My Poker Professor.

Howard Lederer was born in 1964 in Concord, New Hampshire. Howard Lederer's family is a professional player. Howard spent much of his childhood on the family room floor engrossed in card games.

His sister is Annie Duke, also a porfessional poker player. Their father is Richard Lederer, a well known American linguist.

After high school he moved to New York to attend Colombia University and pursue chess. While there Howard Lederer discovered the many underground gambling rooms where one could play games such as backgammon, chess, bridge, gin rummy, and poker. Before long, Lederer had given up playing chess to pursue his new love, poker. He did not do well for the first few years, consistently losing until he had to run errands for the other players just to make enough money for his nightly buy-ins. At one point he was putting in 70 to 80 hours a week playing poker. Like so many other pros, he eventually dropped out of college to play poker.

Howard is a calm and outgoing person. When playing he is very self-confident, quiet and unfaltering. He was called "The Professor", because of his demeanor, analytical style and long history of wins.

Resources:
http://www.liquidpoker.net/pro/-Howard_Lederer
http://www.poker-tomorrow.com/poker/players/howard-lederer/