Asian poker pros have been hired by up n’ coming Filipino gambling firm, Natural8, in a move to boost the site’s presence in Asia.

Natural8 has made Chinese-Canadian Xuan Liu, Taiwan’s Hu-Chen “Kitty” Kuo and Korean-American Dong Kim their first signings since launching across the Asia-Pacific area.

The three players will form the dubiously-titled ‘Team Hot’ at live events in the region. Another Chinese poker pro, Xiao Chung, becomes a ‘Friend of Natural8’.

All three are hot property right now, with Xuan Liu and Kuo both big stars on social media. Xuan Liu, until recently, represented 888poker before parting ways with the site. She is a regular presence on the streaming service Twitch where she discusses hands and games as she plays.

Liu is one of Canada’s hottest young talents. She learned the game at university in Toronto in the company of several fellow students. Some of her college pals have also gone on to have stellar careers, such as Mike “Timex” McDonald.

Kitty Kuo, meanwhile, is a former Asian Player of the Year and has racked up cashes on the WPT, Asia-Pacific Poker Tour (APPT), and World Series of Poker. Kuo reached an Aussie Millions final table back in January.

Dong Kim is a Korean-American pro who has won hundreds of thousands in the toughest online games. He is a SCOOP (Spring Championship of Online Poker) champion on PokerStars, and last year formed a trip of pros who won over $650,000 playing against an AI poker robot in the US.

Xuan Liu, 30, has won over $1.4 million in live tournaments and over $300,000 online.

“Playing so much poker and studying poker so much in college definitely made me a terrible student. I missed a lot of classes, improving on my poker game,” said Liu. 

She says as a child in China she was always interested in games such as mah-jong, but poker caught her attention around 2003 at the University of Waterloo.

In a recent interview with Calvinayre.com Xuan Liu spoke of hate, love and winning it.

A week in the life of Xuan Liu last March?

“I’m in Toronto now so when I’m here I have a rotating cycle of spending time with family and old friends. I had lunch with my grandma and cousin, celebrated a friend’s birthday, spent a day with my dad and stepmom on one and my mom and stepdad on another, and played a few games of Heroes of the Storm online with my sister. In between I started Twitching, had an intense 5-hour coaching session with two local poker ladies, and played a small MTT schedule in three days. I went to the gym twice, meditated every day, ate a dozen eggs, and had one beer.”

What was your life like 10-years ago? What challenges were you facing?

“When I was 20 years old I was struggling to fit in at university. My classes were completely mundane, and even though I enjoyed reading most of the course literature I had no motivation for meeting deadlines. I was in a relationship I knew would never work, and I didn’t want it to. I questioned everything and knew there was too much of myself and the world to be discovered.”

5-years ago?

“Five years ago I had just started traveling for poker and was a doe-eyed amateur. I constantly had to metaphorically pinch myself to internalize what a sharp turn my life had taken. I met so many new people and rarely said no to doing anything exciting or outrageous. I was afraid to ask my million questions because I didn’t want anyone to think I was dumb, and it seemed like almost everyone was winging it anyway.”

What are your best habits?

“I always strive for self-improvement and see the best in everything. I have a terrible memory, so I forget the bad stuff.”

What are your worse habits?

“I can be lazy and unfocused. I also used to allow myself to spiral into negative thought tangents and had to consciously prevent that from happening.”

What are your views on philanthropy?

“Philanthropy is necessary. Efficiency and accountability in charity work are important, but doing something is almost always better than nothing. It’s much easier for the unfortunate to climb out of hopelessness if they know people care about them.”

What is God?

“God is in all of us. The fact that universe, life, pizza all exist is incredibly wondrous. There are literally miracles all around us at every moment. It can be difficult to wrap our minds around this, which unfortunately is why so many people leave the thinking part to someone else.”

What is the best example you can think of regarding the way fate has affected your life?

“We all have the power to manipulate our own fate. I was born a girl in a society that did not value us as much as boys, and I was constantly reminded of this fact. Transitioning to life in Canada and experiencing my parent’s divorce at the same time also set me up to be very independent and resilient. I’m exactly where I need to be, and take responsibility for the decisions I have made to get here, the good and the bad. I have been through a lot, but I also know I have been blessed in a lot of ways.”

What is love?

“Everything good comes from a place of love. Our common notions of romantic love are such a small part of it.”

What is hate?

“Fear of the unknown, a reaction to pain and insecurity.”

What is the biggest failure in your life so far?

“Not treating money with respect. Growing up without much I always had weird feelings towards money and didn’t handle it with much accountability. I have also historically been over-optimistic about my relationships and opportunities in poker, and things rarely turn out the way I anticipated.”

What is the dumbest thing you do to make yourself look better, bigger and bolder?

“I think I tend to sway in the other direction to make myself look smaller and worse with my self-deprecating humor and Asian approach to modesty. In relationships, I have been known to act indifferently as a self-defense mechanism against getting hurt.”

If I gave you 10,000 hours to work on anything what would you choose and why?

“I’d learn a language, either programming or comprehensive Mandarin Chinese. Coding will become as common as any verbal language in the future, and I’d love to be able to think in my native tongue again.”

Xuan Liu

Lifetime Earnings: $1,684.165

Major Cashes:

2016 APPT Macau (HKD213,375)

2015 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open ($70,900)

2015 Aussie Millions Six-Max (AUD71,500)

2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure ($600,000)

2011 EPT San Remo (€360,000)

Dong “Donger Kim” Kim

Major Cashes:

2005 SCOOP (Spring Championship of Online Poker) High Roller Heads-Up ($236,775)