Player Focus: RandALLin

Young Randal Flowers aka "RandALLin" has had a fantastic run on UltimateBet in the last few weeks...

20 Feb 2007 By James Hipwell

"It's just like they held up a sign in front of my face telling me how inexperienced they are and that they want me to bust them when they play a huge hand similar again"

Someone who is most definitely set to dominate the high stakes MTTs this year is Randal Flowers aka RandALLin. He has been playing poker for about three years and has played professionally for the past year.

Since he turned pro the 18-year-old from Greenville in North Carolina has been burning up the online felt and has trousered tournament winnings of over £300k in the last six months alone.

Among his bigger wins you will find a first place in the UltimateBet $200k Guaranteed (good for $46k at the beginning of February 2007), second in the PokerStars $100 rebuys (16k in January), first in another $100 rebuy on Stars ($20k last September) and first in a $30 rebuy tourney on Paradise ($23k at the end of August last year). Add to that multiple final tables and decent cashes in all the big MTTs on Ultimate, Stars and Full Tilt and you will see that young Randal is no fly-by-night.

Like many teenage American ‘phenoms’ (dreadful word so apologies) RandALLin isn’t old enough to set foot in a US casino yet so doesn’t have much live experience yet. His one live performance as in this year’s PokerStars Caribbean Adventure where he failed to cash.

He did write a blog about the tournament though which makes for entertaining reading as well as providing an insight into his playing style.

If you do find yourself playing against him on Ultimate or Stars never show your cards to him as this guy is an information junkie, as his blog reveals:

“After fluctuating between 18k and 22k for the first level or two I was settling into the zone and was playing very well, being patient and nailing the hand ranges that I had on strangers at the table just from reads etc. I found it to be extremely helpful to notice every hand played even when I'm not in one, because it is a chance to pick up a weakness to exploit or a tell.

“I love it so much when idiots who are dealt kings preflop, play it some odd/terrible way, then show it to me. It's just like they held up a sign in front of my face telling me how inexperienced they are and that they want me to bust them when they play a huge hand similar again, because most of these players are not capable enough to play kings different the 2nd time around they get them,” he writes.

If you’re over the age of 25 you’re in trouble too against young Randal because he has an uncanny ability to use his extreme youth to outfox or outplay you. Youngsters are smarter, see.

“I used some irrational judgement about my bluff-like image and somehow talked myself into thinking maybe he thought I was 2 barrelling which is fucking retarded because old people are dumb and have no idea of logic like that,” he writes about one beat he took.

And should you find yourself heads-up with young Randal after a particularly gruelling six-hour MTT don’t think about asking him for a deal.

When two-handed in a $50 freezeout on PokerStars his opponent, JJmack, enquired about the possibility of a deal. The chat went as follows:


JJmack: chop?
Dealer: JJmack, it's your turn. You have 15 seconds to act
RandALLin: chop is for japanese ppl
RandALLin: play it

The fact that he went on to finish second in this (for just under $4k) shows he is out to win and isn’t interested in second place. It is a temperament that landed him three victories in the $30 rebuy tournament on UltimateBet in January alone.

He beat off 200 other players to win it on 3 January (taking down $6k), beat 190 players in the same tournament four days later (for $5,500) and won it again at the end of the month by defeating 136 others to claim a futher $4,600. A few days later he topped off the extraordinary run with victory in Ultimate's flagship Sunday night tourney – the $200,000 Guaranteed, this time blasting his way through 728 other competitors.

How does he do it? He said recently one of his key skills is in being able to pick the best spots to re-steal and laying down big hands in certain situations.

On what motivates him to succeed in online poker, he says: “I'm very competitive and kind of an extremist. Although I am really lazy, when I do choose to do something, I put everything I can into it. So what basically motivates me is I want to be the best and have a successful career.”

You can’t argue with that.

 

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28/03/07

Randal has a deep mistrust of the playing styles of the old so it's bad news for the guy on his left (Picture: www.thepokerdb.com)