Pokerography Turns its Lens on Celina Lin

The newest edition of Pokerography, available only on PokerGO, takes a look at the life of Celina Lin. One of the brightest young Asian players found success in Macau, Lin is one of four female Team PokerStars Pros, alongside Liv Boeree, Vanessa Selbst and Fatima de Melo, she was first female to win Red Dragon Main Event.

Lin moved from Shanghai to Australia as a child and found the game by chance from a night out with friends while she was working as a waitress at the Crown Casino. “I just wanted to put more money ,” she said. “I was a fun, cool experience to me and I never looked back.”

Lin made the easy choice to turn pro after running up her first online deposit. “I deposited $600 and ran it up to $10,000 in two to three weeks, and that became my bankroll,” she said. “I started going from playing two tables to four, when I get good enough at Sit & Gos – I could do 15 tables.”

Lin won the Macau Poker Cup in 2009 and 2012, where the trophy is more of a dragon statue than trophy. “In Chinese culture, we have 12 zodiac signs and the dragon is considered the most powerful or luckiest even,” said friend and poker player Jay Tan.

Celina Lin at the 2017 World Series of Poker. (Photo: PokerPhotoArchive.com)

“That first Red Dragon made me go, ‘Ok, I can do this,’” Lin said. “During that 18-month period I won three trophies. Sometimes it comes so easy and sometimes you’re like, ‘Oh my God, it’s never going to happen again.’”

Lin said she was in the right place at the right time when PokerStars was scouting for players in the Asian market. “I could speak Chinese, I grew up there and I spoke English as well. People at Stars all spoke English and got to know me well,” she said. “I was passionate about the game. I was absorbed in the game. It was the passion in me I was looking for, that I didn’t find in anything else. I woke up every day excited to play, wanting to play.”

Lin is the latest subject of Pokerography, joining Mike Stexton, Antonio Esfandiari and Jason Somerville all available exclusively on PokerGO.