Karl “discomonkey” Fenton

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 and just before he hit the bright lights of Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker.
Rebecca McAdam: Tell me more about yourself — 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 2008 for $6.000, 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 2009) 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 2007.
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 2008, broke both my ankles and my finger, and was off work for eight weeks. I played, watched and 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 (MTT), 30-60 runners, and I played all the £10 and £20 buy-ins on Sky [Poker] 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 was taking a strong body language pose when I had a good hand, and something weak when I was 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 university, the nearest casino is an hour away, so any live poker is monthly at Grosvenor UK Poker Tour events or UK & Ireland Poker Tour games.
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 £15,000, and me and my friend chopped that tournament so I got £18,000 for it.
RM: That must have made you feel you had taken the right path then?
KF: Yeah, especially when they made me a PKR Pro [team member] 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 $40,000 in the $1,000 Monday on FullTilt which meant I was up $100,000 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 1k events, 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 2009 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 $50,000 in four months, so I had managed to waste £30,000 of my money and $50,000 of his.
RM: What were your thoughts then? Did you ever consider stopping?
KF: He decided that I was worth the effort; 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 $50,000 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 $190,000 at the moment in the period he has coached me.
RM: You had some good results in Las Vegas in 2010, this was obviously during the time you were turning things around. That must have been nice to return to Vegas and have something to show from it.
KF: Yeah, I went to Vegas nearly broke, I got backed by this guy in November 2009 and didn’t get paid from poker until June 2010, and I didn’t have a lot of money when I got backed. I am very privileged with the friends I have in poker though, not necessarily huge names but winners, and they bailed me out when I needed it and never asked me for the money until I had it. The two people that I’m most grateful for their financial help were Andrew Cradock and James Sudworth (PKR pro). If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have gone to Vegas.
RM: Would you also discuss hands and strategy with these people too, or was it mainly with your coach?
KF: Yeah, not so much James, he has a busy life and plays cash whereas I play tournaments. I have a number of people I can post hands to and get answers; my coach is one of course, then there are players like Jon Spinks, Craig McCorkel, Chris Brammer, Alex Carter, Jamie Sykes, Ash Mason, Toby Lewis, and so on, who will give me their thoughts if I post a hand. It’s so important to player development to get thoughts from these sorts of players, they are all very good and winners of hundreds of thousands, and they give you a different perspective based on their own style.
RM: If you all discuss hands, you must get a wide range of opinions or do you find that you come up with the “right way” to play certain hands?
KF: Exactly, or not even one right way, the most right way.
RM: Do you then find your group of friends would all have a similar style because you influence each other?
KF: I guess so, yeah, to some degree, we are all similar in age, we all started playing the game in the last three-to-six years I’d imagine, and we are, as a rule, all aggressive players, some more so than others, and there is a lot of creativity. All of the guys I mentioned and the others such as John Eames, Jack Ellwood, Jake Cody, and a ton of other guys from the UK scene are all highly intelligent people. It’s hard to mention everyone, the UK has a lot of very good, dangerous players now, and I’m in a fortunate position to be able to talk to a large percent of them and take in information on hands and knowledge they have on the game.
RM: When you come up against each other at events, you probably have a good idea of what they will do?
KF: Right, there is some definite levelling going on. It’s more fun to play the drunken cash games, the tournaments we are all trying to win and are likely to avoid each other if we can.
RM: You took down the PokerStars Sunday 500, is that your biggest cash?
KF: Yes, when I was in Vegas last summer, I cashed the Venetian $1,000 buy-in for $45,000, partied, flew back to see my sister get married, flew back two days later, busted the $1,500 six-max and then went home and chopped the $1,000 buy in heads up for $60,000, so in terms of one score, the $91,000 was the most, but I did have $100,000 in less than seven days during Vegas.
RM: The fields in these events, like the Pokerstars $500 buy-in, are quite big, how do you get through them? What’s the recipe to success?
KF: One thousand runners is not so big, it feels doable and to be honest when you’re playing the $100 rebuy, $500, Sunday Brawl, Sunday Mulligan, all of these have big money, you’re not trying to win one tournament, you’re trying to win one of 35 on a Sunday.
RM: Do you think if you can only afford to play one you shouldn’t be playing it?
KF: Definitely, unless you satellited, bankroll management is something not enough people do very well, me included, I’m better off being backed, for now at least.
RM: Are you more careful when someone else buys you in?
KF: Well yes, I feel I’m a pretty genuine guy, so I won’t ever enter a tournament and waste his money, whereas my own I might just not be bothered and spew it off.
RM: Right. So, was the PokerStars Sunday 500 tough?
KF: Yes, the toughest final table I have ever had without question.
RM: How so?
KF: The people. There was “gboro”, who is widely renowned as one of the best in the world, two to my left. He’s not super-aggro, but very tough, “gray 31” is a high stakes regular, “oncommand” who is also a high stakes regular and is super aggro, “hitthehole” (Tom Middleton), “jvbizz” another high stakes regular, “mementmori” (Mickey Peterson), “obvaments” yet another high stakes regular, and a random I didn’t know. I had won a big flip on the final-table bubble A-Q versus J-J, blind versus blind, so I was chip leader.
RM: Pressure?
KF: Very much so. I had had a 10-month stretch of not being paid by my backer and I wasn’t exactly flush with money with Vegas coming up and having a girlfriend in Florida I go and visit.
RM: So how did you play it?
KF: Well I was kind of tight at first, the 500 is an exceptional structure, so I was 80-90 big blinds deep at the start, I had the other two big stacks in the small blind and big blind when I was on the hijack, and the two people to my left were quite short and capable of shoving light and correctly, so there weren’t many good spots to apply pressure. I waited a while and played good hands and took good spots and then two or three people busted and I had a tight image.
RM: Was the heads up quick?
KF: About 70 hands, we never discussed a deal at any point of the final. I have always been someone who performs better under intense pressure.
RM: Did you have anyone with you at this point because when you win an online tourney sometimes the initial celebrations aren’t as good considering the circumstances.
KF: I was at my parents’ house after coming home from a pool tournament that ran over Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning, there was some drinking involved and not much sleep. I went back to my parents, played the 16-hour session, and at 9 a.m. my Dad was getting breakfast, he asked me how I was doing, I told him I was heads up for 91k or 66k, he swore, laughed, shook his head and went into the kitchen to get breakfast.
RM: Madness!
KF: Yeah, I earned 2.5 times the yearly wage in the UK in seven hours.
RM: Are you going to be playing many live events now?
KF: Not in the immediate future, university deadlines are piling up.
RM: You obviously then don’t want to just play poker all your life.
KF: No, the plan is to be freelance in an area of advertising and marketing and do that when poker is boring or I need a break.
RM: Nice plan! Are you going to buy anything with your winnings by the way?
KF: Well I have been known for winning money and then spending it on crazy stuff. The first year I won 40k, I bought a 2k outfit from Dolce and Gabbana; $700 shirt, $700 trousers, $400 belt, $400 shoes. I grew a little, so now the shoes are my Dad’s, and the trousers need altering. This year in Vegas I won $100,000 in a week, I took all the guys out and spent $2,500 on drinks for everyone, and bought a $500 Armani hoodie, and $400 Gucci shoes. I love nice things!
RM: Are you planning your next shopping spree after your recent win then?
KF: My girlfriend is a good influence on me, she won’t let me buy ridiculous things.
RM: So no more shoes for your dad?
KF: Yeah exactly, not unless I win something huge.
RM: Diamond encrusted laces all the way then! ♠