Professional Poker Player Profile: Johnny Chan

Johnny Chan, one of the most accomplished professional poker players of all time, was born in China in 1957. Due to his family’s restaurant business, he moved around to different locations regularly, with his family eventually settling in Houston, Texas. He began to study hotel and restaurant management at the University of Houston in the hopes of continuing in his family’s footsteps by owning his own business. However at the age of 21 the lure of Las Vegas, and in particular the poker table, had been too strong and he dropped out of college to become a professional gambler.

Johnny had modest success in his early years as a professional poker player, yet he never deterred from it and this commitment was to pay off. In 1987 he won the main event of the World Series of Poker Texas Hold’em tournament and repeated this feat back-to-back the following year, which has not been achieved since. The poker table became his ‘home’ in Vegas and he has won a variety of different tournaments since, ranging from Seven-Card Stud (1994) to Pot Limit Omaha (2000) to further cement his legacy at the top.

Johnny likes to vary his playing style to stay on top of his opponents and to keep them guessing as to what move he will make next. His style can vary from being tentative to make a large bet and holding back to being an aggressive player setting traps for his opponents to fall into.

In recent tournaments he has not been able to match the exceeding high levels he set in the late 80’s, yet has had a good level of success in the tournaments he has  competed in.

He still plays in the tournament which made him a big name in the poker world, the WSOP, and most recently cashed out in 2008 when he placed in at 329th in the tournament. Poker Superstars is another tournament he has recently competed in, finishing as runner-up in Poker Superstars 1 and winning Poker Superstars 2. Also, he competes in NBC’s Poker After Dark show, where six of the top poker players in the world sit around a poker table and battle it out for $20,000. Johnny has had the most victories in this tournament to date, with four of his six appearances being triumphant.

When not sweeping up chips from the poker table, Johnny’s other interests include his fast food restaurant, which he runs in Las Vegas. He has also written numerous books on poker and has articles in poker magazines such as Card Player Magazine. Johnny also had a now iconic cameo role in the movie Rounders, after his success in the WSOP tournaments in the late 80’s.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 2:54 pm and is filed under Featured Pros. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.