The Wall Street Journal ($) has this profile today on Andrew Beal, the Plano-based banker who has made a name for himself over the past decade of so placing contrarian bets on lending and bond business plays. Here is an earlier D Magazine Online profile on Mr. Beal.
Mr. Beal is definitely not your typical banker. He is a college dropout who never earned an M.B.A. He never worked for a big company learning the ropes. In the 1970’s, he operated a business that bought old homes, remodeled them, and then sold them at a profit, which led him to get into the banking business in the late 1980’s. Mr. Beal now owns 100% of Beal Financial Corp., which is a bank holding company with combined assets of $7.8 billion and a net worth of more than $1.7 billion.
One interesting characteristic of Mr. Beal is his penchant for Texas hold’em poker, as the Journal profile relates:

Mr. Beal has other interests in Las Vegas. Since 2000, he has been visiting casinos to play marathon sessions of Texas hold ’em poker against some of the world’s top gamblers. Participants say Mr. Beal sits practically immobile for hours. He wears sunglasses and headphones to shut out voices, so he won’t inadvertently betray a clue about his hand by making eye contact or chatting.
Other players say he lost several million dollars in these games, though a winning spree last spring brought him close to break-even. Mr. Beal doesn’t dispute that account. He is known for blasting away with big bets even if he has bad cards, sometimes inducing opponents with better hands to fold.
“It’s almost as if he’s playing with disdain for the value of money,” says one opponent, Doyle Brunson, a former poker world champion. Mr. Brunson, a legendary bluffer in his own right, calls Mr. Beal “a very difficult person to play against.”