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“I think it’s just because I’ve played so much online previously and got so many more hands in and more experience than guys strictly from the live scene,” he told PokerListings on Day 3 of the PokerStars.net North American Poker Tour Venetian main event where he is among the leaders and appears poised for a deep run.

“By the time I made it to the live scene I was already significantly more comfortable than you would expect. It’s kind of odd how it works.”

Lichtenberg picked up the online game five years ago and has been taking it seriously for the past three.

The story is that around the same time he had moved his way up from grinding online micro-stakes to $3/$6 No Limit Hold’em, he became a little bored with cash games and started playing tournaments.

It wasn’t long before he turned 21 and burst onto the live scene with a 13th place finish at the $25k WPT Championship.

Then, in his first shot at the World Series of Poker this past summer, he managed a runner-up finish in the $5K Shootout before making an astounding 18th in the Main Event.

Thanks to that more than $700k bankroll boost, he’s now travelling the tournament circuit and can be found playing online under the handle LuckyChewy at $25/$50 and higher.

According to Lichtenberg, the experience of finishing deep in two of 2009’s biggest live tournaments is proving itself valuable every day.

“The WPT was my first time going deep and, it’s not that I was nervous, it’s just that it feels so different you are not really used to it,” he said. “At this point, with the Main Event and all the cameras there, nothing really compares, so anything else is just any other day playing poker for me.”

And being comfortable in any high pressure situation allows Lichtenberg to focus on the kind of things he believes sets his game apart from other players.

“I just analyze situations very deeply,” he said. “I pick up factors that most people miss. I’m aware of certain things based on all the hands I’ve played.

Patterns start occurring and you kind of can tell when a certain guy is going to get fed up and start playing back at you, stuff like that.”

An instructor with LeggoPoker and a regular poster on poker forums across the net, Lichtenberger is no stranger to the poker community.

But the exposure from the ESPN’s WSOP Main Event coverage has suddenly made him recognizable elsewhere.

“I got recognized at a festival in Adelaide, just randomly by some guy,” he said. “It happens all the time now, especially in poker rooms.”

But despite sudden celebrity, the experience of running deep in big events and the cash that comes with it, Lichtenberger is still missing one thing.

“I’ve actually never won a live tournament,” he said. “So yeah, I really want to win a live tournament. It would be so cool. And why not the first NAPT? That’s not a bad idea.”

Live coverage of the PokerStars.net NAPT Venetian continues through Feb. 24 on PokerListings’ Live Updates page.

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