Ken Cheng is also a stand-up comedian who has just won the 'Joke of the Year' award at the Edinburgh Festival.

A British professional poker player has been carving out a successful career for himself as a stand-up comedian.

Ken Cheng won the 'Dave Joke of the Year' award at the Edinburgh Festival, arguably the biggest comedy festival in the world:

Cheng recently came to this writer's attention for this interesting article he wrote comparing comedy and poker as professions, where he said:

The two fields of poker and comedy actually have a surprising amount in common. The first similarity is how both are based around a constant barrage of either extreme punishment or reward. In poker, it's money; in comedy, it's laughs. Every day you sit down at the poker table you could win or lose hundreds and by the same notion, every time you step on stage you could kill or bomb. And the scariest part is that this can happen regardless of how well you play or perform.

In the article he also discusses Tilt and how The Mental Game of Poker helped him with both poker and comedy. Apologies for the shameless plug, but after hearing this I reached out to Ken for an interview, which we will be doing soon.

To get a better idea of Ken's sense of humour, check out this set which he performed at the finale of the 2015 BBC New Comedy Awards:

Are poker players funny? Share your views in the comments: