David Malka Talks Work-Life Balance and Emotional Breakthrough Victory

By Kevin Taylor

It’s another big buy-in tournament in Los Angeles, and that means part-time player David Malka is here and in the money. The real estate businessman plays sporadically these days, saying that he dedicates only a fraction of his time and efforts into poker.

“Vegas and L.A. make the most sense for me to play,” Malka said. “I think L.A. and Vegas have the softest tournaments outside of maybe Florida, but those are the three softest. Now that I’m 80% business and 20% poker, that 20% is a lot more fun with me. It’s great.”

Malka used to play full time before deciding that the everyday grind of poker wasn’t for him. He says that in order to compete at the highest level day in and day out, poker has to be your entire life.

“If you want to get really good at poker I think you have to be obsessed with it,” Malka said. “It has to be all you do and you have to study away from the table. I think that’s approach number one, but approach number two, which I decided a while ago, was to slowly step away from poker and focus on work.”

Malka continued about his balance between work and poker: “I think the ceiling for income is higher with business. You still need to work on work-life balance. That was starting to be affected by poker for me. You either get obsessed with poker and work a lot on your game or you start working on your business. You can’t half-ass poker.”

For the last few years, Malka has almost exclusively played the main events and high rollers in Los Angeles and Vegas, but it was a trip to Florida in April of 2016 that would prove to be Malka’s big breakthrough. There, he took down the WPT Seminole Hard Rock $25,00 High Roller, earning a career-best score of $658,000.

The victory was a long time coming for Malka, who admitted that he was overwhelmed with emotion after his huge victory.

“When I won the high roller, I went straight up to my hotel room and I cried for 10-15 minutes straight, and I never cry,” Malka said. “It was so intense for me, so to win a WPT title would be just as intense for me.”

Malka is in the money here in the WPT Gardens Poker Festival Main Event, and he admits that every time he goes deep in an event like this, the excitement and adrenaline are impossible to find anywhere else in his life.

“It doesn’t get old going deeper than these things,” Malka said. “Nothing in life matches the excitement of going deep in a tournament.”

Malka also offered high words of praise for the tournament structure of this event, saying that the early end times are absolutely perfect for him.

“Honestly, this structure has just been amazing, probably the best tournament I’ve ever played,” Malka said. “Five levels a day, done by 8:30 p.m., no dinner break – I think that’s the optimal tournament structure.”

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