David Levi, Professional Poker Player

July 13, 2007 Xemex representative and Las Vegas's own David Levi reached the top 121 players in the 2007 World Series of Poker! Congratulations David!
Poker has a long history in the United States with many of its legends hailing from the country and its biggest games played there. But in more recent years, the game has become a truly international pastime and has witnessed people all over the world taking a shot at becoming the next great player. David Levi is one such player. Born in 1962 in Tel Aviv, Levi grew up in Israel where he eventually became a paratrooper in the Israeli Defense Forces as well as a renowned soccer player. When his soccer career was derailed by a knee injury, Levi packed up and headed to the United States. Los Angeles became his new home, and also the place where he was introduced to poker. Perhaps fueled by his love of competition, something that had been missing from his life since he quit his soccer career, it didn't take long for Levi to become a regular at the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens, Calif. Unfortunately, Levi’s love and enjoyment of the game didn’t translate into success: the Israeli nearly lost all of the money he’d brought to the United States as he played poker and tried to improve his game. Confidence was key for Levi, as was moving to medium stakes instead of trying to make big bets and big wins right away at the higher limits. With this change his game started to improve, as did his luck - he was approached by some financial backers whose support enabled Levi to return to the higher stakes and enter tournaments, where he met with great success. Throughout his poker career, Levi has won more than $2 million in tournament money with several cashes at World Series events and quite a few tournament wins at various levels. Despite these achievements, he has remained a fairly low-profile poker pro. This may be the result of his tendency to play tight, which doesn’t always make for good TV when producers are picking what to show in televised events. His success, however, was enough to eventually get him to move from Los Angeles, where he'd been living with fellow tournament player and friend Amir Vahedi, to Las Vegas. Much of his poker career is now spent playing in tournaments, which he finds more fulfilling due to the focus on competition rather than cash - something he believes differentiates tournaments from cash games. When it comes down to it, though, Levi still misses the competition from playing soccer and finds that poker doesn't completely fill that void. Eventually, when his tournament schedule allows, Levi would like to get back in the game by coaching youth soccer. Until that day, we'll continue to look for him in the tournament world as he racks up cashes and wins to add to his poker resume. Lifetime winnings: $2,374,217