Johnny Chan

Johnny Chan is a professional poker player from Hong Kong. When he moved to the United States with his family, Johnny Chan began his life as a normal teenager by working in his family business. When he was 18, Chan entered college and in the state of Texas. However, Johnny's time in college was cut short because he dropped out before graduating to pursue a life as a professional poker player. Although this decision was strongly disliked by his family, it was a decision that ultimately paid off for the now 10-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner.

Johnny Chan hold a poker record that may not ever be broken. In 1987, Johnny Chan won the No Limit Hold Em Championship at the World series of Poker. The event has a $10k buy in and Chan won $625k for the victory. Even more amazingly, Chan won the same tournament again the very next year for $700k. To make things even more uncanny, Chan made it to heads up play again in the same tournament in 1989, but lost to Phil Hellmuth. Even so, by winning the Main Event 2 times in a row and making it to heads up play 3 years in a row, Johnny Chan permanently marked his name in the poker world.

On top of those 2 huge wins, Chan has won 8 more bracelets for a total of 10, which is tied for 2nd in poker history with the great Doyle Brunson. His first bracelet came in a $1k buy in Limit Hold Em tournament in 1985 where he won $171k for 1st place. In 1987 and 1988 he won his 2 Main event bracelets for 3 total. In 1994 he captured bracelet number 4 in a $1.5k buy in Seven Card Stud tournament for $136k and then bracelet number 5 in 1997 after winning a $5k buy in 2-7 Lowball tournament for $164k. He won his sixth bracelet in the year 2000 by winning a $1.5k buy in Pot Limit Omaha tournament for $179k. In 2002, he won number 7 in a $2.5k buy in No Limit Hold Em event for $34k. Number 8 and number 9 were both won in 2003. Number 8 came in after winning a $5k buy in No Limit Hold Em event for $224k and number 9 came when Chan won a $5k buy in Pot Limit Omaha tournament for $158k.

His latest bracelet, bracelet number 10, was won after taking down a $2.5k buy in Pot Limit Hold Em tournament for $303k in 2005. In terms of the World Poker tour, Johnny has not experienced the taste of winning any events and is considered to be the best poker player to never win a WPT title. Johnny has also appeared on the poker show, “Poker After Dark”, where he has won the broadcasted 6-man tournament 4 times out of 6 tries. All together, Johnny Chan has won just over $8 million in poker tournaments.

Johnny Chan is also the author of 2 poker books. The first book was titled, “Play Poker like Johnny Chan”, and was released in 2005. His 2nd book was released in 2006 and was titled, “Million Dollar Hold Em: Winning Big in Limit Cash Games”. Ironically, Chan's most famous moment came outside of poker, when his WSOP Main Event win was showed in a movie named “Rounders” starring Matt Damon, which is arguably the most famous poker movie of all time. Later in the movie, Johnny Chan is seen playing the star of the movie in heads up play.