Meet Your Chip Leader: Ryan Lenaghan

Ryan Lenaghan

Lenaghan has been playing poker seriously for four years now. He is a graduate of Louisiana State University [LSU], where he also ran cross country on the school’s accomplished track and field team. Card Player caught up with Lenaghan at an impromptu press conference after day 6 in the Amazon Room. He talked about his initial poker experience and the increased pressure of playing with the chip lead in the largest poker tournament of the year.

Question: Tell us about the day you’ve had?

Ryan Lenaghan: It was a good day. It was one of the better days, one of the best days I’ve had playing poker. I started out with a pretty big stack and pretty much everything went my way. If I had a bluff it went through, if I had a big hand it held up. I constantly chipped up throughout the day and won some big pots.

Q: How did you first come to poker?

RL: I pretty much started playing right around the Chris Moneymaker win. I watched it on TV and started to play the game with friends when I graduated from high school. I started playing online a little bit off and on until I was 21 and then I started playing mostly live after that. I would say I have been playing seriously for three or four years for a living.

I live in New Orleans so I play at the Harrah’s there all the time. I really like the Beau Rivage in Biloxi [Mississippi]; I play there a lot too.

Q: How have you been dealing with the increased media attention and bright lights of the cameras with each subsequent day of the tournament?

RL: I haven’t paid a ton of attention to it. This was the first day where I had a ton of chips so it’s the first day where it has been a lot on me. I have just been trying to play good poker and not make any mistakes.

Q: It must be interesting to live in New Orleans. Can you tell us a little bit about your background?

RL: I’m actually from Mobile, Alabama but it is much cooler to say that you’re from New Orleans [Laughs]. I’m from Mobile and I was always into track and cross country in high school and I ended up walking on to the LSU track and field team and ran for two years. After two years I was just tired of it and that was when I got so much more into poker so I focused on that a lot. I kind of gave up running and just started playing poker as much as I could.

I graduated from LSU with a general studies degree. I had a 2.8 GPA and you had to have a 3.0 GPA to get into the business school at LSU. I knew I was going to play poker no matter what, but my parents were like, “If you want to do that, that’s fine but you should get a degree just in case.” Instead of pulling my GPA up you can get a general studies degree, which is three minors there so I just got that degree and they were happy with that [Laughs].

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