[toc]Last week, the world’s major news focus outside of geo-political machinations was the story of United Airlines passenger David Dao.
Unless you were living under a rock, you’ll have seen numerous articles about how Dao, a 69-year-old father of five, was beaten unconscious and dragged off a plane in order to accommodate United Airlines staff on an overbooked flight.
Dao, a doctor, refused to give up his seat for airline staff as he had to get home to attend to patients. However, as well as being a physician, it appears that Dr. Dao is an accomplished poker player.
David Dao’s poker career
The poker subreddit of link aggregate site reddit.com, which is subscribed to by nearly 56,000 poker players, was one of hundreds of subreddit forums discussing the incident.
However, the difference was that /r/poker had a thread full of members telling stories about “Asian Dave” as Vietnamese-American Dr. Dao is known at his local Horseshoe Casino in Southern Indiana.
“He is usually very quiet and keeps to himself,” wrote reddit user tswpoker1. “He has a unique, aggressive style.”
Tournament results
Dr. Dao has an impressive Hendon Mob page for an amateur player, with over $266,000 in tournament cashes recorded since 2006.
In 2009, he finished runner-up in a $5,000 World Series of Poker Circuit event in Harrah’s Tunica for $117,744. He has also cashed in the World Series of Poker Main Event.
His recent results come from smaller events, such as the $235 Rio Daily Deepstacks and a $365 WSOP Circuit event.
However, given the massive public outcry against United Airlines and many speculating that Dr. Dao plans to sue, we may well see him playing higher stakes in the near future!
The fallout from the United Airlines incident
Since Dr. Dao was beaten and dragged, bloodied, from his United Airlines flight, stock in the company has dropped three percent.
The United Airlines CEO, Oscar Munoz, defended the actions of the airline crew and claimed that Dr. Dao was acting belligerently. He faced tremendous backlash and calls to resign, and has since claimed to have apologized to Dr. Dao and his family.
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