Andrea Li
Born in Shanghai, China, Andrea came to America in 1986 after graduating from a university with a computer science career in mind, or perhaps in her parents' mind, and with a passion for singing, having already sung on TV in front of thousands by the time she moved to Las Vegas in 2001. The move from Chicago that year had nothing to do with poker, she sites the "weather and the night life" as the primary reasons she made that move.
A 7-card stud player before the poker boom forced the entire poker population to switch to Texas Hold'em, she quickly made the adjustment and went on to become a regular cash game player at the lower-stakes no-limit games in Las Vegas. When we caught her for a quick interview after busting out in 7th place on TV at one of the Binion's Ultimate Poker Challenge events, she said "Poker allows me to show my competetive side. It exercises and challenges my intelligence. It also allows me to utilize my feminine intuition to guide me to
success." She has the ability to "get the most out of my lucky streaks, and minimize my losses, that's my guideline." When asked how she felt after her A9 lost to her opponent's J8 to limit her winnings to only $2200, she displayed the right attitude by saying "I have taken a lot worse beats. I think if you can't take losses, you don't stand a chance for winning. Also, I was so short-stacked, I had only a shot at it, and it didn't work out for me. That's all". Where does she go from here? "I think I will stick to cash play unless I get sponsors for medium to large scale tournaments, after all, they are time consuming and costly, and you often don't see results right away".
Sponsorship for Andrea is in the works, she has been toying with the idea of accepting more help from someone who recognizes a unique talent and would like to send her to some bigger events.