2008 World Series of Poker
The 2008 World Series of Poker was the 39th annual World Series of Poker. Held in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino, the series began on May 30, 2008, featured 55 poker championships in several variants. All events but the $10,000 World Championship No Limit Texas hold'em Main Event, the most prestigious of the WSOP events, ended by July 15; as has been the WSOP custom since 1976, each of the event winners received a championship bracelet in addition to that event's prize money, which ranged from $87,929 to $9,119,517. Highlights of the 2008 series include the selection of Erick Lindgren, who won a bracelet and made three final tables, as recipient of the "Player of the Year Award". Nikolay Evdakov led all players with a record 10 money finishes, Phil Hellmuth set a WSOP record of 41 career final tables; the Main Event, which began with 6,844 participants, was suspended once the event was down to the nine players needed for the final table. This year was the first in which the Main Event was suspended in this fashion, a change introduced at ESPN's request to allow the television network to do a same-day Main Event broadcast.
In a stunning statistical improbability, Justin Phillips knocked out Motoyuki Mabuchi in the Main Event. Phillips held a Royal Flush and Mabuchi held quad aces. One of the broadcasters, Lon McEachern, mentioned on air that the chances of such a showdown occurring were 1:2.7 billion. Ray Romano had just sat down at the table. Nikolay Evdakov set a WSOP record for most cashes at a single World Series with 10; the previous record of eight was held by five players: Chris Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth, Humberto Brenes, Michael Binger, Chad Brown. Evdakov's achievement represents the most cashes by a player at one WSOP without reaching a single final table. Hellmuth, who made two final tables, established a new WSOP career record of 41 final tables, two more than T. J. Cloutier. Scotty Nguyen became the first player to hold both a Main Event and a $50,000 H. O. R. S. E World Championship bracelet. Several nationals were the first from their country to win bracelets. Brazilian Alexandre Gomes won Event 48 to become the first South American player to win a WSOP bracelet since Ecuadorian-born Carlos Mortensen won the 2001 Main Event.
Rob Hollink won Event 30, becoming the first Dutch WSOP bracelet winner, Davidi Kitai won Event 38, becoming the first Belgian player to win a bracelet. The 2008 Main Event final table took 15 hours and 28 minutes to play, beating the previous record of 14 hours and 2 minutes in 2005; the $10,000 World Championship No Limit Texas Hold'em Main Event began on July 3 with the first of four starting days. After reaching the final table of nine players on July 14, the final table was delayed until November 9; this change in schedule was made to allow ESPN to broadcast the final table on November 11, shortly after it was played. All final table players were paid ninth place prize money in July, with the remaining prize pool distributed in November. Instead of the Amazon Room, aka "the Poker Room," where all of the events were held, the final table would be held in the Penn and Teller Theatre. On November 9, players played down from nine to two and the winner was decided the next night; the final table consisted of 274 hands in total.
After a large decrease in Main Event participants in 2007 compared to 2006, the number increased in 2008 but was still far from the 2006 number. As in 2007, the payout structure is flatter than in 2006 and before, with the lowest payouts at $21,230, as compared to $10,616 in 2006; the "last woman standing" in the 2008 Main Event was Tiffany Michelle. Celebrities best known from television and professional sports, among other areas participated, with two placing in the money; the list includes: Out in Day 1: Jason Alexander, Nick Cannon, José Canseco, Jeff Fenech, Larry Flynt, Forrest Griffin, Orel Hershiser, Chuck Liddell, Brad May, Mekhi Phifer, Sam Simon, Jennifer Tilly, David Wells. Out in Day 2: Paul Azinger, Bruce Buffer, Shannon Elizabeth, Sully Erna, Ray Romano. Out in Day 3: Andy Griggs, Shane Warne. Out in Day 4: Steve Davis. Out in Day 5: Kara Scott. *Career statistics prior to the beginning of the 2008 Main Event At the age of 22, Peter Eastgate became the youngest Main Event winner, surpassing Phil Hellmuth, 24 when he won in 1989 and became the first European to capture the title since Carlos Mortensen won in 2001.
