Howard Lederer Biography
Howard Lederer was born on October 30th, 1964 in Concord, New Hampshire. Howard grew up with plenty of family game nights and this caused him to both become tight with his family and learn game theory that he could apply to both chess and poker later in life.
Before Howard was a poker player, he, like many other successful poker players, was a star chess player. It was at an underground chess club that Howard first game across the game of poker. Howard loved the game of poker from the first time he played, even though he was not a profitable player his first few years playing the game. In fact, Howard lost so much that he would have to earn his buy-in for each night by doing errands for the other poker players. Howard would spend countless hours playing poker at the club and eventually he realized that the long hours may be hurting his poker playing. Howard cut back his time at the club and consequently saw his results improve.
Howard has been recorded as saying that he won’t ever be the best poker player in the world, but he feels that he can be the best teacher. This feeling and the fact that Howard is an excellent teacher of the game earned him the nickname “The Professor”. The success Howard’s sister Annie Duke has had in the poker world is the perfect reference for Howard because taught his sister the game and would often guide her through the thought process of some of her more difficult decisions from the days. Howard also famously taught Jennifer Harman how to play no limit deuce to seven lowball five minutes before she began a WSOP tournament. Harman went on to win the tournament.
In 1993 Lederer moved to Las Vegas to play poker professionally on a bigger stage. He instantly became one of the best cash game players in town and steadily built his bankroll. Howard earned enough respect that he was invited by Doyle Brunson to join a group of professional poker players called “The Corporation” to play against Andy Beal for some of the biggest stakes ever recorded. Lederer has also had a lot of tournament success in his career. He has won two WSOP gold bracelets and has cashed in 41 WSOP events. His career tournament winnings currently total $5M.
However, it’s not even Howard’s poker playing that earns him the most dough. He is also the co-owner of Full Tilt Poker and a member of Team Full Tilt. He has a fairly large share in the company and as such has a vested interest in its success. For this reason you can always find Lederer promoting Full Tilt Poker and playing in some of the bigger Full Tilt Poker tournaments.
