Poker Stories: Ryan Leng

Ryan Leng's first love was hockey, competing at the highest junior levels before catching the poker bug at his Illinois high school. He continued to play and deal cards while in college at Arizona State, eventually turning pro. He was a SuperNova Elite player online, splitting his time between Costa Rica, Mexico, and Canada before switching his focus to live play.

He broke out in 2017 with a runner-up finish in a WSOP $1,500 no-limit hold'em event for $237,776, along with a deep run in the $10,000 main event for another $176,399. The next year, Leng won his first bracelet in the $1,500 Bounty event, banking $272,504. He picked up his second bracelet in the 2021 online series in July.

Then this fall, Leng nabbed his third bracelet in the $1,500 Eight-Game Mix, taking home $137,969. A week later he would finish runner-up in the $1,500 Monster Stack for another $377,220, and he later pocketed a career-best $589,628 for taking second in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship to Dan 'Jungleman' Cates. As a result, he finished seventh in the WSOP Player of the Year standings. In total, the 35-year-old has racked up nearly $3.3 million in career tournament earnings.

Highlights from this interview include seeing the country with his hockey team, battling Sidney Crosby and Phil Kessel, playing 'in between the sheets,' gambling with Petco gift cards, the ASU heads-up challenge, stud hi-lo with Doyle Brunson's partner's kid, Costa Rica to Mexico to Canada, main event heartbreak, GTO vs. exploitative play, Christopher Frank's motivating photo, being a 'bracelet hunter,' a birthday bracelet, overcoming 'the worst fold in poker history,' speed Rubik's Cube, singing the Beatles in Japan, and his goal of becoming a recreational whale.