His winning hand was a five high straight known as a "wheel", made from his hole cards A♦ 5♠ and three of the community cards which were 2♦ K♠ 3♥ 4♣ 7♠, while his opponent Ivan Demidov lost with 4♥ 2♥ for two pair. NB: This list is restricted to top 30 finishers with an existing Wikipedia entry. Twenty past WSOP Main Event champions, representing 22 bracelets, participated in the 2008 Main Event. Two champions from the late 1980s finished in the money: Johnny Chan placed 329th for $32,166, Phil Hellmuth finished 45th for $154,400
Huck Seed
Huckleberry"Huck" Seed is an American professional poker player best known for winning the Main Event of the 1996 World Series of Poker. Seed was born in Santa Clara, but grew up in Corvallis, where he attended Corvallis High School, he was a member of the 1987 Montana All-State basketball team. Seed was an electrical engineering student at California Institute of Technology and a member of Fleming House, he took a leave of absence in 1989, started playing poker, never returned to college. Seed was a star player on Caltech's basketball team and is featured in the 2006 documentary Quantum Hoops. Seed won the 1996 World Series of Poker main event, which resulted in his second bracelet and the $1,000,000 first prize, he made the final table of the 1999 WSOP main event, but was eliminated in sixth place by eventual champion Noel Furlong. In the 2003 World Series of Poker, Seed won his fourth career bracelet in a $3,000 Limit Razz tournament, he defeated Phil Ivey in heads-up play to win the bracelet.
In the 2007 Main Event, Seed finished 73rd out of 6,358 players. Seed won the 2009 NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship, where he took the top prize of $500,000 and improved his overall record in the event to 18-4, an all-time best for win total. In addition, Seed became the only player to cash in every NBC Heads-Up tournament. Seed's streak ended in the 2010 tournament with his first round loss to eventual runner-up Erik Seidel. In 2010, Seed won the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions freeroll for $500,000; as of October 2011, his total live tournament winnings exceed $5,900,000. He has four WSOP bracelets and 40 total cashes at the WSOP, accounting for $3,331,986 of his live tournament winnings. Seed has been involved in many "prop bets", he once made a $10,000 proposition bet with Phil Hellmuth and Konstantin Othmer that he could float in the ocean for 24 hours without touching the bottom. By bet rules, he was not allowed to bet more than an additional $15,000, could settle the bet without attempting the feat for $5,000, what happened.
This bet has been incorrectly reported. Seed once took a six-figure bet that he could break 100 on a desert golf course four times in a day using just a five iron, sand wedge, putter, he has bet that he would be able to go an entire year without shaving
Vietnamese Americans
Vietnamese Americans are Americans of Vietnamese descent. They make up about half of all overseas Vietnamese and are the fourth-largest Asian American ethnic group after Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, Indian Americans, have developed distinctive characteristics in the United States. South Vietnamese immigration to the United States began after the Vietnam War ended in 1975. Early immigrants were refugee boat people, seeking economic opportunities. More than half of Vietnamese Americans reside in the states of Texas. According. To U. S. Census Bureau, the median household income for Vietnamese Americans was $65,643 in 2017; as a relatively-recent immigrant group, most Vietnamese Americans are either first or second generation Americans. As many as one million people five years of age and older speak Vietnamese at home, making it the fifth-most-spoken language in the U. S. In the 2012 American Community Survey, 76 percent of foreign-born Vietnamese are naturalized U. S. citizens. Of those born outside the United States, 73.1 percent entered before 2000, 21.2 percent from 2000 and 2009 and 5.7 percent after 2010.
In 2017 the U. S. Census Bureau estimated the total population of Vietnamese American was 2,104,217. California and Texas had the highest concentrations of Vietnamese Americans: 40 and 12 percent, respectively. Other states with concentrations of Vietnamese Americans were Washington and Virginia; the largest number of Vietnamese outside Vietnam is in Orange County, followed by Los Angeles and Santa Clara counties. Many Vietnamese American businesses exist in the Little Saigon of Westminster and Garden Grove, where Vietnamese Americans make up 40.2 and 27.7 percent of the population respectively. About 41 percent of the Vietnamese immigrant population lives in five major metropolitan areas: in descending order, Los Angeles, San Jose, San Francisco and Dallas-Fort Worth; the Vietnamese immigration pattern has shifted to other states, including Denver, Chicago and Oregon. Vietnamese Americans are more to be Christians than the Vietnamese in Vietnam. Christians make up about six percent of Vietnam's population and about 23 percent of the Vietnamese American population.
