Johnny Chan

Johnny Chan was born in China in 1962 and later moved with his family to Arizona and finally to Texas, where his family owned restaurants.

Chan entered the gambling world at the young age of 16, when hen went on a junket to Las Vegas. A few years later he dropped out of college in order to move to Vegas and become a professional poker player.

As a pro, Chan was very successful, winning game after game, which he had credited to the fact that at the time, most players did not have experience playing against an Asian poker player and therefore could not "read him".

Chan was a poker star in the late 1980's, winning two consecutive championship events of the World Series of Poker in 1987 and 1988, a feat that has not been repeated since, and probably never will be, due to the ever growing fields. He failed to achieve a third consecutive win (which would have been an amazing achievement) when he was defeated in the 1989 by a very young and unknown poker player by the name of Phil Helmuth.

Chan is the author of Play Poker Like Johnny Chan, an instructional book on several different types of poker games. He also published Million Dollar Hold'em: Winning Big in Limit Cash Games, which focuses on limit Texas Hold'em strategy.

In 2005, Chan won his tenth World Series of Poker title and he is now tied with Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth for the record of 10 World Series of Poker gold bracelets. He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2002.