Poker Player, David Steicke
In just three years, Hong Kong transplant David Steicke has bagged US$1.7 million in winnings, making him the top all-time earner in China. Police raided a members-only poker club in August and arrested 170 people, including Steicke. Undeterred, he’s heading to this weekend’s Asia Poker Tour in Macau.
I am a trader, trading in futures markets on commodities, like gold, wheat, corn, oil, natural gas, and financial products, like currencies, and some bonds and stock indices.
What I do is pretty much just nine to five—not even that.
The very first time I played poker was in my university days. It was just five-card draw, for one and two cents. From what I can remember I was quite successful at them but then I went into trading and the poker stopped.
Other good traders would be hopeless poker players, probably, but having said that I did study mathematics at university. You have to be able to add up numbers and work out things like pot odds, if the pot is giving you 2-1 odds or 3-1 odds on a certain bet, if it’s a good idea to fold or not.
In 2007 I got invited to a poker event at somebody’s house. We only got two cards, and I thought, “What’s this?” I caught on to the game and I ended up winning that night.
Later on a friend of mine sent out an e-mail to all his friends saying that he was playing in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. And then I found out there was a tournament coming to Korea soon, so I went to that and tried my hand.