Due to hostility between Communists and Catholics in Vietnam, many Catholics fled the country after the Communist takeover, many Catholic Churches had sponsored them to America. The history of Vietnamese Americans is recent. Before 1975, most Vietnamese residing in the US were the wives and children of American servicemen or academics. Records indicate that a few Vietnamese arrived and performed menial work during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. According to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 650 Vietnamese arrived as immigrants between 1950 and 1974, but the figure excludes students and military trainees; the April 30, 1975 fall of Saigon, which ended the Vietnam War, prompted the first large-scale wave of immigration. Most of the first-wave immigrants were well-educated, financially comfortable, proficient in English. According to 1975 US State Department data, more than 30 percent of the heads of first-wave households were medical professionals or technical managers, 16.9 percent worked in transportation, 11.7 percent had clerical or sales jobs in Vietnam.
Less than 5 percent were farmers. The evacuation of the immigrants was organized in three major ways; the week before Saigon fell, 15,000 people left on scheduled flights followed by an additional 80,000 evacuated by air. The last group was carried on U. S. Navy ships. During the spring of 1975 125,000 people left South Vietnam, followed by more than 5,000 in 1976-1977, they arrived at reception camps in the Philippines and Guam before being transferred to temporary housing at U. S. military bases, including Camp Pendleton, Fort Chaffee, Eglin Air Force Base and Fort Indiantown Gap. After preparations for resettlement, they were assigned to one of nine voluntary agencies to help them find financial and personal support from sponsors in the U. S. South Vietnamese refugees were resented by Americans, since the memory of defeat was fresh. However, the U. S. government informed public opinion as it felt that it had a moral obligation to the refugees, President Gerald Ford and Congress both agreed to pass the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act in 1975, which allowed Vietnamese refugees to enter the United States under a special status and allocated $405 million in resettlement aid.
To prevent the refugees from forming ethnic enclaves and minimize their impact on local communities, they were distributed throughout the country, but within a few years, many resettled in California and Texas. A second wave of Vietnamese refugees arrived from 1978 to the mid-1980s. Political and economic instability under the new communist government led to a migration unprecedented in Vietnam. South Vietnamese former military officers and gover
Berry Johnston
Berry Enfield Johnston is an American professional poker player. He is best known as the 1986 World Champion, but he has won four other bracelets at the World Series of Poker in addition to cashes and wins in many other tournaments throughout his career. Johnston won the 1986 World Series of Poker Main Event, placed third in 1983 and 1985 and fifth in the 1990 World Series, respectively, he has made at least 29 final tables at the WSOP and has finished in the money on at least 66 occasions. He has cashed ten times in the WSOP Main Event, more than any other player, his most recent cash in the Main Event came in 2007, when he finished in 113th place in a field of over six thousand players, for which Johnston won $58,570. Having cashed in at least one event every year from 1982–2010, Johnston holds the record at the WSOP for longest cashing streak at 29 years. Johnston cashed three times in the 2008 World Series of Poker, including tenth place in an Omaha Hi/Lo event, he is 42nd on the WSOP all time money list.
He is currently ranked in fourth place for the WSOP all-time cashes list with 57 cashes as of the end of the 2009 series. Johnston is still competing at high levels of poker today. Johnston has played on the NBC Poker After Dark Series, most in 2008 among some of his fellow World Series of Poker Main Event Champions. Berry finished fourth in the tournament, won by Johnny Chan; the other world champions in the tournament were Phil Hellmuth, Huck Seed, Chris Ferguson, Jamie Gold. He was inducted into the Seniors Poker Hall of Fame in the early 1990s and Poker Hall of Fame in 2004. Johnston was the only inductee in the 2004 class; as of 2010, his total live tournament winnings exceed $3,450,000. His 60 cashes as the WSOP account for $2,075,527 of those winnings. Official site pokernews.com – Legends of Poker: Berry Johnston
Bell Gardens, California
Bell Gardens is a city in Los Angeles County, California. The population was 42,072 at the 2010 census, down from 44,054 at the 2000 census. Bell Gardens is part of the Gateway Cities Region, or Southeast Los Angeles County is a urbanized region located in southeastern Los Angeles County, Southern California between the City of Los Angeles, Orange County, the Pacific Ocean. Bell Gardens is notable for being one of only six Los Angeles County cities to permit casino gambling and for being home of the oldest building in Los Angeles County. Bell Gardens is named after James Bell; the “gardens” of its name derives from the many Japanese who, early in Bell Gardens’ existence established vegetable gardens and rice fields in the fertile soil. The city of Bell Gardens has a Native American history dating back thousands of years. In the late 18th century, when the area was associated with a large amount of land situated along the lower basin of the Rio Hondo area in Los Angeles County, Bell Gardens was once a bustling agricultural center for Californios during the Spanish Empire, 1509–1823, the Mexican government, 1823–1848, the United States, after the Mexican-American war concluded in 1848.
