This week, PocketFives.com welcomes one of the rising female stars of the game to its Poker Podcast: Lauren locoenlacabeza Kling, who one year ago finished second in the UB.com Online Championship (UBOC) Main Event for over $160,000. In 2011, she’s fresh off a win in the UB.com Sniper $80,000 Guarantee for $23,000 and sat down with us to discuss her career.
Kling admitted that the top female player in the game is PokerStars pro Vanessa Selbst. She told the PocketFives.com Podcast, “Vanessa is an amazing player. She is extremely aggressive and incredibly intelligent. If you speak with her about anything poker-wise, she can always explain herself very well. I definitely aspire to be on her level one day and am working hard to get to that point.” Selbst won the North American Poker Tour (NAPT) Mohegan Sun Main Event last year for $750,000.On the status of her live game compared to online, Kling admitted, “I try to be more aggressive live. I’d say my 4bet percentage live is relatively high in comparison to most, but it’s dependent upon who is at my table. If I’m sitting with a bunch of online guys who all know how I play, then I’m going to adjust accordingly to that.” She took 14th in last year’s World Poker Tour (WPT) Festa al Lago for $32,000, her largest live cash to date.
When she first started playing online, Kling recalled that she immediately began playing the high-stakes games: “Online, I really didn’t grind low-stakes very much. I kind of just jumped into the higher stakes. Before I started playing online, I used to play sit and gos at the Hard Rock in Tampa and that was where I got a lot of my experience. Then, I played in college in smaller cash games.” Her first live cash, according to the Hendon Mob database, came back in November 2008.
Kling formerly dated Mike SowersUNCC Sowers (pictured) and explained that the recent PokerStars Caribbean Adventure final table member was instrumental in the growth of her game. “In the beginning, definitely I would have to say my ex-boyfriend Sowers,” Kling revealed when asked who had influenced her the most. “I watched him play non-stop. He’s a phenomenal player and really helped me with playing post-flop and understanding that nothing is standard.”Kling’s poker rap sheet includes the aforementioned UBOC final table along with deep runs in tournaments like the Full Tilt $1K Monday, Full Tilt $150 Rebuy, PokerStars $100 Rebuy, and Full Tilt $75,000 Guarantee. But what does she think is her biggest accomplishment?
“I’d say my biggest accomplishment hasn’t been a score that I’ve had,” Kling relayed. “It’s been having control of myself mentally and my life in general while being involved in poker. I never react anymore. I don’t get emotional. Whenever I get knocked out of a tournament, I take it as a professional. I don’t complain about bad beats. I’ve reduced the emotion in my game to the point where I’m focused on the important things.”
When you see Kling at the tables, she’s usually pretty jubilant. It isn’t necessarily because she’s trying to use her looks to her advantage, however. Kling instead reasoned, “I’m just a pretty happy person in general when I’m playing live poker. I love it. I have a great time playing and I smile a lot. People ask me why I’m smiling at the table and it’s because I love what I’m doing. I’m truly happy.”
Check out the rest of this week’s episode of the PocketFives.com Podcast featuring Lauren locoenlacabeza Kling.
