Rizen (Eric Lynch)
Eric Lynch (known online as "Rizen") is a fierce poker
player who has been dominating the online tournament scene for over four years.
He was the Internet Player of the Year in 2006 and 2007, and has amassed more than $1.3 million in online winnings. Rizen has won some of the biggest online poker tournaments at PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, and actually started playing at Party Poker back when they allowed American players.
This article will take a look at Eric Lynch's history, how he got started in online poker, and some of his recent results.
Lynch's Early Days
Rizen got involved in poker after dropping out of college to take a job in the tech industry. He learned the game while playing casual home games with his co-workers, and quickly realized that he won a lot more than he lost. Lynch then decided to sign up at PartyPoker.com, where he made an initial $50 deposit.
Eric had the beginner's luck, and went on a heater to build his bankroll up to over $1,000. However, his skills weren't quite up to par, and he quickly got overconfident and almost went broke. Lynch realized he couldn't rely on luck forever, and started studying all of the Slansky poker books to learn the game. With his newfound knowledge, Rizen was able to rebuild his bankroll and eventually moved up to the $5/$10 NL Hold'em tables.
Over the next year or so, Rizen made his living playing the $5/$10 tables as he had a significant skill advantage over the other players at that level. The money started piling up, and Lynch took his game to the tournament side of poker to go for the really big scores. After making a few strategy adjustments, Rizen started making a name for himself in the online poker tournament world.
Big Scores by Rizen
After playing a few tournaments at Party Poker, Rizen's first five-figure score was in an $11 rebuy tournament at PokerStars, which he won for $14,000. He used that money to buy into even bigger tournaments, and quickly won the Party Poker Friday Special for $45,000. Since then, he's piled up some huge wins, and like we mentioned before, was the 2006 and 2007 Internet Poker player of the year.
Some of Lynch's biggest wins include a $156,000 score at PokerStars, and a few big scores at the World Series of Poker. He took 24th in the 2006 Main Event for roughly $500,000, and took third in the $1,500 Pot Limit Hold'em event for $100,000. To this day, you can count on seeing Eric deep in huge tournaments at Stars and FTP.
Other Facts About Eric Lynch
Rizen has become quite a public online poker player, and is a frequent poster at PocketFives.com as well as a writer for CardPlayer magazine. He currently maintains a poker website, www.RizenPoker.com, where he keeps an updated blog detailing his life and tournament updates. Rizen is also a partner at PokerNations.com, which is a new social networking site that has promised big things, but so far has struggled to grow.