Poker Stories: Lara Eisenberg

Poker Stories

Dr. Lara Eisenberg is not a professional poker player, but you wouldn't know it by looking at her results. She has already scored a WSOP Circuit ring, and a World Series of Poker bracelet, taking down the Ladies Championship in 2021. Then in December, she pocketed a career-high $481,500 for finishing runner-up in the WPT Prime Championship.

The 54-year-old has found a lot of success for someone who only competes on the circuit part time. When she's not staring down the pros at the table, she is usually running her own radiology practice out of her home in Maryland, or enjoying her other hobby, competitive skydiving.

Highlights from this interview include being destined for medicine, why she chose not to be a surgeon, her time as a billiards hall hustler, jumping out of a plane on a blind date, landing in a Thailand driving range, becoming a world-record holder, being an early gamer, her time in WPT Bootcamp, FOMO about poker education, studying with apestyles, a profitable decision to late register, donating $30,000 of her winnings, looking for tells, hiking in the Pyrenees, Trinity costumes, the hat lady, and being confused for an astronaut.