Player Focus: Genius28

North Carolina’s prestigious Duke University has alumni that include 18 Nobel Prize winners, Senator Elizabeth Dole and former U.S. President Richard Nixon. But ‘Genius28’ has been true to his alias by enhancing a different sort of skill on campus.

Chris Lee has now taken a year away from study to focus on his poker full-time which given his meteoric rise to online superstardom seems like a very wise career choice. Despite having only just turned 21, he has established a reputation as one of the most fearless short-handed cash players in the world.

Lee started realising that his skills could make him a small fortune in 2004 when he was a senior in High School; since then he has shot through the levels and you can now find him at the $200/$400 tables almost daily playing against anyone and everyone, regardless of reputation.

A self-described mainly cash player, ‘Genius28’ was one of the most profitable Full Tilt players of 2007, making over $1.1million on the NLH tables; only Brian Townsend, Di Dang & Jason Rosenkrantz made more over the 12 month period. In an interview with Poker Listings, Lee says his main focus is on heads-up action: “I enjoy heads-up the most because it really lets you play the player. I've always struggled playing full ring games because it's a very mechanical game.”

And he will play anyone heads-up. With so many internet pros refusing to play each other nowadays, there is a continuous backlog of HU tables littered with whizzes waiting for a ‘fish’ (usually Guy Laliberte) to show up. Genius doesn’t think like that: “Playing the best players heads-up might not be the most profitable thing but it really helps you hone your game and those skills will help you in tournaments or full ring or whatever you're playing,” he says. It’s certainly good for the rail and his profit margins to date would indicate that it could well be a wise venture.

Check out this river bluff on Phil ‘OMGClayAiken’ Galfond to see his fearlessness as well as his lack of table selection:

Chris has turned his hand to the occasional tournament, though having only just turned 21 the vast majority of his experience is online to date. June to July 2007 was certainly his MTT purple patch on PokerStars, when he came 2nd and 3rd in the $200 re-buys for $29,960 & $23,487 as well as coming 5th in the Super Tuesday for a further $17,750. In December ’07 he put his heads-up skills to good use when coming second in the $10,000 ‘High Stakes Showdown’, eventually losing to Dario Minieri for a cool $30,000. He also boasts a stunning sit and go record on Stars, with profits of over $375,000 from more than 2,700 games. An ROI of 8% from an average stake of $3,451 is impressive to even the most seasoned sng veteran.

Many tournament professionals are convinced that Genius could ‘kill’ the MTT scene if he put his mind to it and he has stated that he will now be looking to play the major WPT, EPT & WSOP Events. Given the money he makes playing cash, however, it’s unlikely to become his primary source of income.

Despite the millions of dollars he has made, Lee still plans to finish at Duke because “It really can be a one-dimensional kind of job. You're on the computer all day and you're doing the same thing. It's fun but it's also not as rewarding when that's all you're doing.” Until then, the online community can salute him as a player willing to take on anyone: not many can say that nowadays.