About Eric Lynch

Name	Eric Lynch
Current Residence	Olathe Kan.
Born	Oct. 20, 1978
Birth Place	St. Louis Mo.

Eric Lynch. Not a name that may register as quickly as, say, Phil Hellmuth or Johnny Chan when it comes to poker pros. But ask any online player to list his most feared competition at the virtual felt and the name Rizen will surface.

Rizen is Eric Lynch, the family man from Olathe, Kan., who probably goes against any existing preconceived notions of young Internet poker players. Or at least anything you might gather from reading online forums.

He's a former software engineer who takes his son to gymboree each week and, as far as leaks are concerned, is as tight as a drum.

Lynch was born Oct. 20, 1978, in St. Louis, Mo., but at the age of 1 moved to Olathe, Kan., where he graduated high school and still lives to this day.

Social card games were a big part of his childhood. Lynch first played poker for pennies and marbles with friends as a boy, and his family enjoyed hands of spades, pitch and hearts, as well as board games.

When Lynch graduated from high school, he headed for Kansas University to study software engineering. He didn't graduate, though, as the booming tech sector demanded computer-savvy employees faster than schools could produce them.

"That was when the whole dot.com thing was going on, and people were offering me way too much money to leave school early, so I did," he said.

The move was a smart one, because when the bubble burst on the industry Lynch had already established himself with a firm and managed to hang on to his job when pink slips were being doled out. Just as fortuitously, Lynch was first introduced to poker after sitting in on a home game with some coworkers.

Poker appealed to Lynch, but at the time, just as a hobby.

He was making good coin as a software engineer but dedicated his extra money to retirement savings and the stock market rather than tucking it away for a bankroll. Given that his interest in poker was only casual, Lynch made a $50 deposit on PartyPoker.com, registered as Rizen - a random name he'd chosen when gaming in high school - and dipped his toe in the water.

After getting a feel for the software, Lynch started logging on to play each night, occasionally instant messaging a friend and game veteran for guidance. At first poker was deceptively easy for the newbie, who started winning regularly.

"I was doing pretty well at first, and I think that led me to believe that I was better than I actually was at the time," he said.

Things started to go downhill eventually and Lynch was forced to admit that he needed some help. True to his nature, he came to the realization without having to go broke - since his first log-in Lynch has never lost his initial $50 deposit. To improve, he turned to David Sklansky's books and kept on grinding. During the first year, his bankroll would peak at $600 but his poker education knew no limits.

Eventually, Lynch was regularly beating lower-limit games and, on the advice of his friend, pulled himself up to the $5/$10 games from his regular 25¢/50¢ games. The move was a confidence builder and, within a year and a half from his initial deposit, he was playing in tournaments.

That Lynch is now or ever was strictly a tournament player is a misconception, he says. Still, he has some impressive tournament results that could lead one to believe it's his specialty.

His first big success was in an $11 re-buy event at PokerStars.com. Lynch won the tournament and turned his $14,000 prize into buy-ins for higher-stakes tournaments. After taking down the PartyPoker.com's Friday special for $45,000, there was no stopping Rizen’s ascension.

Since then, Lynch topped the Internet Player of the Year leaderboard in 2006 and 2007 for his succession of online tournament wins. With increased notoriety has come opportunity: Lynch now enjoys a loyal following in the online poker community, updates a regular poker blog and contributes a column to CardPlayer magazine.

Being a name player hasn't changed Lynch's game though - especially given the results of the 2006 World Series of Poker. There, the Internet wonder-boy proved his live-game chops by finishing 24th in the Main Event for almost $500,000 and finished third in the $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold'em event for more than $100,000.

With a celebrated moniker online and WSOP airtime on ESPN, Lynch was becoming an eminent poker player, and his competition wasn’t sure how to deal with him. While some used over-the-top aggression to knock Lynch out of the tournament, others folded at Rizen's slightest action.

By nature Lynch is a tight-aggressive player, but his current style varies depending on the table.

"At first I had a hard time adjusting to it because players started to play me a lot differently, and I couldn't get away with a lot of the things I got away with before, so I had to learn to play a little differently to keep making money," he said.

Not that making money has been much of a problem for Lynch since his career switch. He's been on an unbroken profit streak since 2005 that's seen him pulling in at least $10,000 a month - a personal benchmark set to surpass the salary he was making as a software engineer.

Though his name is now invariably tied with online poker, Lynch has bigger priorities than competing in the next Sunday Million. His spare time is dedicated to his wife, Shauna, his son, Corbin, and daughter, Kira. The family enjoys spending time together and, to ensure he's never gone from them for too long, Lynch keeps travel to a minimum by competing in only a few live tournaments each year.

Only focus on family - something that poker players tend to lack, as Barry Greenstein famously noted in the dedication of his book Ace on the River - can trump Lynch's steely concentration when he's at the felt.

But when Rizen's brought his A-game to the table, look out. He's in every game to compete.

"The only goal I have is to just play the absolute best I can every single time I play and give 100% concentration and focus and play my best," he says. "If I play 90% of my best and end up winning a tournament, I actually am less satisfied than if I played my absolute best and bust on the bubble."

Trivia

• Top-ranked online poker player who goes by the name Rizen
• Finished 24th in the Main Event of the 2006 WSOP
• Regular blogger and poker columnist