Daniel Negreanu

Daniel Negreanu, son of Annie and Constantin who moved from Romania to Canada in 1967 was born in Toronto in 1974 and was gambling mad at school, he would bet sports, play pool and blackjack until his friends introduced him to the game of poker. At 18 he was playing poker 40 hours a week Monday to Friday and moved to Vegas at 23 to play professionally. When leaving for school his mum would always say ‘no poker playing today’ but she has since changed her mind after his big successes. To date and with career earnings in excess of $6,000,000 Daniel Negreanu ‘Kid Poker’ is one of the most competitive players on the international circuit and one of the most interesting to watch. He is an extremely chatty person at the poker tables and he comes across as having a lot of fun living his dream life. Rumour has it that after moving to Vegas he missed his mums cooking so much that he bought her a house over there so he could go round on Sundays for dinner! An endorser of poker forum turned poker site ‘fullcontactpoker.com’ Daniel has his personal blog which can be very funny to watch as he does some stand up comedy about other poker players and pretends to be very drunk in another one. Taking part in high stakes poker he was involved in the biggest pot in history for the programme but lost to Gus Hanson who hit quads on 4th street. Winning both the five diamond world poker classic 2 and the borgata poker open both in 2004 he pocketed a nice $2.8+million and continues to ‘live the dream’ today.

Johnny Chan

Johnny Chan is one of the most well known names to ever grace the poker table. He is one of only three players to have won the world series main event twice in succession, sharing this record with Phil Helmuth and Doyle Brunson. He won the title in 1987 and 1988 and very nearly made it three in a row in 1989 only losing to Helmuth heads up. Along with Helmuth and Brunson he shares the record number of WSOP bracelets winning his tenth in 2005 where he won $303,000 in the Pot Limit Hold'em event. This was more than he won on either of his main event victories. Chan was born in Canton in China in 1957. He eventually moved to Houston, Texas in 1973 to help with the families restaurant business. At the age of 21 he dropped out of University and moved to Las Vegas to become a Poker Professional. And there the legend began. Chan was elevated to iconic status after making a cameo appearance in the film Rounders. Here he was seen on video tape playing Eric Siedel when he won his first title in 1987. Although his big tournament wins have dropped of lately he is still one of the most respected players out there and was mentor to the 2007 Main Event winner Jamie Gold. Chan's total tournament winnings amount to nearly $6,000,000. Johnny can often be seen playing with a lucky orange in front of him, so if you're sat at a table with a charming asian man who has an orange on the table, be afraid, very afraid.