Player bios will go here
The legend of Johnny Chan began in 1957 in Guangzhou, China, where Johnny was born. Before Johnny's 16th birthday, his family had migrated to the US and moved from Phoenix, AZ to Houston, TX in the pursuit of growing the family restaurant business. Johnny worked hard for the family business and at the age of 16, the Chan clan took a trip to Vegas. Read more »
Men "The Master" Nguyen is an unlikely messiah. He is loud, brash and borders on abusive at times at the poker table. He is a smoker and a drinker and has even left a WSOP Final Table in no condition to legally drive. But according to Card Player Magazine Men Nguyen has also been the best card player in the world over the past decade. Read more »
After Josh Arieh took down his first WSOP bracelet in the 1999 $3,000 Limit Hold'em event, he was asked if he had been intimidated by a final table that included Humberto Brenes, Howard Lederer and John Juanda (link all 3). He said that he didn't know who any of them were so he didn't even have a reason to be intimidated. Read more »
Thomas James Cloutier was born in October 13, 1939 in Albany, California. He attended the University of Berkeley on an athletic scholarship for baseball and football. Read more »
Don't confuse Joe Hachem with other recent WSOP Main Event winners: 2007 winner Jerry Yang is a poker hobbyist with no plans to parlay his 2007 Main Even victory into a poker career, 2006 winner Jamie Gold is so bogged down with legal troubles that he's got no time to play cards, 2004 winner Greg Raymer made another great run at the Main Event the following year (finishing in 26th out of 5612 total entrants) but other than that hasn't made too much noise in the poker world and 2003 winner Chris Moneymaker made it to a WPT final table but has yet to make waves in any major circuit. But 2005 Main Event champion Joe Hachem is no one-hit wonder. Read more »
While poker is gaining moral standing in many religious communities, it is still far from a universally accepted practice; and while there are some notable Christians in the poker world, John Juanda has an especially interesting relationship to religion: prior to becoming a 3-time WSOP bracelet winner, 6-time Final Table WPT contestant and prized member of the elite Full Tilt Poker team, John Juanda was an award winning door to door Bible salesman. Read more »
Two pairs make Jennifer Harman unique in the world of poker: 1, she is the only female player in the history of the World Series of Poker to have won a pair of bracelets in non-gender specific play (she won the 2000 $5,000 NL Deuce to Seven Draw and 2002 $5,000 Limit Hold'em tournaments) and 2, she has a pair of transplanted kidneys. Read more »
Over the 40 or so summer days of each World Series of Poker, there are around 50 different tournaments run depending on the year. In the 2006 WSOP, more than 70% of the 45 tournaments lasted for two or more days – the 2006 Main Event alone took more than 5 days to complete. In 2006, Costa Rica's favorite son, Humberto Brenes finished in the money in a record 8 different World Series of Poker events. To put that in perspective, only players finishing in the top 10% of the total entrant field take home any winnings to show for their efforts, so you could have played for 3 days in more than a dozen tournaments and earned nothing but experience. This historic 8-cash performance is only one more in a long line of major achievements by the player known as "The Shark." Read more »
Howard Lederer may be the smartest poker player in the world. He is one of four players with multiple WSOP bracelets and multiple WPT victories (Daniel Negreanu, Carlos Mortensen and Barry Greenstein are the others,) he is a world-class chess champion and member of the legendary Mayfair Club, he is credited by his sister, Annie Duke for teaching her how to play poker and he's developed a four-staged evolutionary chart for the course of a poker master derived from the four stages of enlightenment in Zen Buddhism. But that isn't what qualifies him as the smartest in the world. Read more »
Annette Obrestad was 18 years old when she won the biggest Hold'em tournament in the history of Europe: on September 17, 2007 at the official age of 18 years and 364 days, the teenage girl from Norway took home the £1,000,000 (a shade over $2,000,000 USD) first prize for the inaugural World Series of Poker Europe $10,000 Buy-In Main Event. It not only marked the youngest victor in World Series of Poker history, but the £1,000,000 first prize also represented the largest victory for any female player in any recorded live poker tournament. Read more »
Some of the greatest poker players of all time have had cards named after them: the 10-2 is the Doyle Brunson, the A -10 is the Johnny Moss and a pair of eights and a pair of Aces will forever be known as the Dead Man's Hand in honor of Wild Bill Hickok. While the legends of the game are occasionally enshrined in that peculiar hand that they have each forever branded, Gus Hansen has dozens of hands named after him. Gus Hansen is a viable adjective in the poker community. Read more »
