Eric Rizen Lynch

PokerNations.com launch, PLO, and more!

As those of you that follow this blog might remember, I am one of the partners over at PokerNations. Anthony Martino has been working SUPER hard on the site, and has let me know that it's now ready to show to my readers. I'm extremely pleased with how the site has turned out so far. If you have a minute, I would like to welcome you to go check it out. If you sign up, be sure to check out my profile and add me as a friend. As always, feel free to give feedback too!

I've been playing A LOT of pot limit omaha lately. I'm just really enjoying the game. Right now, I would consider myself a PLO cash player primarily, so I'll probably start talking about that a lot more in my blog. I kind of wrestled with that decision a bit, as most people who follow me do so because they enjoy my discussion on tournament play. I still play tournaments, and have no intention of quitting them. I play on Sundays and Wednesdays because Sundays are still SUPER soft and not playing then would just be criminal, and Wednesdays my parents watch my kids so I don't feel like I'm 'missing out' on anything when I play that night. I also make special exceptions for FTOPS and WCOOP upcoming. At this point though, while I still LOVE tournaments and plan on continuing to play them both live and online at a high level, I'm really focused on becoming a world class PLO player.

I'm not even close yet. I beat the 1/2 PLO games for a very healthy win rate but I still struggle at times in the 2/4 games. I'm playing way too straightforward right now, mainly because beating the 1/2 and lower games you can simply play solid starting hands hit flops and bet, bet, bet and show a nice profit. I'm going through Jeff Hwang's new book, Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha, and I'm watching PLO videos on various sites, including PXF. Full disclosure, Jeff Hwang's book is through my publisher, Dimat Publishing. I still think it's a great book, but I always like to disclose when there may be any conflict of interest just to be honest. For now in PLO I'm still really focusing on some of the basics in pre-flop hand selection and post flop play. I see SOOO many mistakes in PLO I know these games are beatable at very high levels, but the swings are massive. In some ways I think the game was built for me because I control tilt perhaps better than any poker player I know and otherwise good poker players can easily tilt in PLO. Anyways, I'll be talking about PLO a lot more in the days/weeks/months to come.

Lastly, there is an August Pro tournament on Lock Poker next Monday, the 31st. This tournament is going to have all the new Lock Poker pros in as bounties. If you knock one out, you will get 1 hour of free training from them. I, unfortunately, will not be able to play due to a prior obligation, but getting coaching from any of these guys can do nothing but improve your game. Don't forget if you download Lock Poker at http://www.lockpoker.com/download/rizen and use bonus code 'rizen' when you sign up, you will get an instant 110% deposit bonus. If you're having troubles depositing feel free to e-mail me at rizen@lockpoker.com and I will help out as best I can. If you already have an account, you can reload using the code 'augustpro' and get a 25% reload bonus. Using either option will get you a free ticket into the August Pro tournament. Otherwise, the tournament is a $10+1 with a standard prize pool. Good luck!

-Rizen