Poker - Player Profile: Johnny Chan
Poker is a game that has always been a mystery to the people who watch from the outside. The taboos associated with it have long categorized it as a gambling habit. A vast majority of them call it a game of luck, but ask the people who play it and they will call it one of the most strategic games to ever be played. They will tell you that poker is not gambling, but a game that requires the use of every part of your brain. There are fifty two cards in the deck and these are the variables that everyone has to deal with. There are many variations to the game as well but the one that is used to decide who the best player in the world is Texas Hold’em. In this, each player is given two cards while five community cards open on the table. The person with the best poker combination of five cads takes the hand.
The main event of World Series of Poker is considered the top prize that a poker player can achieve in their life. The event is held annually at Las Vegas Nevada in the USA and has been taking place every year since its inception in 1970. To prove that the game requires more skill than luck, you will often see familiar faces making it to the later stages of the tournament time and again. Only a handful of players have been able to win the tournament more than once. Only a select few have managed to do it back to back and the last player who was able to pull it off was Johnny Chan.
Born in China, it seemed like destiny had a plan for attracting him to the USA. He moved there with his parents in 1968. His family owned restaurants in Houston, Texas and it seemed that he was destined to take over the business once he graduated from the University of Houston where he was majoring in hotel and restaurant management. However, at the age of 21, he quit college and moved to Vegas to become a professional gambler.
His rise to stardom came in when he managed to take the title twice in a row in 1987 and 1988. It was an era when poker was starting to get airtime on television channels and the game tapes of the event have been used in the movie ‘Rounders’ as well. It was his cool and calm exterior that is the epitome of what is globally known as the ‘Poker Face’. In those tournaments he did not break a sweat until the game was over, but on the inside he has one of sharpest poker brains that have ever played the game. He was very close to winning the tournament third time in the running as well but lost out to Phil Hellmuth in the 1989 event where he finished in second place. Had Chan pulled it off, it would have been the first time that anyone would have done so. During both these tournaments he had an orange on the table with him while he played. Most people thought that this was superstition but Chan just liked the smell of it and he used it to mask the smell of cigarettes as they were allowed in most tournaments back then.
Since then, Chan has not had much to talk about in the main event but he did turn his focus towards the other WSOP events. In 2005, he won his tenth WSOP bracelet. This was the first time that anyone had been able to do that. He was later overtaken by Phil Hellmuth who now has eleven to his name. Chan is still tied in second place with Doyle Brunson behind him.
From 1992 to 2008 Chan was unable to finish in the money in the main event, but this year seems different. He started the tournament on Day 1-C. By the end of the day’s proceedings, he was in second place. It seems he has a point to prove this year and if he gets into his zone, the rest of the field has a lot to worry about. Regardless, he will always be praised as one of the greatest to ever play the game.
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