Poker millionaire cannot recommend her success

The professional Poker player Xuan Liu has published an article on Business Insider, in which she cannot recommend her life as a successful player. And this comes even though in her seven years as a professional poker player she has won around three million US-Dollar. But what does the 36-year old criticise in being a poker millionaire?

At the age of only five years the family of Xuan Liu emigrated from China to Canadian Toronto. At the age of seven years, the girl already had basic understanding of how the game of poker works. Later on she visited the University of Waterloo, where she was one of the many competitive and analytical students. After the first year of her studies, the young woman received the Dealer Licence - her first job in a casino followed. From this point in time, Xuan Liu never looked back in her life.

From Floor Supervisor to professional player

After Xuan Liu had started working as a dealer in the casino, she was very soon promoted to a floor Supervisor. In this job she was responsible of overseeing that all games run well and fair. However as a consequence of her increasing interest in poker, her marks in her studies were always getting worse. Finally she lost her scholarship and she could therefore dedicate herself more intensively to the poker game - and she was successful.

“xx23xx“ won several million US-Dollars

Between 2010 and 2017 the young lady travelled the world to take part in poker tournaments. After a few months, she had already won the first prize money and in the next years she went on to have impressive winnings. In all, during the above mentioned time, she won around three million US-Dollars in both live and online tournaments.

Poker is mentally and physically demanding

In the report, which was published in Business Insider, the 36-year old admitted, that many people, undermine the fact that poker is both physically and also mentally demanding. According to her, there are many days, in which the players have to sit at the poker table for up to 14 hours. There are only a few game interruptions to go to the bathroom or to eat something quickly. The pressure is enormous and the risk, that one will lose everything, is always there. Besides there are additional burdens, as for example the demands of the Finance Authorities to pay tax on poker winnings. Just last November we had reported that three pokers players from Canada had to pay 3,75 million CAD taxes.

“I do not know any professional, who would recommend this (editor’s note: poker) for his or her livelihood.”

Xuan Liu’s statement that poker can be a cold and lonely place is impressive and surprising. When one is successful and has experienced large winnings, this means, that at the same time, another player has lost a large amount of money. The psychological stress is therefore very high. In the Business Insider the poker player went even further to say that there are moments, where one “sees the ugly head of mankind“.

In 2017 the young woman drew the line and left the international poker scene. She wanted to be able to live a quiet and relaxing life. However recently, the now 36-year old was persuaded to sit at a poker table again. However not to the extent as before.

Conclusion

Nowadays Xuan Liu rarely plays. Instead she is meanwhile commenting during live poker tournaments and she is a board member and trainer at “Poker Power“. However it remains the case that life as a professional poker player is clearly more demanding and stressful than it looks. For Xuan Liu, life as a professional poker player was at least financially rewarding - in the seven years of her professional career she won three million US-Dollars.

Image Source: https://pixabay.com/de/photos/poker-blackjack-kasino-schwarz-rot-1264076/