Lex Veldhuis
Constantly reinventing himself, PokerStars Team Pro veteran Lex Veldhuis has transitioned from crushing cash games in Las Vegas, to taking down online tournaments live on stream.
Lex was born in Vlissingen - a small harbor town in the Netherlands. As a child he loved playing sports, and his competitive instincts soon switched to computer games. He began with Nintendo and quickly graduated to complex strategy games like StarCraft. Lex played his first real money hand at PokerStars in 2005 after a friend sent him US$10 to play with – the rest is history.
He started his live poker career in the card rooms of the Netherlands and France, and he was eager to get out to Las Vegas as soon as possible. There, he would frequently make cashes in big tournaments, and also made several cashes at the World Series of Poker (WSOP), the highlight of which was a deep finish at the 40th anniversary tournament in 2009. The tournament had a US$40,000 buy-in and attracted the world’s best players. Despite the strong opposition, Lex made it to the final table, finishing in seventh place for the biggest cash of his career and US$277,939 in prize money.
After years on the live circuit, Lex saw the growing potential of online poker streaming on Twitch. He soon climbed to the top of the listings with a category record of 58,789 viewers, in May 2020, during a deep run in the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP).
His loyal audience regularly watches him secure mammoth prizes on stream, including a total of US$172,793 in the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) in September 2021. He has since begun to focus on dominating a new platform as he grows his YouTube channel.
He now plays from Belgium and enjoys the life of a jet-setting poker pro. He started a degree in Criminology at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, but left his studies behind as his poker career took off. It’s something he might return to, but for now, the biggest games online are where you will find him.
Lex plays online poker exclusively at PokerStars, where he plays under the username ‘L. Veldhuis’.