Royal Flush Poker

Johnny Chan was born in China in 1957 and belonged to a family who were in the restaurant business. They moved to Texas when Johnny was a child, and had aspirations of him continuing the family business. By the age of 21 however, Johhny had different ideas and headed to Las Vegas after not completing his management training.

By 1985 Johhny managed to win his first World Series bracelet in the $1,000 Limit Holdem event and has gone on to amass ten bracelets to date, in Holdem, Omaha, 2-7 Draw, and Seven Card Stud. Two of these bracelets were the main event in both 1987 and 1988 and were it not for a young Phil Hellmuth defeating him when it got to heads up in 1989, he would have won an unprecedented three back to back main events.

His most recent bracelet came in 2005 and his estimated tournament earnings to date are over $6,000,000.
As well as being very adept at tournament play, Johnny is also an excellent cash player and one of the true legends of the modern game. He has appeared in and been very successful in, numerous televised tournaments and continues to compete in many major events each year.

Johnny has not added a WPT title to his collection as of yet, but it is surely only a matter of time before this changes. He also has a book published on poker strategy and writes regular poker columns for magazines.
Johnny is widely considered to be the greatest threat to Phil Hellmuths record haul of eleven World Series bracelets, and may yet draw level with him this year as he has so far enjoyed a strong start to this years ongoing World Series.

Layne Flack was born in South Dakota in 1969 and took an interest in cards from a relatively young age. This led him to begin working in casinos when he was old enough and Layne was soon getting involved in poker games after work. As his ability at playing poker grew, his work at casinos began to take more of a back seat.

Under the guidance of two previous main event champions, Layne became a serious force at the World Series.
In 1999 he took down his first bracelet in the $3,000 Pot Limit Holdem Event and followed this three years later with two World Series event wins in 2002. The very next year Layne claimed another two bracelets bringing his total to five, in just four years. A barren spell followed however at the World Series for Layne, and he did not win another event for five years until very recently at the 2008 WSOP when he claimed his sixth bracelet in the Omaha $1,500 Pot Limit Event.

Added to this impressive bracelet haul, Layne also has a WPT title and three final table appearances at the World Poker Tour. If it wasn’t for some personal turbulence in his life in 2004, perhaps Layne could have expanded further on his already impressive record. Over his career so far Layne has won almost $4 million in live tournaments alone and is one of only a few players who hold six or more World Series bracelets.

For me, Layne is definately one of the best unsung players on the circuit and really doesn’t get the recognition he deserves. If he manages another double bracelet winning year at this years WSOP though, people really will have to sit up and take notice sooner or later.

Hoyt Corkins was born in 1960 in Alabama, he has always worn his cowboy type outfits at the tables and his nickname has become "cowboy" as a result.

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He started learning poker at a fairly early age from his father and went on to begin competing in the World Series some years later, gaining his first bracelet at the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event in 1992. A really good place to practice poker is at pkr.com.

Afterwards Hoyt underwent some personal turmoil with divorce proceedings and retreated from the spotlight of the poker circuit for over a decade.

He reappeared in 2003, immediately winning over a million dollars at the World Poker Tour, this was followed by a second place finish in 2004 which earnt him almost $300,000 in prize money too.

2005 saw Hoyt take second place in the WSOP "Tournament of Champions Freeroll" and another $325,000 and 2006 saw some good tournament results also, but it was last year at the World Series that Hoyt matched his achievement from all those years ago and picked up his second bracelet and over half a million dollars.

Already Hoyt has begun the year well in 2008, finishing second in the WPT world poker open to take his live tournament earnings in total to around the $3.7 million mark. www.pkr.com

Hoyt is a man of a very quiet demeanour but has a very strong style of play and likes to go into pots raising, as you can tell by his results since his return to the circuit, he is a formidable opponent in any tournament he chooses to play in.

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Freddy Deeb was born in Lebanon on November 27th 1955 and his lived in America since his late teens. Deeb was pretty much forced into gambling when, upon war breaking out in Lebanon, he lost touch with his family there who were sending him money so that he could further his education. Without being able to gain employment due to his visa situation, he decided to play poker to try and win the money instead, although he did not quite manage this feat, freddy learned the basics of a game which would go on to earn him an extremely prestigious bracelet and 1st place prize money at the World Series many years later. 11 years before his second bracelet, Freddy had won his first in 1996 at the 2-7 draw $5,000 event and has had two impressive finishes in the main event too, with 17th and 13th place.

Added to this Freddy has a WPT event title in the Ultimate Poker Classic event and a great many good plays and pots in televised cash games. All this though did not compare to his excellent triumph at the 2007 World Series when he won the coveted $50,000 buy in H.O.R.S.E event, in which he defeated the finest players in the world to take the bracelet and over $2.2 million for first place. Freddy resides in Las Vegas with his family these days and will surely be inspired by his performance at last years World Series hopefully going on to gain more bracelets, final tables, and additions, to his already accumulated $5.8 million in recorded tournament earnings.

Roland de Wolfe was born in London 1979, and although he hasn’t been a regular on the poker circuit for all that long, he is beginning to make quite a name for himself winning both an EPT and a WPT title in the space of eighteen months. The first of these titles was won in 2005 at the ‘Major Grand Prix de Paris’ event, he consolidated this with a very respectable 3rd place, early 2006 in another WPT event netting himself over $1,000,000 in prize money. His EPT title came in the Dublin event and earned him over 500,000 euros in the process, as well as the unprecedented honour of holding both a european and world title.

His live tournament career earnings so far, total almost $4 million and Roland continues to grow in stature after his recent excellent form in live major tournaments, he also made an appearance on this years ?Late Night poker? tournament, playing a good tournament and finishing runner up. Roland has not won a World Series bracelet yet but there is still plenty of time for that to change, and his dominant, aggressive style could be his ticket to more WPT and EPT titles in years to come.

