Although he doesn’t play online anymore, Di Dang is one of the most successful online poker players in the last decade, ranking 5th all time on HighStakesDB. Dang had won over $8 million playing on Full Tilt under the alias “Urindanger” and on PokerStars as “ilvdnfl” before retiring to focus on the restaurant business.
Di, along with his brother, Hac, opened up a crawfish boil-style restaurant called Chasin’ Tails in their home state of Virginia and now have a total of five up and running. He admits to being more hands on than originally intended with the business but still enjoys getting some time in at the tables during his free time.
In an interview with PokerListings, he was asked what it was like transitioning from the poker scene to running a restaurant.
I think a lot of the skills from poker really helped, to be completely honest. You learn so much from playing poker. You have to have discipline, you have to study and stay on top of your game, there are just so many things. A lot of people wouldn’t expect that the lessons you learn from it would carry on into running a restaurant. It’s really cool to see the work we put into poker actually help payoff in the restaurant as well.
Di Dang first discovered poker as a junior in college at the University of Virginia. Like most players, Di started at no limit hold’em where he made a small deposit on PartyPoker. But as he began to seriously consider poker as a full-time job, he actually transitioned to fixed limit hold’em. Once he built up a sizeable bankroll, Di then transitioned back to no limit and eventually PLO – which he still considers to be his main game.
In the beginning, he teamed up with his brother to help learn the game better. They would routinely bounce ideas off each other and even shared a bankroll. Together, they were able to plow right through the small and mid stakes games, and quickly became a fixture at the highest stakes online. After Black Friday, he joined up with his friend Phil Galfond to create training videos for RunItOnce.From the nosebleeds to whippin’ up some good ol’ crawfish, there’s no doubt Di Dang has had great success both on and off the felt. He even managed to get his degree in Engineering from the University of Virginia. It wasn’t always this way, however. Check out the video below from the 2007 WSOP Main Event where Di Dang got some bet sizing advice from Daniel Negreanu.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o_RWw06uJw&feature=related
