1) Qualify online through their satellites.
2) Be a PKR pro player.
3) Get invited to buy-in direct (as a VIP player) using a surplus ticket after the bulk of the places have been awarded.
The first four "PKR Lives" were held at the Loose Cannon near Cannon Street Station and proved to be a very popular venue. Since then, PKR drummed up a sponsorship deal with The Fox Poker Club on Shaftesbury Avenue and subsequently decided to hold their forthcoming live events at this new venue. Over the next few blogs, I'm going to write about my experience of the PKR Live event (hereafter referred to as "L5") but I'll start with how I qualified:
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Satellites for this start about 3-4 months in advance. You can have a crack from the bottom rung which starts at around $4, the middle stage for about $28 or you can have a stab at the final stage for a direct buy-in of $160. To my mind, anyone who is available at the time of the event and who can get to London for it and who has a sufficient bankroll should have, at least, a couple of pops at it. It's nice.
My path for this started out the same way as my other woeful efforts to qualify for past PKRLs. Previously my personal best for L4 was a bubble finish at Stage 2 (pipped, among others, by a Scottish chap called Modge). And the closest I came for a place in L3 was second place, out of a few hundred runners, in a lottery for a place in the final stage; second, that is, to the eventual winner of L3 whose name is vd12345. Anyway for L5 I had no joy at the three or four efforts at Stage 1 and zero joy at the three or four efforts I made at Stage 2 and so I initially just chalked this up as another fail.
Then there was a lifeline. One advantage of perusing the PKR forums is that you do sometimes get to see certain news of events before some of the other players and in this case it was the announcement that there was going to be a "Last Chance" satellite to qualify for L5. Now at this point, because my poker playing had gone up the spout, I had emptied my entire bankroll earlier and had $0 in my account. However, I just had this feeling that this could be the one. I made a one-shot $162 deposit so that I could enter the last chance saloon. I had a feeling that I should enter quickly as I felt sure these places would be snapped up quickly.
The satellite itself held places for seven players and out of about 34 odd players there were a lot of familiar names at the tables. I started off terribly and fell shortstacked fairly soon but, fortunately, I doubled up a few times at the right moments and just felt like I was going to be ok. Down to about 14 players I made a suspect call with something like K-8 in the BB to a SB all-in bet from a shortstacked Trymean77. Her ace held and I think that was her ticket in the bag. After a few tussles with the likes of Modge, petrafyde, Kingand77 and L4's runner-up, JJbird22, we got down to the final table.
Practically all the players on the final table were forum posters (friedagaric, Modge, ForFoxSake, petrafyde, Trymean77, Chivalrousgent, JJbird22 and yours truly) and maybe this accounted for why there were around 50 or so raillers! Anyway, soon enough I'm pretty much chip-leader and in the enviable position of being in "fold-to-the-seat" mode. However, I look down at KK in mid-pos and see friedagaric go all-in a few seats before me! Yep, good play says I fold but, hell, I never said I was any good and so I make the call. She flips over 44 and my KKs hold up. We're down to nine players and Modgie-babes falls by the wayside. Then, for some some reason JJbird22 is playing so loose and crazy, you really have to wonder what the hell he is doing. Anyway, after another suspect all-in from him, he gets called by Mr Huge-Stack and he's gone and we're all celebrating. (No worries for JJbird22 though - he still made it to L5!)
I would like to thank jdnorway for the above screenshot.
It's a very strange feeling qualifying for one of these. You win a relatively huge prize, which is the envy of many PKR players, yet you haven't actually won a single penny! Still, with it being talked-up so often, and with all those big name players involved, I really looked forward to my first PKRL. In a later post I shall talk about the Friday Drinks Party which occurred on 12th November and which was the curtain raiser to their Main Event which started on Saturday 13th November.
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