Generation Next -- Lucas Rifkin

Lucas Rifkin is not your usual college student who’s itching to turn poker professional after a few big cashes. Case in point: He recently took down the PokerStars $200 no-limit hold’em rebuy event for $41,000, and believe it or not, he stayed in school. Nor does he slam-dunk 30 tournaments a day while managing to slip a rare college class into a busy poker schedule. In reality, Rifkin plays most Wednesday evenings and every Sunday, the two days that poker becomes a relaxing respite away from an intense college grind.

Stellar grades and graduation take precedence for Rifkin, who is in his fourth year of medical school at the University of Kentucky. A love of games led him to poker when friends dragged him to a home game. To learn more, he decided to dabble in online tournaments. Without the required bankroll for the higher buy-in events, Rifkin remained satisfied as a profitable competitor in the $20-$50 tournaments, until two friends started a player-backing business and brought him into the fold.

“I got involved early on when Jeremy ‘thechemist83’ Gaubert and ‘8balldeluxe’ started backing players,” said Rifkin. “That cash support allowed me to move up to higher stakes, compete with better players, and improve my game. Jeremy is a very talented player, and he helped me build a game based on solid fundamentals.”

Under the online screen name “Beaver Fever,” Rifkin didn’t waste any time proving his worth to his investors. Last fall, he won a $530 PokerStars Sunday no-limit hold’em event for $92,979, and recently took down a $150 Full Tilt Poker event for $25,704. That’s not too shabby for a future doctor, who most certainly will pull in some serious cash when specializing in plastic and reconstructive surgery during his medical career. So, beware. If you’re seated at a final table with Rifkin, rest assured that he’s not concerned about moving up the pay scale; first place or bust is an accurate diagnosis.

Craig Tapscott: What was your first poker epiphany after you started competing in higher-stakes events?

Lucas Rifkin: It was playing the sit-and-go step tournaments for World Series of Poker seats. I won a bunch of them. While playing MTTs [multitable tournaments], I played aggressively, as you should, but playing the sit-and-gos added a dimension to my game; I learned to be really conservative with my chips and not spew. And that wasn’t how I’d been playing in tournaments, where I’m pretty loose-aggressive; that experience gave me another mode to shift into.

CT: What’s a key to going deep in these large events?

LR: The key is your thought process at the table. You need to learn to put yourself in other players’ positions. You must learn to think about what type of game they expect you to play, and learn to play the situation that you’re in. You just can’t let players peg you as a certain type of player and be right.

CT: So what’s the plan, then?

LR: You have to make it a mistake for a player to tag you as a certain type. You have to be able to play many styles and be thoughtful about when is the best time to change gears. You have to be able to read your opponents’ hands, of course, and the longer you play, the better sense you get for how certain opponents act. And you have to think about what a player expects you to do in a given situation. If a guy thinks that you’re going to be behaving a certain way, do something different, be tricky, represent other hands, and make unconventional plays. On the other hand, if a player always thinks that you’re trying to be tricky, sometimes it’s best just to make the standard play.

CT: Great advice. I see a lot of spewing preflop in online tourneys, with crazy three- and four-betting with air, in and out of position. What the hell’s going on?

LR: Yeah. Preflop, another mistake that people make is turning valuable hands into bluffs. If someone is opening hands from early to middle position, some players in late position will three-bet a decent hand like 9-9 or A-J suited. Then when the original raiser four-bet shoves, they will fold. This isn’t a good idea. The original raiser is going to shove or fold to the three-bet; if they’re going to three-bet and fold, they might as well do that with trash hands instead of with hands that are good enough and profitable enough to call with and play in position. So, when three-betting trash hands, the outcome is practically the same as it is with the A-J suited or the 9-9. If you can call profitably in position but your hand isn’t strong enough to go all the way preflop, don’t turn it into a bluff.