Michael McDonald is one of today’s youngest professional poker players at the ripe age of 18. At such a young age, his career earnings are already incredibly impressive at $1,547,304. Most of this came from a live poker tournament victory that stunned the poker community as McDonald became the young poker player to ever win a European Poker Tour (EPT) event.

Born September 11, 1989 in Waterloo, Ontario (Canada) Michael McDonald first started playing poker in 2003. McDonald’s earlier exploits came from playing online poker under the username “Timex”. While his true goal in life is to start up his own investment company, playing poker has certainly gotten McDonald off to an excellent beginning.

Michael’s first live poker tournament win came at the 2007 EPT Main Event in Prague on December 12. Barely 18 years of age, Michael finished the tournament 14th overall, collecting $28,280 for his skilled efforts. In January of 2008, McDonald continued his success at the Crown Aussie Millions preliminaries with a 2nd place finish in NL Hold’em Event #1. Michael pocketed $75,610 after losing in heads-up play to Vincent Wan.

Michael was not done with the 2008 Aussie Millions just yet. Only seven days later, in Event #11 PokerPro NL Hold’em, Michael ousted the entire field to claim his inaugural 1st place victory worth $29,876. Event #13 of the Aussie Millions - the Heads Up Championships held another five days later - earned McDonald a 6th place purse of $17,600.

As non-fiction fairy-tale-type stories go, Michael McDonald’s had only just began. One month later, on February 2, 2008, McDonald found himself seated at the EPT German Open of Season 4, in Dortmund, Germany. The skills of this fresh young poker pro were vividly apparent as he outlasted an entire field of 411 participants to become the youngest poker player to ever win an EPT title. At 18, it is highly unlikely McDonald’s name will ever be stricken from the books, either - certainly not anytime soon. McDonald’s historic win resulted in a massive cash of $1,381,728.

On the downside, there are a multitude of events on the European Poker Tour that young Michael will not be able to qualify for, due to his age. None the less, we can expect to see Michael McDonald in plenty of lucrative, age-applicable poker tournaments before his 21st birthday.

It is simply amazing that at the youthful age of 18, the impeccable talents of Michael McDonald have already earned him more than $1.5 million in live poke tournaments alone. It will be most interesting to see watch McDonald’s budding career further blossom over the coming years.