How to win a PKO leaderboard

Barry Carter won the Unibet Slobberknocker Leaderboard and he has a few leaderboard tips, even though all he did was run like God.

Forgive the brag but last week I won the Unibet SlobberKnocker leaderboard. It was a PKO series and the leaderboard was scored purely on the most knockouts made by one player. You could not cash a single event and still win the leaderboard.

I managed 116 knockouts over 16 events. I made two final tables and cashed eight times. I rebought 15 times, so pretty much once every MTT. My total buy-ins were €235, I cashed for €559 in total and won the leaderboard prize of €600 on top of that. My overall profit was €924.

It was a leaderboard I made a point of seeking out ahead of time for a few reasons. First of all it was only a week long. I have done a few deep leaderboard runs before and I end up running out of steam when they went over two or three weeks. Secondly I came third in the last PKO leaderboard I played so I felt I knew what my strategy would be. Finally, I have also written a book on PKOs, so I felt I had an understanding of the format and it would be good marketing of the book if I won it.

Get the chip lead early

I did really well on the first day, I came third in one of the tournaments and won 16 bounties. It was this that made me decide to go for it for the remaining seven days. I think any leaderboard requires a bit of good variance and a good start, if I had a poor day on Day 1 I suspect I would have given up right away. I was in the lead from the start because I had a really good deep run at the start.

After that my strategy changed completely. Knowing I was ahead in the leaderboard meant that every single bounty was worth more to me in EV than they were for other players. My strategy for the next week was to play even looser than you normally should for the bounties, especially during the re-entry period.

One of the things we advocate in our book PKO Poker Strategy is maintaining a chip lead. We argue it’s correct to pass small edges if it means you get to keep onto the chip lead. It also is a good strategy to gamble a little to get a chip lead. Covering people is so important in PKOs because it is the only way you can win bounties.

Yeah its over pic.twitter.com/iXD5Q5p0gy

— Barry Carter (@Barry_Carter) January 15, 2023

I did indeed gamble for the chip lead but my big adjustment was not doing anywhere near as much to protect it. I remember making a particularly loose call on the bubble of one PKO for just a starting bounty, which is not a good idea normally on a bubble. I also made another especially wild call with 32s on the final day to win three bounties at once, the only reason I made the call was because the re-entry period was 5 minutes from ending and it seemed like the perfect spot to gamble. Both these spots were terrible PKO strategy but I suspect they were not too terrible when you factor in the pay jumps in the leaderboard.

You are playing a different game to everyone else

This was the most fun aspect of the leaderboard for me, I was playing a different game to the players at my table. I did not care about the payouts themselves (which you always should in PKOs) because I was playing for the payouts in the leaderboard itself.

It was still a grind though. I played the UK Poker Championships event at Dusk Till Dawn last week and in a rare unsociable moment for me, I played the leaderboard games on my phone while we were there. When I bust the event I open shoved a big stack on my phone, turned it off and drove home for 40 minutes. I arrived at a drive through McDonalds (don’t judge me it was a busy week) and checked my phone to see I was still in. I managed to get one more bounty while I was ordering my burger. Don’t worry, I did not look at my phone while driving.

GOOD LUCK to everyone playing for second tonight in the SLOBBERKNOCKER LOW LEADERBOARD on @UnibetPoker!

This man has been an absolute wrecking ball all week. pic.twitter.com/XPOy71wtI0

— 🃏 David Lappin 🃏 (@dklappin) January 15, 2023

I’m glad it’s over though, a week of playing PKOs and doing very aggressive things to maintain my lead has certainly seen me ‘punt’ a lot more in regular MTTs.

I’m not sure if you should follow my advice on leaderboards, especially because I probably won the one with the most gamble possible. What I would say is that they are a really long grind, even if they are a week long leaderboard, so prepare for that. It’s important to make a good start in them and you have to run well, so if you do not hit the ground running maybe don’t continue.

Finally, you have to work out when you are playing a different game to your tablemates. If you have a lead to protect that might mean having to deviate from your normal strategy. In a regular MTT this might mean having to play tighter than usual to secure a cash, in a PKO leaderboard it means calling all-in with 32s to win three bounties at once.

Have you ever won an MTT leaderboard? Let us know in the comments: