Poker Player - John Phan
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John Phan has won two WSOP bracelets and reached the final table of the World Poker Tour Championships four times. Mot recently, on the seventh season of the WPT, Phan won his first title as well as the WPT bracelet and $1.1 million at the Legends of Poker. In 2008 his winnings made a total of $5.3 million.
Phan was born in Hue, Vietnam, in 1974. However in 1982, his family moved to America as they knew it would provide better prospects for them, so they settled on Stockton, California. He learned to play poker from his family and often played with them as a child. His father and brother started him off by teaching him how to play Asian five-card stud poker.
As he got better at the game, he was beginning to make enough money to make poker his full time job when he reached the age of 21 his only real job before that working in his family’s grocery store. Before turning professional he graduated from high school and enrolled in community college however he didn’t last long before he decided that he wanted to play poker full time. He started playing in small tournaments in Los Angeles then worked his way up to the WPT. Although at the beginning his family disapproved of his career choice, when he became more successful and poker became more main-stream, his family were won over. In 2005 he made it to the final table of the WPT and came fourth winning over $500,000. The next year he cashed in four tournaments of the WSOP. Phan has also pledged to donate 10-20 percent of his tournament winnings to charity, which is used to feed and house children in Vietnam. He also travels back to Vietnam as often as possible and personally hands out bags of rice to villagers, which he says “really pushes me to work harder and stay more focused on each tournament.”
Phan is known for his aggressive and unpredictable style of play and claims that he can read an opponent within 10 minutes. He is known as the ‘Razor’ as he likes to raise every hand despite how poor it may look. He has also described himself as liking to live on the edge.
Outside of poker Phan enjoys listening to hip-hop and trance music and he now lives in Long Beach, California.
Danielle Almond.
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