Profile of a Poker Player: Ivan Tan
Ivan Tan is widely considered to be one of Singapore’s most successful poker players. He rose to prominence amongst the poker community back in 2007. While he was holiday with his wife he entered the APPT Macau Main Event with $300 and won a $2500 seat. He managed to beat some of the world’s most notable poker players and landed US$130,000 in prize money. He has since been consistently successful and enjoyed many other victories on the professional circuit. At last count, he’s accumulated over $200K in winnings in the past two years! He estimates that he makes between $15K to $20K every month from playing online.
Tan never took up poker with the intention of becoming professional or making a big enough living from it. It was just ‘something [he] did to pass the time’ as he puts it! He reckons that he spends about 1 or 2 hours a night playing to practice but that once you have the fundamentals nailed, the rest is all about luck. It’s a 60% skill to 40% luck ratio in his opinion.
Tan also advocates for poker to be legalized in Singapore and be recognized as a sport just as it is in the States. But I don’t think that this is about to happen anytime soon.