Yueqi “Rich” Zhu Seeking Second Bracelet of the Summer
Born in Benxi, China but now residing in Rowland Heights, California, the 55-year-old Yueqi “Rich” Zhu is no stranger to poker. Not including what he makes in the 2018 World Series of Poker Main Event, he has $1,456,884 in prior WSOP earnings.
Zhu tends to only play tournaments during the WSOP, while the rest of the year he’s busy working and grinding cash games.
In the 1990s, Zhu immigrated from China to study at the University of Wisconsin, which is where he got his Bachelor’s Degree in electrical engineering. For as long as he remembers he’s fancied both card and board games.
A self-described “semi-pro,’ Zhu has one son, though he doesn’t know much about poker.
“My son, my family, they don’t play poker,” he explained. “They don’t want to watch poker except probably for the past couple days.”
Zhu, who has promoted poker in China for decades via forums and magazines, finally broke through with a bracelet win earlier this summer after 11 final table appearances and 71 cashes dating back to the 1999 WSOP. His win came over a 773-player field in Event #35: Mixed $1,500 PLO8, Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better, Big O for $211,781. It came after he finished sixth in the same event the year before.
“I saw a lot of people get bracelets, it seemed so easy, no matter what they do they win,” said Zhu. “But for me it was a different story. Finally, I got one.”
Even before his Main Event run, Zhu was planning a book to help introduce poker to the Chinese market. Obviously making the final table of the WSOP Main Event would obviously provide a happy ending to such a book.
“Poker in China, over the last 15 years, has gone from almost nothing to into the mainstream,” said Zhu, who makes frequent trips back to his homeland. “It’s going really fast. From my part, we have a lot of people working on promoting poker because in my mind, for card games, I feel American poker is the best. For myself, I started a poker forum that is generally regarded as the most respected in the Chinese world. I also have a poker magazine and we published like 70 issues in a seven-year time frame.”
Zhu's End of Day Field Position
| Day | End-of-Day Chip Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 1c | 130,500 | 241/3,480 |
| 2c | 429,200 | 13/1,655 |
| 3 | 694,000 | 133/1,182 |
| 4 | 1,117,000 | 141/310 |
| 5 | 2,210,000 | 74/109 |
| 6 | 19,245,000 | 6/26 |
“I’ve had a few really good reads,” Zhu said when asked about big moments in the tournament. “On Day 4, a guy put me all in with 
on the board. He was the preflop raiser, so he could have easily had an ace or nine. I called for all my chips with a set of kings. He didn’t have the straight. I could’ve easily busted that hand.”
He continued: “The next day, someone tried to bluff me but I snap-called him with two small pair. It was for my tournament life.”
Another hand that helped Zhu along the way happened on Day 7 with 12 players left. Zhu raised with ace-ten suited and then called when Frederik Brink jammed 4.1 million with king-queen suited. Zhu was a slight favorite and held after the board ran out clean to vault him up to 35.7 million in chips.
Follow Yueqi Zhu on Twitter @yueqizhu.