Marcel Lüske



Marcel Lüske (born March 23, 1953) is a professional poker player from Amsterdam, The Netherlands. With the growing popularity of televised poker he has become a recognized celebrity, with his trademark style of wearing upside-down sunglasses, singing during play, and always wearing suits in an era when most players dress casually.

Poker career
Lüske learned poker in market cafés. He officially quit his job as a salesman on January 1, 2003 to concentrate on poker.

Lüske made two appearances on the television show Late Night Poker (episodes 4.6 and 6.2) but did not fare well in either event, won by Barny Boatman and John Duthie respectively.

Lüske finished in 14th place in the 2003 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event and 10th place in the 2004 WSOP Main Event. In the latter tournament, Lüske won $373,000 and finished just one spot away from making the final table. These achievements in the 2003 and 2004 WSOP Main Events rank second behind only Dan Harrington's back-to-back final tables those years (and it was Harrington who eliminated Lüske one spot short of the final table in 2004). He has numerous money finishes at the WSOP, including a 2nd place finish to Joe Awada in the 2004 $5,000 Seven-card stud tournament, for which he earned $120,800.

Lüske was the European Poker Awards Player of the Year twice, in 2001 and 2004.

In March 2005, Lüske correctly predicted Rob Hollink would win the European Poker Tour grand final. The following year Lüske himself made the EPT championship grand final, finishing 7th.

In July 2005, he won the €10,000 Hall of Fame Poker Classic in Paris, France, where he took home €119,000.

As of 2008, his total live tournament winnings exceed $3,700,000.

Mentoring
Lüske mentored David Williams (runner-up of the 2004 World Series of Poker) in poker. He is also the mentor of Russian poker professional Kirill Gerasimov, the runner-up of the World Poker Tour season 1 championship. (Lüske finished in 14th place in the same tournament, earning $26,664.)

Lüske formed the Circle of Outlaws group, which promotes young poker players.

In the beginning of 2007, he started a show called Veronica Poker, accompanied by Noah Boeken. A couple of Dutch celebrities had to learn poker from them. Eventually the celebrities had to go against each other, the winner was invited to an important tournament in Las Vegas. He also appeared in the show Poker Kings NL in which Boeken and Lüske were attending tournaments while followed by the camera. He also appeared in the show Celebrity Poker on Tien television channel.

Trivia

 * Outside of poker, holds a black belt in karate.
 * Holds the dubious honour of being the first ever person eliminated in the World Series of Poker Europe, during the inaugural ₤2,500 H.O.R.S.E. event, in September 2007.
 * Lüske is well known for a televised hand during the 2004 World Series of Poker when he made an impressive read of another player. Lüske laid down his hand before the flop and confidently stated, "your kings are good". The other player tried to claim that he held ace-king, but tv viewers could see that he indeed held pocket kings.