As it happens, Lederer's father was a teacher in St. Paul's School in New Hampshire, where Lederer was born in 1964. The elder Lederer, a writer and linguist, once inspired Lederer's sister, poker professional Annie Duke, to pursue teaching, but that changed quickly when she discovered poker
In his youth, Lederer was considered to be a chess prodigy. He moved to New York City after high school and attended Columbia University. While playing at a local chess club in New York, he discovered poker and it changed his life. Lederer soon became a poker regular at the Mayfair Club where he pit his skills against top-rate poker pros like Dan Harrington and Eric Seidel.
As an elder brother, Lederer showed he had teaching in his blood, serving as sister Annie's honorary poker coach and part-time manager. He shepherded her during the infant stages of her career and supported her until she could make a good living playing poker on her own.
The fact that Annie Duke is now considered to be as good a poker player as Lederer is a tribute to Lederer's tutelage. They are the most visible brother and sister tandem in professional poker and, hands down, the most successful siblings to boot.
The duo have developed a friendly rivalry on the poker circuit. Why, even the amount of money each of them has won gives an indication of how close they are, on the poker table as well as on a personal level. As of 2007, both Lederer and Duke have career live tournament winnings in poker of more than $3.4 million each.
Although genuinely laid-back at heart, like most great poker players, Lederer has an edge to him. He once openly criticized Daniel Negreanu for making inappropriate remarks about his sister, and Negreanu issued a public apology. On another occasion, Lederer refused a notorious needler's hand shake at the World Poker Tour Grand Prix de Paris in 2003.
More than anything else, Howard Lederer is known to be a gentleman and an excellent poker player, with an impressive string of victories throughout his career, including two World Series of Poker championship bracelets -- the $5,000 Limit Omaha Hi-Lo tournament ($198,000) in 2000 and the $5,000 Deuce to Seven Draw tournament ($165,870) in 2001 – and two championships on the World Poker Tour.
At present, Lederer is a member of the online poker site Full Tilt Poker's design team, a position he has held since July 2004.
Lederer and Duke also have a sister, Katy Lederer, who is an author and poet. She wrote a book about her poker-playing siblings called "Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers."
Lederer moved to Las Vegas in 1994 to pursue a career in poker full time. He still lives there with wife Suzie and their three dogs.
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