Among those early Spanish settlers was one of the Lugos. While stationed at Mission San Antonio de Padua near Salinas, Francisco Lugo's son Antonio Maria Lugo was born in 1783. In 1810 Antonio Lugo, a 35-year-old corporal in the Spanish army, was given the 29,514-acre Rancho San Antonio land grant; the land grant was a reward for his military service during the establishment of the Franciscan Missions in California while being the attendant of colonization for the area. Today the grant includes the cities of Bell Gardens, Maywood, Huntington Park, Walnut Park, South Gate and Commerce. Antonio Lugo built several adobe homes within the boundaries of the Rancho San Antonio grant, raised cattle. One of the adobe houses, built in 1795, is the oldest house in Los Angeles County and is still standing at 7000 Gage Avenue. Lugo was given a term as Mayor of Los Angeles. According to Dr. Roy Whitehead in his book Lugo, "Don Antonio Maria Lugo…rode around Los Angeles and his Rancho San Antonio in great splendor.
He never still spoke only Spanish. He rode magnificent horses, sitting in his $1,500 silver trimmed saddle erect and stately, with his sword strapped to the saddle beneath his left leg…People knew him far and wide, the Indians sometimes named their children after him, as he was one Spanish Don that they admired." Antonio María Lugo died at the age of 85 in 1860. One of his nine children, Vicente Lugo and built a two-story adobe home in 1850, located at 6360 Gage Avenue. A daughter of Antonio Lugo married Stephen C. Foster, Mayor of Los Angeles in 1854, lived in an adobe house just east of 6820 Foster Bridge Road, now a parking lot. A granddaughter of Antonio Lugo married Wallace Woodworth, an early-day merchant and civic leader in Los Angeles, their eldest son, Joseph Woodworth, built a two-story colonial style house at 6820 Foster Bridge Road in 1924. The land's original adobe dwelling was named Casa de Rancho San Antonio by Lugo; when Henry T. Gage, a lawyer who married Antonia Lugo's granddaughter Frances V. Rains, occupied the residence, he added two wings and redwood siding, installed bronze fireplaces, imported expensive fabric wallpaper from France to serve as background for the Gage coat of arms, which enjoys a place of prominence in every room.
The Bell Gardens’ school system began in 1867 when the San Antonio School was built where Bell Gardens Elementary stands today. Area farmers sent their children to the San Antonio School, one of the earliest educational institutions in the County of Los Angeles; because of the rich soil and abundant land, many Japanese immigrants are part of Bell Gardens’ early history. Japanese Gardeners farmed to produce quality vegetables for the marketplace. Rice fields mushroomed within the city limits of Bell Gardens. With some of the richest agricultural land in the country, Bell Gardens remained a farming community until the 1930s. Beginning in the 1930s, cheap homes were constructed, filled by defense plant workers. In 1927, Firestone Tire Company bought some of the land at $7,000 an acre. By 1900, Bell Gardens was divided into tracts of 40 to 100 acres; the land adjoining. Both Bell Gardens and Bell are named for James George Bell. In 1930, O. C. Beck purchased property and begins to build affordable homes for those suffering through the depression era.
It was during this period that the area was known as'Billy Goat Acres'. To this day, Bell Gardens is affectionately known by this moniker. World War I and World War II brought defense plants to the area that helped build the economic stability and the population, which led to construction of new homes, more schools, a prosperous business climate; this land used to be floodplains, farmlands split into long, narrow plots by depression-era developers. Tiny houses were sold and rented to Oakies, the Cherokee, the Cree, forced from their homes by dust bowls and Manifest Destiny. By the 1980s, high-wage factories had left, taking with them all of the whites and many of the blacks. In their places—coming from the Mexican states of Michoacan, Jalisco and Zacatecas— were large families of immigrants. Latinos moved here for work and some brought their small businesses. Thousands of Central Americans fleeing civil wars in the 1980s came to the region and created small businesses and worked in the same service industry jobs.
