Laurence Houghton – rivermanl

one poster questioned how someone who multi-tables 5 tournaments & 6 $5,500 Heads-Up SnGs can possibly be profitable

Laurence Houghton is one of the UK’s finest online players and one of the most under-rated performers of 2008….

You don’t find too many world class online tournament players from the UK but it seems everyone is marvelling at the performances of Laurence ‘rivermanl’ Houghton in recent months.

Rumoured to have been on a huge downswing at the start of the year 2009, Houghton has been absolutely tearing up the MTT & STT scene since and his sheer volume of play has caught the attention of the poker world in a big way. He is a regular in the big MTTs, the high stakes SnGs and the NLH $25/$50 cash games on PokerStars – and sometimes does all 3 at the same time!

In a Two Plus Two thread one poster questioned how someone who multi-tables 5 tournaments & 6 $5,500 Heads-Up SnGs can possibly be profitable. Well we don’t know how he does it; all we know is that he most certainly has one of the highest ROIs in the world in 2009.

Since March 2009, rivermanl (who plays as whatariver1 on Full Tilt) has passed the $1million prizes mark on PokerStars and is beyond $600,000 on FT – bear in mind that his first cash on either site was in November 2006 so Houghton has done this in the space of 3 years, an incredible feat in itself. The guy has had so many major tournament scores recently that it’s hard to know where to start, but in no particular order he has taken down: the Stars $100 Re-Buys (April, $20,790), the $200 Re-Buys, $200 Heads-Up tournament & FT $1k Monday (all June, over $155,000), the Stars $5,000 Winner Takes All (August, $50,000) & the Sunday Second Chance (October, $54,480) – and this is all before FTOPS X. In November 2009 Houghton took down Event #8 of the sites flagship series ($250 NLH) for a career best score of $137,154 which catapulted him above Chris Moorman in the Pocket Fives UK Sortable rankings. When he is named as one of the most under-rated players in the world in one of the sites forum threads, you can see why. (One poster also suggests that he has won as many as 13 PCA seats!)

The 24 year old (from London) was a regular in the old Gutshot club (now the International Club) along with Poker Verdict’s Tony Phillips, who named Houghton as one of his favourite players. Though live tournament results have been scarce to date, he did final table the GUKPT Manchester, eventually busting in 6th for $30,861 (check out the video below to see his elimination at the hands of PV’s Nik Persaud, who went on to finish second).

As already mentioned, rivermanl is also a prolific sit and go player with Sharkscope showing his profits on Full Tilt to be in excess of $130,000 – how he can do this while profiting from the $25/$50 cash games (notoriously filled with very tough players) is a feat that would probably be beyond all but a handful of today’s top players. Check out a couple of hand histories below for some examples of his sick call-downs that have become legendary:

Seat 8: p3achy_keen ($5499.50 in chips)
Seat 9: rivermanl ($26824.50 in chips)
p3achy_keen: posts small blind $25
rivermanl: posts big blind $50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
p3achy_keen: raises $100 to $150
rivermanl: calls $100
*** FLOP *** [Th 9d 3d]
rivermanl: checks
p3achy_keen: bets $200
rivermanl: calls $200
*** TURN *** [Th 9d 3d] [6d]
rivermanl: checks
p3achy_keen: bets $650
rivermanl: calls $650
*** RIVER *** [Th 9d 3d 6d] [9s]
rivermanl: checks
p3achy_keen: bets $1750
rivermanl: calls $1750
*** SHOW DOWN ***
p3achy_keen: shows [7h 2h] (a pair of Nines)
rivermanl: shows [4s 4d] (two pair, Nines and Fours)

Seat 8: p3achy_keen ($7418 in chips)
Seat 9: rivermanl ($15785 in chips)
p3achy_keen: posts small blind $25
rivermanl: posts big blind $50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
p3achy_keen: raises $100 to $150
rivermanl: raises $400 to $550
p3achy_keen: calls $400
*** FLOP *** [3s 8c 5s]
rivermanl: bets $800
p3achy_keen: calls $800
*** TURN *** [3s 8c 5s] [Qs]
rivermanl: checks
p3achy_keen: checks
*** RIVER *** [3s 8c 5s Qs] [Ac]
rivermanl: checks
p3achy_keen: bets $3850
rivermanl: calls $3850
*** SHOW DOWN ***
p3achy_keen: shows [2d 6d] (high card Ace)
rivermanl: shows [Td Ts] (a pair of Tens)

If you search for ‘rivermanl’ or ‘whatariver1’ on Stars or Full Tilt, you are probably going to be treated to a multi-table master-class whatever time of day it is – surely it is only a matter of time before Houghton loses his most under-rated status as his star continues to grow.