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PKR crashes the live-poker party once again for its second event at London’s Loose Cannon.
They couldn’t wait long enough to call it an annual event—seeing as the first PKR Live was last November—but the second instalment, in mid April, proved to raise the bar significantly. Of course, the Loose Cannon was the venue once again and PKR managed to pack the enormous, cavernous space. From all over the UK and Europe, 150 of PKR’s best players checked in, got their Ids and immediately scanned the room to try to match online aliases with the actual people. A lot of friendly handshakes and realisations made for an easy-going atmosphere; it’s not billed as the friendliest poker event for nothing.
The festivities kicked off with a Friday night warm-up tournament that set the standard of top-notch play. Play was fairly tight early on, but after the first break, the pace picked up. Maybe that had something to do with the open bar, but that correlation can’t be accurately verified.
As loose play and good times ensued, further illustrating how the PKR community is unique in the online poker world, Loose Cannon manager Roy Houghton said, “I have been in the poker world for 40 years, and have yet to meet a friendlier crowd than the people who came to the Loose Cannon over the weekend.” But regardless of the party-like vibe, the quality of poker maintained a high standard.
When all the dust settled that night, it was codename “mockjock” who persevered. But a big shout-out has to go to “discomonkey” who sweated it out in a full gorilla suit. But more on him later as he tapped into his primate instincts once the main event kicked off the next day.
The $75,000 main event was the pinnacle of the event and after putting on a poker-playing clinic—irrespective of the gorilla suit—23-year-old Englishman, Karl ‘discomonkey’ Fenton earned the proverbial banana bushel after his pocket Q-10 off-suit took the wind out of the A-9 of friend and long-time rival Simon “tigerwing” Wing, making a pair of queens on the board.
A chest-beating Karl was excited with the win. “It was definitely one of the best, most enjoyable and most successful weekends of my life,” he said. “It was an absolute honour.” |
