Eric Rizen Lynch

Ask Rizen

It's been a busy week, but I've made a lot of progress on some of my other projects this week so I'm hoping life will be a bit more normal in a bit. On the poker front there really isn't much to write about since I last updated on Tuesday I think. I feel like I'm playing some great poker now and am just not breaking through. At this point it's the 4th biggest downswing I've had lifetime in terms of buy ins and 3rd largest in terms of dollars. So it's not out of the norm. Fortunately I've had a pretty good month in the cash games so I'm doing just fine.

Swings are a part of poker, and I find the key to getting through them is just to maintain confident in your game and being able to look at your game from a few steps back objectively. I see lots of good players go on their first big downswing and immediately start tinkering with their game because something must be wrong. Sometimes though, it's just the natural swings of the game. Other times there really is something wrong. Being able to identify and distinguish the bad runs from the bad plays is a trait of a great poker player just as much as being able to fire the third barrel with absolutely nothing and picking off bluffs with fourth pair is.

I don't want to get into a huge sermon about backing, and I have no problem with players who are backed. I do think, however, that proper bankroll management and emotional management is a real important part of being a complete poker player. Being able to constantly add new tools to your bag of tricks while not picking up bad habits in the process is important as is constantly evolving your game to the changing landscape. Poker is a card game, but it's also a people game and an emotional game.

Maybe it's a fair comparison, or maybe not, but I think the lifespan of a great poker player is kind of like the lifespan of a great NFL running back. There are lots of good running backs who had 2 or 3 really good years in the NFL and then fade into oblivion. They either were in the right system on the right team at the right time, or the constant wear and tear on their bodies just causes them to break down after a few years. Well, sometimes poker players just go on hot runs at the right time, or they happen to have a style that works well until people figure it out or works well against the current prevailing strategy. Sometimes they also just lose the desire to keep their skills constantly sharpening and improving after a few years of success and let the emotional toll eventually wear them the rest of the way down.

Fortunately for me I still have a great passion for poker. I attack it in different ways that I did a few years ago. Lately I've been getting a bit more into cash games and learning new games like PLO and O/8 and trying to excel at those. The key for me is to constantly keep the game fresh and fun, and to be constantly becoming a better player.

I ranted a bit more than I meant to, on to the questions

Q: Do you think that it is possible for anybody to become a good poker player?  If yes, is it just will and determination to become a good player through reading, studying, etc.?

A: I think it's possible for anyone with a lot of patience and discipline, some basic math understanding, and a desire to learn more about the game to become a winning player. I'm not going to use the word good because it's kind of relative, but I think that as long as the player has the correct mindset even someone without a whole lot of poker talent could grind out a profit and lower/middle stakes MTTs/SNGs/cash games. To beat the higher levels I think it takes a certain degree of talent and some real good card sense.

I do think there are definitely a lot of people out there who could never become good poker players though. Not necessarily because of lack of talent, but people with a lack of patience and people without the discipline to stick to good bankroll management and good tilt control will never be winners, even if they're blessed with actual talent.

Q: From the beginning of your poker career, how did you progress through the different variations of poker? (limit, nl, stt, mtt, cash, mixed games)  Do you wish you could've done anything differently regarding how your grew as a player?

A: Well, I actually started as a limit cash game player. I really focused on trying to do that one thing well at first, and probably spent the first year that I played poker semi-seriously just focusing on being the best limit cash game player I could be. Once I was grinding out a consistent profit I started dabbling some in the sng and mtt world because I thought no limit was 'more fun' but I knew very little about proper betting in the games.

I eventually became a much better tournament player than limit cash game player and made that my focus, I wouldnt' do anything differently though. At the time I started limit cash was the most popular form of poker and that's where all the easy money was. Tournaments had very small prize pools and small fields and there just wasn't as much money in them. Poker blew up and all that changed though.

I do think my approach was correct though. I think beginning poker players should really stick to one discipline that they really enjoy and just do their best to become really good at it, and not branch out into other forms of poker until they're making a consistent profit in their main game. There are just so many choices in today's internet poker world that you can choose virtually anything you want to be good at and find a game of it running somewhere.

Keep the questions coming and I'll try and babble a little less next week before answering so I can sneak in a few more questions. Everyone have a great weekend and I'll recap my Sunday on Monday.

-Rizen