By the 1990s, Colmar Elementary chang
World Series of Poker bracelet
The World Series of Poker bracelet is considered the most coveted non-monetary prize a poker player can win. Since 1976, a bracelet has been awarded to the winner of every event at the annual WSOP. If the victory occurred before 1976, WSOP championships are now counted as "bracelets". During the first years of the WSOP only a handful of bracelets were awarded each year. In 1990, there were only 14 bracelet events. By 2000, that number increased to 24; as the popularity of poker has increased during the 2000s, the number of events has increased. In 2011, 58 bracelets were awarded at the WSOP, seven at the World Series of Poker Europe, one to the WSOP National Circuit Champion; this brought the total number of bracelets awarded up to 959. Five additional bracelets were awarded for the first time in April 2013 at the inaugural World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific in Melbourne, Australia.. In 2017, 74 for bracelets were awarded at the WSOP and an additional 11 will be awarded at the WSOPE in Czech Republic.
After the conclusion of the 2014 WSOP APAC, there have been 1083 bracelets awarded, 500 of which were won by 170 players who have won at least two bracelets, with all of the other bracelets being won by one-time winners. This includes 17 Main Event winners: Hal Fowler, Bill Smith, Mansour Matloubi, Brad Daugherty, Jim Bechtel, Russ Hamilton, Noel Furlong, Robert Varkonyi, Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, Jamie Gold, Jerry Yang, Peter Eastgate, Pius Heinz, Ryan Riess and Martin Jacobson. Since Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 Main Event, only three players have won and followed it up with a win in another bracelet event, Jonathan Duhamel, Joe Cada and Joe McKeehen; the 1976 bracelet looked "like gold nuggets kind of hammered flat". The bracelet in 1976 cost $500. In the 1980s, Las Vegas jeweler Mordechai Yerushalmi became the exclusive manufacturer of WSOP bracelets until Harrah's Entertainment bought the rights to the WSOP in 2004. According to 2003 WSOP Champion Chris Moneymaker, the design of the bracelet remained unchanged under Yerushalmi.
In 2005, Gold and Diamond International based in Memphis, TN won the bid from Harrah's Entertainment to manufacture the 2005 World Series of Poker bracelets. The company manufactures the WSOP circuit rings. In 2006, Frederick Goldman, Inc. made the WSOP bracelets while luxury watch maker Corum introduced some commemorative watches as part of the prize package. In 2006, the Champion's bracelet had 259 stones including 7.2 carats of diamonds, 120 grams of white and yellow gold. It used rubies to represent the heart and diamond suits, a sapphire to represent the spade and three black diamonds to represent the clubs. In 2007, Corum became the official bracelet manufacturer for the WSOP; some of the 2007 World Series of Poker champions received both a bracelet from Corum. Corum designed four variations for the 2007 World Series of Poker Bracelets; the standard version, presented to 53 winners features 53 diamonds. The Ladies World Champion receives a bracelet, adorned with four black diamonds, two rubies and 87 blue sapphires.
The $50,000 HORSE Champion Bracelet has two rubies. The World Series of Poker Main Event Bracelet has 120 diamonds on 136 grams of 18 carat white gold; the value of the 2007 bracelets have not been released, but the typical price of a Corum watch ranges from $1,500–$30,000+. In 2008, the Main Event Bracelet had 291 diamonds, totalling 2.81 carats set in 168 grams of 18kt white gold. The other 54 event bracelets consisted of 55 diamonds, totalling 0.25 carats set in 80 grams of 14kt yellow gold. In 2010, an Australian-based company OnTilt Designs Pty Ltd won a multi-year contract to become the official bracelet manufacturer for the WSOP. OnTilt jewelers decided that the 2010 bracelet design would return to the tradition of the 1970s and 1980s where the bracelet was a heavy piece of unadorned metal. American jewelry designer Steve Soffa was chosen to design and manufacture the entire set of bracelets; the goal was to create a bracelet that somebody would want to wear every day. In 2011, OnTilt has been chosen to manufacture the WSOP Circuit rings.
In 2012, Jason Arasheben, famed jewelry designer and owner of Jason of Beverly Hills was chosen as the official bracelet manufacturer of the WSOP. Arasheben had designed the championship rings for the 2009 and 2010 Los Angeles Lakers and the 2011 Green Bay Packers, among others; the Main Event bracelet will feature each suit in the deck in black diamonds. In terms of sheer mass, it weighs in at over 160 grams of 14 karat gold and over 35 carats of flawless diamonds. A special platinum bracelet was awarded at the 2012 WSOP to the winner of The Big One for One Drop, Antonio Esfandiari; the event was a $1 million buy-in tournament created as a fundraiser for the One Drop Foundation, a charity established by Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté. At first, the bracelets did not have much prestige. Ten-time bracelet winner Doyle Brunson said that his first bracelet "didn't mean anything" to him and that he did not pick up two of them; some professional poker players believe. Those who have belong to an exclusive club.
