Poker News Daily: How did you get started in poker?
King: I originally started playing after watching the Main Event run by Chris Moneymaker in 2003. It got me interested in poker. I also had just started at a new high school and was trying to make new friends. Some guys asked me to be a part of a poker tournament they were having. I didn’t know much besides what I saw on television. I enjoyed it and made new friends in the process. It was something to do socially and something I was pretty good at.
PND: You won the 2008 PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Main Event, which was a two-day tournament. How did you prepare for an event like that?
King: The main difference is that you can expect a pretty long Day One, so you need to make sure you have water and things like that around. The structure is going to be a lot better, which is why it takes so long. You’re going to have deeper play and big-stack poker. You have a lot of room to play, so you don’t have to act in bad spots. You need to take advantage of the structure given to you.
PND: How did you celebrate taking home over $1 million for your WCOOP win?
King: I went down to a bar with my friends and got really drunk. We ran up quite a tab of $2 mixed drinks. It was a lot of fun and everyone was really supportive.
PND: You’re a backed poker player. For those who aren’t familiar with what that means, talk about some of the pros and cons of being backed.
King: It comes down to the elimination of the variance of tournament poker if you’re backed, which is really nice. When I make a big score like this, I get to put the money in my pocket. I don’t have to worry about losing it. It’s my money and I don’t have to worry about downswings or anything like that.
The cons come down to the fact that when I have a big score like this, having to ship a lot of it away really hurts. I enjoy the fact that I was able to play in the WCOOP Main Event because I was staked. If I wasn’t staked, I probably wouldn’t have played.
PND: What are the main differences between online poker and live poker?
King: In live poker, there is so much more information available and it’s a lot slower game. People play less fundamental poker and more read-based poker. People aren’t playing against you the same. You can’t expect to induce squeezes the same way, for example. A lot of plays in your arsenal as an online poker player won’t work if people are going to ignore the odds.
On the plus side, once you get a feeling on how to manipulate the players at your table and use the information that’s available in live poker, you can have a lot of success. When you mix it all together, it’s quite satisfying to play live poker.
PND: Whose game do you respect the most and why?
King: All of my former backers: THAY3R, Shaun Deeb, and Psyduck. Also, “Intervention” taught me a lot. “Cdbr3799” was one of the first people ever to teach me about poker and is someone whose game I respect.
PND: What advice do you have for beginners?
King: Start with low-stakes sit and go tournaments. You want to have a decent bankroll and then work your way up to the $4 180-man sit and gos. That’s where I really built my bankroll. Use good bankroll management. You want to have over 50 times the buy-in and ideally 100 buy-ins. That said, you can take some shots at a $4 180-man when you get to about $150. They’re very soft and if you can play well, you’ll do well. As long as you play strong and play smart, you’ll be successful.