Roland de Wolfe has really come to the forefront of the professional game recently which is a great start to his pro poker playing career after previously working as a writer for a poker magazine. There will surely be more to come from Roland this year and with any luck, a final table or two at this years World Series too.

Isabelle Mercier is an integral part of team pokerstars, having been noticed shortly after launching her professional career in 2004. She is known to have an icy stare at the poker tables and an aggressive style of play to match. She won the 2004 WPT ‘Ladies Night Out’ event and continues to impress in tournament play, which she is said to prefer to the often favoured cash games. Isabelles life has not always seemed directed towards a career in poker, having been born in Quebec, Canada in 1975, she studied law whilst working to make ends meet as a card dealer, managing a masters degree in law by the age of 23. After practicing as a lawyer for a time Isabelle also was furthering her career in casinos too, working her way up to become manager in the well known Aviation Club de France. After some consideration however, Isabelle decided to set her sights on a different life and gave all this up, to travel the world living in hotels and playing professional poker.

Isabelle has had numerous finishes in the money in major tournaments over the past few years and has amassed live tournament earnings of around $350,000 during her promising fledgling poker career. She has certainly been noticed as an upcoming star by many poker players and if she is not to be found competing in a major tournament at any time, Isabelle spends time playing online at Pokerstars too under the pseudonym, which doubles as her nickname too, ?NoMercy?

Huck was born on November 30th 1968 and was raised in Montana, he left college to pursue a poker career at a relatively early stage in his life and never looked back. His achievements at the World Series over the years are considerable, he won his first bracelet in 1994 in a pot limit Omaha event. He then went on to win the main event in 1996 followed by the $1,500 Razz event in 2000 and the $5,000 in 2003. He also has numerous finishes in the money and plays extremely well in the cash side games too. His tournament earnings are at an estimated $3.5 million which bears testament to his successes in tournament play, much of these victories being earned through aggressive pressure play. There is of course far more to Hucks game than pure aggression though, although this will be the first thing to become apparent whilst watching his play.

Huck has perhaps not won as many bracelets over the years as the likes of Phil Hellmuth but he has had a glittering poker career so far and seems to have mastered the skill of finishing in the money in many of the tournaments he plays in. Perhaps he deserves to have more than his four bracelets, although that in itself is a feat which will never be accomplished by most professional players. There is still time though for the talented and quiet man from Montana to add to his haul and this years World Series just might be the time for him to pick up his fifth bracelet, I for one will be wishing him all the best.

Eli Elezra was born on the 24th of November 1960 in Israel, but resides and spends much of his time in Las Vegas these days pursuing both his interest in poker, and his business prospects. After suffering a leg injury in the army he began to devote large amounts of his time to poker, and rapidly became very astute at the game. He has finished in the money in several separate WSOP events and has also been seen on televised poker games, most notably ‘High Stakes Poker’. He has a no limit holdem WPT title to his name which he won in 2004, and also one WSOP bracelet which he won in 2007 at the World Championship seven card stud hi/lo event, where he beat Scotty Nguyen to take the title and first place winnings of almost $200,000. Interestingly he had a private bet with another player that he would win his first World Series bracelet that year, and pocketed $250,000 alone from that wager making it a more lucrative win than his first placed prize money.

As well as being an excellent poker player Eli also devotes a great deal of time to his family as well as running his own businesses in Las Vegas, he is arguably more successful at limit poker than no limit, and can often be found playing high stakes limit holdem in the big casinos on the strip. He is also proficient in tournament play too and has estimated earnings at tournaments alone, of over $1.3 million. After his recently acquired first WSOP bracelet, I would certainly expect to see Eli entering several more events this year in search of a second, and unlike one particular player last year, I definitely wouldn?t bet against him winning one.

Antonio Esfandiari was born in Iran on December 8th 1978 and his birth name was actually Amir but he eventually changed it to Antonio. He moved to California with his parents at the age of 9 and only decided to change his name when he decided he was going to become a magician, the nickname on the poker circuit of ‘the magician’ is one which he keeps to this day. It isn’t difficult to tell that Antonio harboured ambitions of being a great magician, he is legendary for his many card and poker chip tricks and still shows them for the enjoyment of his fans sometimes. it was whilst working in his chosen profession that he encountered Texas Holdem and began to take up the game himself, over time he established himself as an up and coming talent and managed to win his first World Series bracelet in 2004 at Pot limit Holdem. He has also appeared in many live, televised poker games and has his own co starring part in a television series with Phil Laak called ‘I bet you’.

As well as one WSOP bracelet, Antonio also has a WPT title and one EPT final table appearance to his name too. Texas Holdem would probably rank as the game that he finds the most success in and his live tournament earnings to date are over the $3 million mark. I am sure Antonio will be entering and doing well in many more tournaments of this type in the coming months, as well as being a constant danger on the cash tables.

Poker Pro Phil Laak was born on September 8th 1972 in Ireland and now predominantly lives in California, although he spends a lot of time in Las Vegas too.

He plays in a number of major live ladbrokes poker tournaments each year but he continues to be more of a cash game specialist despite having some success at the WPT in recent years.

His poker pro nickname is the ‘Unabomber’ and was given to him due to his habit of tightening the drawstrings of his hooded top during big hands to just leave his sunglasses showing, this is one of a few interesting traits Phil shows whilst playing poker. He is dating actress and fellow poker professional Jennifer Tilly and has had a few television appearances himself, both in televised poker events and in a show called ‘I Bet You’. www.ladbrokespoker.com

Phil Laak has always been an intrueging character at the poker tables and excels at cash games although it would be easy to imagine him picking his first WSOP bracelet and maybe another WPT title too, over the next few years.

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