"It's impossible to overstate the value of a World Series of Poker gold bracelet to anyone who takes the game seriously," stated World Series of Poker Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack during the 2006 bracelet unveiling. "It is the equivalent of winning the Stanley Cup in hockey or the Lombardi Trophy in American football."Many professional poker players desire the recognition, associated with the bracelet. Former Celebrit
Johnny Chan
Johnny Chan is a Chinese-American professional poker player. He has won 10 World Series of Poker bracelets, including the 1987 and 1988 World Series of Poker main events consecutively. Chan moved with his family in 1962 from Guangzhou to Hong Kong in 1968 to Phoenix, in 1973 to Houston, where his family owned restaurants; when he was 21, Chan dropped out of the University of Houston, where he was majoring in hotel and restaurant management, moved to Las Vegas to become a professional gambler. Chan won the World Series of Poker in 1987 and 1988 becoming the first foreign national to win the main event. A videotape of the 1988 WSOP final heads-up match is featured in the movie Rounders, in which Chan makes a cameo appearance, he won a third consecutive title, but finished in 2nd place in 1989 to Phil Hellmuth. He is the last player to win back-to-back WSOP Main Events. Jerry Buss, an avid poker player and owner of the Los Angeles Lakers, promised Chan an NBA Championship ring if he could win three in a row.
In 2005, Chan became the first player to win ten World Series of Poker bracelets, defeating Phil Laak in a Texas hold'em event. He is tied with Doyle Brunson and Phil Ivey for second place with 10 World Series of Poker bracelets, behind Phil Hellmuth, he was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2008, Chan cashed for the first time in the Main Event since 1992, earning $32,166 for his 329th-place finish. In 2010, Chan cashed in the Main Event taking 156th place for $57,102. Chan competed in the $400,000 Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament in February 2005, he came back from having $20,000 chips out of $3,200,000 in play to finish in second place to Gus Hansen. Chan competed in Poker Superstars II during the summer of 2005, he defeated 22 players to make it to the finals. He defeated. Chan appeared in Poker Superstars III where he made it as far as the semi finals but was defeated by Todd Brunson after three matches. On NBC's late-night show Poker After Dark, a six-person $20,000 buy-in winner-takes-all tournament, Johnny Chan has the most victories to date with four wins in six appearances.
He came in fifth when he did not win. His appearances in which he made it to heads-up were: WSOP Champions — aired Jan. 15–20, 2007 — Won heads-up against Chris Moneymaker Golden Men — aired June 11–16, 2007 — Lost heads-up against Joe Hachem World Champions — aired Feb. 11–16, 2008 — Won heads-up against Phil Hellmuth International — aired Feb. 25 – March 1, 2008 — Won heads-up against Patrik Antonius Dream Table III — aired Mar. 23–27, 2009 — Won heads-up against Jennifer Tilly Chan won Bob Stupak's 1981 American Cup poker tournament. He defeated all 9 other players at the final table in less than an hour; as a result, Stupak gave Chan the nickname "The Orient Express". Chan has never made a final table on the World Poker Tour. Chan played in the 2004 and 2005 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions events and the National Heads-Up Poker Championship in the same years; as of 2014, his total live tournament winnings exceed $8,600,000. His 45 WSOP cashes account for $4,355,464 of those winnings.
In addition to playing poker, Chan owns a fast-food franchise in the Las Vegas Stratosphere Hotel and is a consultant for casinos and game makers. Chan has written for Card Player magazine, he appeared in 2011 seasons of the GSN series High Stakes Poker. In 2005, Chan collaborated with Mark Karowe to release Play Poker Like Johnny Chan, an instructional book on several different types of poker. On November 28, 2006, the follow-up titled: Million Dollar Hold'em: Winning Big in Limit Cash Games, which focuses on limit hold'em strategy, was released. In 2007, Chan launched ChanPokerOnline.com. It closed in August 2008. Chan wrote a regular article in the bi-monthly magazine Trader Monthly. Johnny Chan portrayed himself in the 1998 film Rounders. In a flashback scene, Chan is bluffed out of a pot by the main character Mike McDermott, he appeared in the 2009 Hong Kong movie Poker King as himself. Goldsea article and interview PokerListings.com profile
