Professional Players: Howard Lederer

At eighteen, Howard deferred college for a year and moved to New York to pursue his passion for chess. He soon discovered a poker game in the back room of his favorite chess club - and was immediately hooked. For two years, Howard played poker relentlessly - seventy to eighty hours a week - and went home broke nine out of ten nights. He would earn his nightly stake by running errands for the players. The frenetic pace caught up with him and he realized that playing all nighters wasn't helping his game. He took a couple of steps back, got more sleep and saw his results improve.

Howard made big strides in his game when he started to play at the Mayfair Club in New York. The Mayfair was a legendary bridge and backgammon club - home to the greatest games players in the world. Howard became part of a circle of players who were the first to experiment with no limit hold 'em in New York when it was first introduced in the mid eighties. The daily game at the Mayfair would begin at 4 pm and wind down by 2 AM, when all the players would retire to their favorite bar for a lively discussion of the day's game. The camaraderie among the players created an invaluable learning environment. Everyone was new to the game, but the ideas flowed freely and elevated their playing efforts. This group of early players included Dan Harrington, Steve Zolotow, Jay Heimowitz, and Erik Seidel.

Howard encouraged Annie to come to Las Vegas and play in the WSOP tournaments. She has now won more cash than any other woman in the history of the WSOP. She has also knocked Howard out of three WSOP events, including the $10,000 final table. In 1994, Howard and Annie made poker history as the first brother and sister duo to make the same final table at the WSOP.

In order to take his game to the next level, Howard moved to Las Vegas in 1993. He concentrated on cash games until 2002, when WPT tournaments became a monthly event. While he enjoys all forms of poker, Howard's favorite for sheer excitement is big buy in no limit hold 'em tournaments. He looks forward to playing against the best in the world for years to come.

Life in Las Vegas has been good to Howard - the best being his seven year-old son Matthias and his wife Suzie. When he's off the circuit, Howard enjoys going to movies and concerts, hitting the links and working out at the gym.

Howards biggest results are in the World Poker Tour where he has won twice in these televised events, in November 2002 he triumphed in the $10,000 buy-in World Poker Finals event, taking home over $320,000. This was followed in March 2003 with another win in the Party Poker Million II event in the Caribbean, played in Limit format, Howard's speciality, this time pocketing $290,000.

Prior to this Howard had some success at the World Series of Poker, with two bracelets to his name in the $5,000 Omaha Hi-Lo event in 2000, followed up the following year with a win in the $5,000 Deuce to Seven event.

Now one of the founding professionals behind Full Tilt online poker room, Howard can be seen on the tables himself often, you'll find Howard playing with his own personalised avatar on the site, along with the other members of the team.