Top Dog: The Erick Lindgren Interview

By Martin Derbyshire Aug 26, 2008 | 3 months ago

Erick Lindgren, Legends of Poker - Day 2, 2008 World Poker Tour

Erick Lindgren had about as good a World Series as one could imagine. He took down his first bracelet, made two other final tables including the prestigious $50k H.O.R.S.E. event, and grabbed the ever-elusive WSOP Player of the Year honors.

Riding that wave right into the World Poker Tour's seventh season, Erick made the trip to L.A. for a shot at this year's Legends of Poker title, and the Team Full Tilt Pro will be sitting near the top of the leaderboard when play begins on Day 3.

PokerListings sat down with E-dog during one of the breaks at The Bike today to find out what made the difference at the 2008 WSOP, how his day was going and whether he holds a grudge against Scotty Nguyen for the latter's now-infamous behavior in the aforementioned H.O.R.S.E. final.

Looks like another big day for Erick Lindgren is shaping up here at The Bike?

It's going pretty good. I'm trying out some new stuff. Stealing a lot more than I used to. A lot of this Internet-guy stuff. I'm incorporating a lot of that. I should be on the PocketFives leaderboard any day now [laughs].

Obviously you had a great 2008 WSOP, Erick. Was that new stuff a big part of the reason why?

More stealing, yes, but just more motivation; a better effort every day. A lot of that was side bets and a lot of it was just being frustrated with my lack of success in the past, so I stepped it up.

I just clocked in every day at the Rio at noon and came with the right approach and played hard instead of just going through the motions. It's easy to do that because no one really tells you that you're playing like shit. Nobody cares. You have to judge yourself and you really have to bring that effort on your own.

WTF?

There are a million excuses and the question is do you choose to use those or do you choose to just give a great effort. Forget luck and forget how tired you are and play through it.

I have to ask you about the $50k H.O.R.S.E. final table where you took third. ESPN just aired the coverage and Scotty Nguyen did not come off looking too good. Did the editing play a role there or was it as bad as it seemed?

Scotty unfortunately didn't really leave them a choice when it came to editing. It would have been impossible to tell the story without telling the story that Scotty had too much to drink. But everybody has a bad day - in the end he won the title and he earned it.

What was going through your mind when it was happening? It was almost like he was trying to collude with you for a while.

I was trying to be an enabler and get him to drink more and for some reason he was trying to enable me to stay in the tournament. I had no idea why he did that. Scotty, it's really hard to get in his mind sometimes. But if he wants to give me leeway like that I'll take it all day, seven days a week. It takes two people to cheat and if I'm not on the program ... If the guy wants to give me chips I feel bad for my opponent, but I'm going to take them.

I love L.A.

Once you busted you walked off the set and said you hoped "The Kid" took it down. Was that a little bit of frustration?

I was impressed with Michael [DeMichele] throughout the last couple of days. I thought he played really well and it was a shame that Scotty was acting like that on a day that was not about us - it was more about Chip [Reese] and Chip's legacy. That's what it was about to me, more than the tournament itself.

It was a shame that Scotty picked that day to drink too much. I was just rooting for the kid, no doubt about it, especially with me and Scotty getting after it a little bit at the end. I just wanted to give him a little support.

But you can cut Scotty a break here, right? Are the two of you friends?

I would say we are acquaintances. We've traveled a lot and gone out for drinks together after we've played. Whether that be in Paris or a lot of places. We always got along; I mean, Scotty is an easy guy to get along with. I don't see any repercussions. I forgive people and I think everybody deserves another chance.

There's no reason to hate Scotty. He's still the fun-loving guy that most people know and adore. There's nothing between me and him, that's for sure.

So what's next for you, Erick? Any plans to head over to Europe?

Full Tilt's got me going to Germany in September and maybe over to World Series of Poker Europe after that. I don't know. I'm getting a few more TVs so I'm going to watch a lot of football and give some money to my favorite bookies, but that's about it.

Never better than the first time.

Speaking of bookies, did you have any action on the Olympics?

I'm not a big Olympics guy. There are too many randomly weird events.

Yeah, you could lose a lot of money on something like synchronized swimming?

I bet if I followed it I could make a lot of money on synchronized swimming. It seems like one of those events that's pretty easy to handicap. [laughs]

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Even on the subject of Scotty Nguyen's antics at the 2008 WSOP $50k H.O.R.S.E. final, Erick Lindgren was all class during this interview. PL.com can only stand back, applaud his efforts at the Series this year and hope there's more to come from E-dog. He deserves it all.