Canada has its fair share of strong poker pros. The most well-known are Daniel Negreanu and Gavin Smith, but a few Vancouver players are creeping up in the ranks as well. Brad Booth and Greg Mueller are leading the pack and now Robert Cheung is making his own impact in the poker world too.

Born in Hong Kong and now living in Vancouver where he's a businessman first and a poker player second, Cheung won a World Series of Poker bracelet in 2007 after only two years of playing.

Cheung first got into poker a couple years ago when a friend introduced him to the game. He started playing at the River Rock Casino, in Richmond, B.C., as a hobby and got into tournaments too. Poker soon became a "serious" hobby for the Canadian.

"My personal character is that I take things very seriously; whether it's a job, a business or a hobby," Cheung told PokerListings.com. "I realized that I like the game a lot, because, to me, the poker game is like a business."

If poker is a business, business has been good for Cheung since he started playing. In 2005, he cashed in his first tournament, the $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em Main Event of the British Columbia Poker Championships.

He found his first tournament win in early 2006 in the $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em event of the Fourth Annual Five Star World Poker Classic. He also had a fourth-place finish in the World Series of Poker Circuit Championship event at Harrah's Lake Tahoe and his first cash in the WSOP.

Several other cashes in 2006 couldn't cure him of his thirst for a World Series win though, and he was back for more in 2007. He made it as far as 17th place in the $5,000 No-Limit Heads-Up Championship event, and had a cash in a $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em event as well.

It was Event 38, another $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em event where the skill and luck all came together to give Cheung his first WSOP gold bracelet. He conquered a field of 2,778 players to win $673,628.

Being the businessman that he is, Cheung told PokerListings.com he wasn't planning on any big purchases or partying, instead he would probably invest his winnings, and of course, some of those winnings will be reinvested back into poker so he can continue his very lucrative hobby.