Ka Kwan Lau - SOMUCHPOKER

– General Introduction –

Ka Kwan Lau is a Spanish-born Hongkongese professional poker player. He was born in 1986.

He has won $1.668 million in live tournaments. His live results include a European Poker Tour (EPT) title from 2016, and a deep run in the WSOP Main Event from the same year.

Online, he plays under the screen name “kaju85” on PokerStars. Lau plays high stakes online PLO cash games regularly – however, in his publicly tracked sample, he’s down about $360K.

In 2020, he took down the $10,300 EPT Pot Limit Omaha High Roller event at EPT Online 2020 for $188,937.

– Key Career Dates –

• 2010: He starts playing mid to high buy-in live tournaments in Spain.
• 2013: He finishes 4th in €5,000 EPT Main Event in Prague for €283,800. That is the biggest single live tournament cash of his career to date.
• 2016: He makes a deep run in the WSOP Main Event, eventually taking 20th place for $269,430. That is the second time in a row that he makes it into the money in the WSOP Main Event.
• 2020: He wins the $10,300 Pot Limit Omaha High Roller event at the EPT Online for $188,937.

– Ka Kwan Lau’s Career –

→Live Tournaments←

Lau has $1.668 million in live tournament earnings, according to his Hendon page. That sum is the product of ITM finishes in 35 different events over the course of 10 years. That puts him in the top 10 on the Hong Kong all time money list.

The first recorded cash on his page is from July 2010. He came in 9th in the €1,000 Main Event at the Estrellas Poker Tour in Madrid and won €5,000.

The next live tourney score for him came over a year after – he finished 71st for €12,000 in the €5,000 Main Event at EPT Barcelona in August 2012. That was his only live cash in 2012 – however, in 2013, his career took off on the live felt.

He made two ITM finishes in an EPT London and a WPT event in Johannesburg, South Africa. Then, in December 2013, he made it to the final table and eventually took 4th place in the €5,300 European Poker Tour (EPT) Main Event in Prague. Lau pocketed no less than €283,800, which is the biggest single live tournament score of his career to date.

The Hong Kong poker pro has been very prolific in the live tournament scene ever since.
In April 2017, he came in 4th in the €1,100 NLHE PokerStars National Championship Event for €59,700 at the PokerStars Championship in Monte Carlo. Also in April 2017, he took down the HK$82,000 PLO High Roller event at the PokerStars Championship in Macau.

Lau has won one EPT title so far. He finished first in the €10,300 Pot Limit Omaha event for €107,670 at EPT Malta in October 2016.

→World Series of Poker ←

Ka Kwan Lau is yet to win his first WSOP gold bracelet.

The closest he came to a victory was a final table finish in the $25,000 Pot Limit Omaha high roller event in 2019. He ended up taking 8th place and won $150,483.

In 2016, he made a very deep run in the most prestigious poker tournament in the world, the WSOP Main Event. Lau eventually busted in 20th place for $269,430 in a field of 6,737 players. That year, his fellow Asian poker pro, the Vietnamese Qui Nguyen won the Main Event title.

Lau made it into the money in the WSOP Main Event a year before, in 2015, as well. He finished 143rd for $46,890 that time.

Overall, Lau has cashed in 12 World Series events for a total of $538,464 combined.

→Online Poker←

Lau plays under the screen name “kaju85” on PokerStars.

That account has a significant sample of high stakes cash game hands tracked by the online high stakes cash game database. Lau played 109,123 hands between February 2011 and March 2018 on the $25/$50 and higher stakes PLO cash tables on Stars.

In that sample, unfortunately, he is down about $364,000. At the peak of his cash chart, in July 2012, he was $180K in profit. However, quite shockingly, by the end of August 2012, he was down to a $357,000 net loss. That is a staggering $537,000 (!) loss within just one month! Only Lau can truly know what happened then.

However, Lau has also won substantial amounts of money in online tournaments.

In November 2020, he took down the €10,300 Pot Limit Omaha event at the European Poker Tour (EPT) Online, played on PokerStars. Lau has always been somewhat of a PLO specialist – he has plenty of live tournament scores in that game type as well.

Lau entered a field of 70 entries. He eventually got down to the heads-up duel for the title against Laszlo “omaha4rollz” Bujtas from Hungary. While Lau started the match as the chipleader, Bujtas doubled up in the first hand.

Lau was even down to a 19:1 chip deficit at one point. However, he was able to pull through and ended up claiming the EPT Online title along with the $188,937 first prize.