Lee Markholt, Jr. was born in Tacoma, Washington and grew up enjoying the small town feel of the Northwest region in which he lived. As a teenager, he first learned how to play poker from his father and played often with friends, but it wasn’t until the age of 25 that he realized that he was making more money during his time at the local casinos than at the family business. He soon forfeited his job as a meat cutter, and left years of bull-riding behind, and planned to support his family with his poker winnings, which was exactly what he did.

Instead of doing what many pro players do – move to Las Vegas to be near the best action – Lee set up home in the town of Eatonville, Washington because it was best for his family. He played a good deal of cash games at local casinos near his home, mostly during the days, and maintained a normal family life on evenings and weekends. When he craved tournament action, he ventured out for short trips to Vegas, Reno or Los Angeles, and that’s when he began to be noticed by some of the more well-known players on the circuit.

By 1990, Lee was cashing in and winning smaller buy-in tournaments and worked his way up to the World Series of Poker. In 1998, he made his first WSOP final table and placed eighth in the $2,000 pot-limit hold’em event. He continued to cash sporadically in WSOP events, then did the same on the World Poker Tour, bubbling the TV final table by finishing seventh at the 2004 Borgata Poker Open, then cashing at the World Poker Finals later that year. When the Professional Poker Tour was formed, he was recruited to play, and that was where he found his first major tournament win. At the 2005 PPT Five Star World Poker Classic, he won the tournament and took $225,000 back to Washington. Since then, he has been a regular on the WPT circuit with a total of fourteen cashes, most of them coming in 2006 and 2007, and ultimately a victory at the 2008 World Poker Challenge in Reno.