an hour away, so any live poker is monthly at GUKPTs or UKIPTs etc..
RM: Your preference is based on convenience then?
KF: Yes, I have a pretty good record at live poker. Obviously it’s a smaller sample in softer fields but I feel I play well live compared with online.
RM: Your name came into the headlines in 2009 when you won PKR Live II – was that your biggest win at the time in poker?
KF: Yes, previously it was 15k, and me and my friend chopped that tournament so I got 18k for it.
RM: That must have made you feel you had taken the right path then?
KF: Yeah, especially when they made me PKR pro a week or so later. I went from zero money and being just a random poker player who won a little bit, and a month later I got third for 40k in the 1k Monday on FullTilt which meant I was up 100k and in magazines and a face of a poker site in just over nine months, which when you put it like that, looks crazy.
RM: That third place finish must have really come at a good time because I can imagine if a site makes you a team pro, you probably feel pressure to keep the results coming in?
KF: Yeah and in all honesty, I wasn’t even that good. I was aggro and could play poker but to be going deep in 1ks, you have to be very good or very lucky ⎯ At the time in that tournament I was the latter.
RM: So what changed?
KF: Well, I went off to Vegas, won nothing, came back, won nothing, went nearly busto in October ’09 and got backed by the same guy who still backs me for MTTs, an American limit hold’em crusher/ business man, and under him I managed to lose another 50k in four months, so I had managed to waste 30k of my money and 50k of his.
RM: What were your thoughts then? Did you ever consider stopping?
KF: He decided that I was worth the effort and I was thinking the right things, just executing them incorrectly. I wasn’t sure what to do, I’d always done well or at least I thought I had, that is one of the hardest parts of an MTT player’s life, knowing you are playing well or not. It’s so easy to say it’s just variance when you lose or it’s all skill when you win, there are very, very few people that truly understand MTT variance. After this 50k losing streak for my backer, he got me coaching by his biggest horse. That was around a year ago now and I’m still backed by the same guy and coached by the same guy and I’m up around 190k at the moment in the period he has coached me.
In part II, Fenton discusses his peers, his recent win, and his love for the “finer” things in life.
Copyright © 2001-2024
CardPlayer.com. All rights reserved.
