Famous Poker Players: Howard Lederer

Among famous poker players gaming today, there may be none who are more respected by their peers than is Howard Lederer, the poker player formerly known as Bubba courtesy of professional poker player legend Doyle Brunson. But these days, Lederer has lost weight and is now known as "Bub"--although he can still put away those cheeseburgers despite his "vegetarian" ways that he uses to keep the extra pounds off.

Lederer is also known as The Professor for his super-analytical style of play. In fact he has been criticized for giving away "trade secrets" because he also runs the Howard Lederer Poker Fantasy Camp to mentor younger players.

Lederer excels at Limit Hold'em and tournaments, and he has become a multimillionaire from playing poker. He also won $9.3 million from businessman Andy Beal in 2004. Lederer has won two World Series of Poker bracelets and over 30 cash prizes in WSOP tournaments.

Lederer grew up in a gaming family of five in New Hampshire, as the son of linguist and author Richard Lederer. Also growing up in Howard's household was his sister--today known as Annie Duke who, after learning Texas Holdem finer points from Howard, has become the most successful female poker player in history so far. She has also beaten her brother at the final table more than once!

Howard began attending Columbia University at the age of 18 but soon enough concluded that chess was more important to him than getting a college degree. He hoped he could make a living as a tournament chess player because he was a childhood chess prodigy. But when he started hanging out at New York's prestigious Mayfaire Club to play chess, he discovered some other people there playing a poker game called Texas Hold'em. Howard got hooked, and started playing poker 70 to 80 hours a week.

And, 90% of those nights, he went home totally broke. He got his buy in and bankroll money for his games by being the gopher for other players at the club. Howard's tight, analytical style was a burden for him at first (and so was his lack of sleep!) but once he knew the game better he loosened up some and become more aggressive, and then he started transforming into Bub the Professor. (He also started sleeping more and that helped his improvement dramatically.) In 1993 he moved to Las Vegas, where he still lives with his wife, son, and dogs.

Howard is known now for stone-cold inanimate at the table, unpredictable, and maybe the poker world's greatest bluffer.

Talking once about the WSOP and what it's like to be there, The Professor said, "The difference in a tournament as large as this is that you have to pace yourself. I just tried to play like I was in a side game. You know it's the World Series of Poker, but it's just difficult to stay that intense for seven days."

So if you want to learn from one of the best professional poker players, look to one of world's most famous poker players, Professor Bub, aka Howard Lederer.

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