Let's start by making something clear: this player's real name is Juan Carlos Mortensen. He explained recently that when he first arrived at the United States he spoke no English, and he must have spoken too quickly when he introduced himself, as he soon found everybody calling him just "Carlos". Now you know how to greet him if you ever come across him in a tourney! Read more »
The notorious "Poker Brat" is undeniably a player of great skill – if not great manners – with a love for the limelight. Phil Hellmuth Jr. stormed into the poker world in 1989 when he became the youngest player to win the WSOP Main Event, and almost a decade later he shows no sign of slowing down. 2007 saw him break his tie for most WSOP bracelets (which he shared for years with Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan) when he won his 11th bracelet. All of Hellmuth's bracelets have been won in Hold'em events. Read more »
A member of the new poker generation, Erick Lindgren is young, fit, attractive and successful; he is friends with the likes of Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey and has become famous for his outrageous prop bets involving millions of dollars. E-dog, as he is also known, is a prominent member of Team Full Tilt and also featured in the popular poker video game ‘Stacked'. Read more »
It is daunting to attempt to write a short bio of Doyle Brunson, so as a bow to Tex Dolly's long and epoch-making career this bio will be longer than most bios we offer. A living legend, Brunson is one of the few men who started out playing poker with a gun in their pockets and turned it into the international, multi-million, televised celebrity sport it is nowadays. Over 74 years young, "Texas Dolly" is still one of the best players in the circuits and shows no intention of slowing down. Read more »
Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott must be one of the most popular and well known poker legends of his time. He has everything: the criminal background, the sexy nickname, the suave look, the iconic jewelry and hundreds upon hundreds of anecdotes. Most importantly, he has the poker skills to put the fear of God into almost any player in the world, and the money to show for it. Read more »
It is not easy to accuse one of the hottest, hippest young pros around of being a closet nerd, but we must do it. Behind David Williams's good looks and sleek style lies an honor student who scored a 4.0 GPA and a 1550 SAT score, was admitted to Princeton and was among the world's best players of the fantasy game "Magic: The Gathering." Read more »
The stereotype of the poker player as an overweight man with a cowboy hat and a cigar is due a revision. The new poker player is a lot more like Annie Duke: attractive, athletic, hip and female. Indeed, it seems that a large percentage of online poker players right now are women, and Annie Duke has been partly responsible for this surge of women's interest in poker. Read more »
Andy "The Rock" Bloch must really enjoy going to alumni reunions: with two Electrical Engineering Degrees from MIT and a JD from Harvard Law School, he has managed to make a fortune of over $3,700,000 playing poker for a living. He must be quite the hero among his white-collar former classmates. Read more »
Some young poker stars enjoy the limelight and make the most of their new celebrity status appearing in TV shows, computer games and modeling stints. None of that for young Allen Cunningham, who has quietly and unassumingly collected 5 WSOP bracelets and over $10,100,000 in tournament winnings while still managing to keep a low profile on the streets and casinos of the world. Read more »
Everybody loves Daniel Negreanu! Young, good looking, talented and popular, he is the poster boy for poker around the world. He was nicknamed "KidPoker" in 1998 – when he became the youngest WSOP bracelet winner so far at the age of 24 – and to this day he shows no signs of slowing down. With his own books, software, a syndicated column, a blog, an online video diary and an instructional poker video site, Negreanu has brought poker into the 21st century and made it friendly and attractive for everyone Read more »
Chris "Jesus" Ferguson is instantly recognizable, with his long hair and beard, mirrored sunglasses and cowboy hat. The very image of the rugged cowboy, you think. Take away the hat and glasses and you'll see what Ferguson tried to hide with them: the image of the career academic with a PhD in Computer Science and a deep understanding of mathematics. Read more »
Chip Jett and Chris Moneymaker share the odd honor of having the coolest poker names ever. Jett, who was actually christened Charles, was given his nickname by a nurse in the hospital where he was born. Jett is easily recognized by his slick style and looks, and once on the table he has a solid reputation as a fearless player who is constantly improving his already fearsome game. Read more »
