Life of Rob Yong: Personal Life, Total Assets, Biggest Profits and Losses

About Rob Yong

Rob Yong is a British casino owner who also enjoys playing recreational poker. It is estimated that he is in his early 50s, but we don’t know for sure.

He is better known for being the man behind Dusk Till Dawn in Nottingham, one of the UK’s premier cardrooms, and a renowned poker player on UK poker sites. It has hosted major tournaments such as the WPT, WPT DeepStacks, and partypoker LIVE. Yong has won $465,509 in live tournaments as a player. Moreover, he has made several live stream appearances in which he played high-stakes cash games in front of an audience.

He is also an influential consultant and partner at partypoker.

Rob Yong

Significant Career Dates For Rob Yong

In 2007, he established the Dusk Till Dawn Cardroom in Nottingham.

After 7 years, he became a key partner and renowned consultant in the online world of major poker room party poker.

In addition, Young earned around €120,946 for finishing sixth in the €25,500 No Limit Short Deck Hold’em – High Roller event at the WSOP Europe in Rozvadov. It’s the most cash he’s ever taken home from a single live tournament.

Rob Yong’s Historic Career In The World of Poker

The Start of his Poker Playing Career

Yong did not come from a wealthy family. According to his pokerstrategy profile, he and a childhood friend used to sell “Bric-a-Bracs,” or tiny bits of vintage decorations, to supplement their income. His friend, Nick Whiten, still works with him at Dusk Till Dawn.

Yong, like many other well-known businessmen, never finished college. As an alternative, he joined a staffing agency instead. He left after a year to start his own agency.

He had a string of failed businesses before opening Nottingham’s renowned Dusk Till Dawn cardroom in 2007. According to Yong, he and Whiten decided to open their own cardroom after being turned down for a poker tournament because they were a minute late.

Dusk Till Dawn

Since the DTD’s inception, Yong has concentrated on low-stakes recreational players. He ensured that they received the same level of service as the high rollers in most other establishments. He also began to offer large guarantees in small buy-in poker tournaments, betting that the small field sizes would pay off his investment. It worked in the majority of cases.

Rob Yong is now one of the most well-known and highly regarded casino owners in the poker world. He began participating in low-buy-in poker tournaments in 2004, even before opening his club in 2007. His success as a poker room owner clearly enabled him to participate in much larger games, including high-stakes live-streamed cash games.

Rob Yong in Live Cash Games

Yong has frequently been featured on tv shows where he played competitive high-stakes games for viewers at home.

He frequently appears in Triton’s super high stakes live cash game streams. In June 2019, for example, he competed in a session of KRW1 million/KRW2 million/KRW2 million ($900/$1,800/$1,800) No Limit Hold’em NLHE cash against Tom Dwan, Bobby Baldwin, and Aaron Zang, who later won the £1 million buy-in, Triton Million.

Online Poker Games

On partypoker, Yong goes by the screen name “Rob_Yong_“.

No online poker database keeps track of his online tournament or cash game results. However, in September of 2017, he streamed a few sessions of $100/$200 PLO on partypoker’s Twitch channel.

In addition to Viktor “Isildur1” Blom and Patrik Antonius, his regular “playmates”, he also played with legendary poker players such as Tsuokernik, Trickett, and Aussie Matt.

Yong in Live Tournaments

According to his Hendon page, Yong has cashed $465,509 in live tournaments during his professional life. That total is the sum of ITM finishes in 23 different events over a 15-year period.

The very first cash transaction on his profile was completed in July of 2004. He finished sixth at the European Poker Championships in London for £2,880 in a £500 Pot Limit Omaha tournament.

For the next few years, he delivered scores from mid-to-high stakes tournaments on a sporadic basis, primarily from events held in England. The most notable of these is a runner-up finish in the $1,000 No Limit Hold’em event at the Bellagio’s Five-Diamond World Poker Classic. Yong received $29,488 at the time.

In October 2006, he made his first cash payment of more than $100,000. He finished sixth in the €5,000 Main Event at EPT Dublin for €88,690, which equated to $111,518 at the time.

Surprisingly, his live tourney scores stalled after his big EPT score and the opening of his poker room in 2007. One might think that all these events resulted in Yong amassing a sizable bankroll that would result in more opportunities to deliver big tourney scores. On his page, however, the following result is from a tournament that took place in May 2010 and cost £56!

After all, Yong has a couple of big tourney scores. In November 2012, he competed in the $3,000 NLHE Main Event that was held at the Dusk Till Dawn Caribbean Poker Party on the island of St. Kitts in the Caribbean. He finished in second place. Yong lost the title match to fellow Englishman Ashraf Wahid in a heads-up battle, but he received $50,700 for his efforts.

Appearances in the World Series of Poker

So far, Yong has only won one World Series event. However, the cash he won from that one tournament was his best score ever in a live competition.

During the 2019 World Series of Poker Europe, which took place in Rozvadov, Czech Republic, at the casino owned by Yong’s good friend Leon Tsoukernik, Yong participated in the €25,500 Short Deck NLHE High Roller event. In total, there were 111 competitors, and among them were some of the most well-known names in poker, like Daniel Negreanu as well as Phil Ivey, who were all vying for a bracelet in this innovative and exciting new game format.

Yong eventually finished sixth in the tournament, earning €118,653.

Sponsorships

As previously stated, Yong is the co-founder and owner of the Nottingham cardroom Dusk Till Dawn, which opened in 2007.

He is also a key partner of partypoker. Yong started playing in the online poker room in 2014. He frequently uses his Twitter account, with the username @rob_yong_, to solicit player feedback about the site, and continued tweeting out new, innovative ideas that partypoker could potentially implement.