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Professional Poker Player

Johnny Chan - The Orient Express

DOB: 1957

Education: University Dropout

Favourite Game: Holdem

Famous Words:
Not too many players try to bluff me. If there's any bluffing or stealing, I'm going to be the one doing it.

Career Highlights:

Chan immigrated to the US from China in 1968, where the plan was for him to continue on his family's restaurant business. However Chan had other plans and went on vacation to Las Vegas. He dropped out of university at age 21 where he was studying hotel management and moved to Vegas to become a professional gambler.

Chan became a prominent name in the world of poker in the late 80's where he won the Main Event at the World Series OF Poker in two consecutive years. He almost made it three in a row, but placed second to Phil Hellmuth. In 2005, he became the first player in history to win 10 World Series Of Poker bracelets, and is now tied for second place with Doyle Brunson, only Phil Hellmuth stands ahead of them. Chan is well known to keep an orange on the table with him, however it is not for luck as most people speculate, instead he keeps it for the pleasant scent. As smoking used to be permitted in poker rooms and Chan was not a big advocate of the habit, his reasoning would seem to make sense.

In addition to his 10 World Series of Poker titles he as an additional 31 money finishes, having taken home $4.1 million in pocket change at the end of 2007.

His World Series of Poker success offsets his World Poker Tour failures - he has never made a final table and has only three money finishes.

Like fellow big name pros Chan has taken part in a number of televised poker tournaments including Poker after Dark and Poker Superstars. He came back from being short stacked at 20k against 3.2 million in 2005's Superstars tournament to finish second to Gus Hansen. Returning the following year he defeated over twenty fellow pros to take out the $400,000 first prize. He has also appeared in the first season of High Stakes Poker and had a cameo in the poker based movie Rounders.

Aside from winning poker, Chan has a number of side interests that fill up his time. Currently a consultant to various game makers and casinos, it is rumoured that one day he would like to open his own casino. He has written for Card Player magazine and written several instructional guides on how to play different types of poker.