JOHN HARVard’s JournAL ‘tells’ that give them away. The next time He’s come a long way since his father Thanksgiving and Christmas. “I’d watch I go up against that player, I’ll know more. scolded him as a boy for declaring a full them arguing with each other—‘How You can tell players aren’t really serious if house when he actually had four of a kind could you make that play?’ ” he recalls. “I they check out of the game once they’ve (thanks to a wild card)—as his dad vocif- thought that was being a man. I learned folded their own hand.” Big winnings erously declared. (In serious poker, there early on that it was not about luck.” come, of course, from opponents who are no wild cards, which vastly change Lee grew up in a Korean family in stay in the game until losing out at the probabilities.) Lee often sat at the top of Westchester County, north of New York end. “You need someone who has a good the stairs and listened when his dad played City, attended the Horace Mann School in enough hand to be second best,” Lee says. poker with friends and family members at Riverdale, New York, and studied classi- cal piano at Juilliard on Saturday morn- ings, eventually winning a piano contest. He entered Brown on an eight-year col- lege/medical-school program, but even- tually transferred to Harvard, where he concentrated in biology. After college, he found that he loved business and took an M.B.A. at Babson; he worked at Boston Scientific, a medical-device company, un- til 2007. After Lee’s great run at the WSOP in 2005, he was well positioned to take part in the poker boom then in progress. On- From left: line play had taken off, and ESPN began Abiola Laniyonu, broadcasting games using a “hole cam” Laura Hinton, that allowed spectators to see the play- Meghan Smith, and Matthew Chuchul ers’ cards. The World Poker Tour became the most-watched show on the Travel Chan- nel. (Some of the poker explosion, says Aloian Award Winners Lee, began with the 1998 filmRounders, about the underground world of high- stakes poker, which starred his classmate In honor of the David and Mimi Aloian Hinton, of Alameda, California, co- Matt Damon ’92.) Memorial Scholarships’ twenty-fifth an- chairs her House committee and is a “It’s ridiculous that I can do this for a niversary, the Harvard Alumni Associa- founding team member of the Cabot living,” he says. “I think about this game tion (HAA) has chosen four undergradu- Café, which serves hundreds of students, all the time and I love it. I was a fan of the ates to receive the award this year tutors, and faculty members a week, fos- world’s top poker stars and now they are (instead of the usual two). Recipients have tering a dynamic atmosphere of intellec- my friends.” He launched his Full House demonstrated solid leadership in contrib- tual and social conversation. Charity Program in 2011, donating $500 to uting to the quality of life in the Houses, Laniyonu, of Derwood, Maryland, it each time he draws a full house, with traits embodied by the Aloians, who led helped modernize the Lowell House li- a minimum $20,000 annual commitment; Quincy House from 1981 to 1986. David brary by creating custom software to Vermont’s Cabot Cheese is the primary Aloian ’49 was also executive director of analyze its more than 10,000 volumes so sponsor. Last year the charity supported the HAA. This year’s scholars, Matthew users may cross-reference their books work on autism and provided Christmas Chuchul ’13, of Pforzheimer House, against other Harvard holdings. A former packages for children whose families Laura Hinton ’13, of Cabot House, secretary of the House Committee, he were devastated by storms in Hartford, Abiola Laniyonu ’13, of Lowell House, now serves the community through an Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachu- and Meghan Joy Smith ’13, of Leverett at-large leadership position created spe- setts. House, were honored on September 27. cifically for him. And though his kids don’t yet know Chuchul, of New Hyde Park, New York, Smith, of Campbell River, British Co- how to play poker (they do play Uno, a co-chairs his House committee. Last year, lumbia, has helped raise awareness of Crazy Eights-type game, and sometimes noting a void in “Pfoho’s” history, he mental-health issues and helped change even beat their father at it), Lee is known teamed up with the Harvard College student culture by normalizing asking for as a family man on the circuit. He places Women’s Center to launch the “Radcliffe help with them. She has worked closely a photo of his children on the table and Revolution”—a photographic retrospec- with student mental-health liaisons and is kisses it before each session of play. “If I’m tive and evening of alumnae recollections a drug and alcohol peer adviser. In addi- nervous, I can look down at my son and of the transition to gender-mixed hous- tion, she is the captain of Leverett’s intra- daughter,” he says. “It reminds me that if ing—which drew more than 100 people. mural crew women’s B boat. I’m knocked out, I go home to them—how bad can this be?” vcraig lambert 58 November - December 2012 Photograph by Rose Lincoln/Harvard News Office Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746.