Whether it’s grinding at the tables for 10 hours a day or constantly having to travel to the next big tournament, many professional poker players get to a point where the game begins to consume their life. Bernard Lee is one professional poker player who’s managed to avoid letting the game control his life though, instead becoming a well-rounded person in the process.
Born May 16th, 1970 in New York City, Lee never really seemed destined to become a professional poker player. He was so good academically that he was accepted into Harvard University. Eventually, Lee graduated from Harvard and went on to further his education at Babson College, receiving a Master of Business Administration degree at the completion of his education.
Bernard Lee would parlay his MBA into a cushy job at a Fortune 500 Company where he was a senior marketing manager. It was around this time that he also got married and started a family with his wife. Seeing as how Lee already had a well-paying corporate job and young kids, it would be some time before he would land on the poker map. In fact it wasn’t until he was 35 that Lee’s name was really known within any poker circle.
But quite a few people started taking notice of Bernard Lee after he finished 13th at the 2005 WSOP Main Event. He was regularly shown on the ESPN taped segments of the WSOP kissing pictures of his wife and kids and displaying his intellectual personality. This rare combination made him stand out among his peers during the Main Event and set him up for a future media career.
Still rolling off the success of his great WSOP finish, Lee returned to his home in the Boston area with a job offer already waiting for him: the Boston Herald was very impressed with Lee’s WSOP performance and offered him a chance to write a Sunday poker column for the paper. Bernard still writes the column to this day and it has been a huge success. Lee even turned a collection of his Boston Herald columns into a book called “The Final Table, Volume I”.
The Boston Herald isn’t the only place that Bernard Lee has used his writing skills: he’s also contributed to ESPN’s poker section, Poker Life, and to the Boston Common. Going beyond his writing, Lee has also become a radio personality and hosts the only Boston area poker radio show. Dubbed “The Bernard Lee Poker Show” Bernard discusses strategy and news based on calls and e-mails from his audience. Lee has also done commentary work on WSOP events.
Becoming a poker media personality certainly hasn’t dulled Lee’s playing edge: in the 2006 WPT World Poker Finals he won the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em event and came back to the 2007 World Poker Finals to capture the $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em tournament. In all, Bernard Lee has won over $1.2 million in tournament prize money.
Besides everything he does within the poker world, Bernard Lee has applied his MBA by teaching business-related subjects to high school and college students for over a decade. He has also held season tickets for the Boston Celtics since 1997 and enjoys participating in sports himself. He ran the Boston Marathon in back-to-back years finishing in both 1999 and 2000. When Lee isn’t busy keeping up with everything else he’s spending time with his wife and two kids.
Click here for Bernard Lee’s interview with Poker News Daily.
