Professional Poker Players

Poker has in it own right been inducted in the hearts and souls of the world as the new game of choice. With the new world craze the players that make up the professionals are new superstars of the game from the legends to the new young guns. Many of which have become also media and celebrities to hundreds of thousand new poker players.

This is a list of the profiles most wanted by our readers from world poker tour winners to world series of poker champions and many others.

Maybe one of the greatest young poker players of our time, Phil Ivey is trying to make his mark on the poker world in a big way. He's young, super skilled and plays poker like non other. Although he does have a long road a head of himself to catch some of the greats in poker history like Doyle Brunson or Phil Hellmuth in terms of tournament wins but never the less Phil is a player to watch for the duration. Also Phil is Full Tilt Pokers official spokesperson.

In 1974 Daniel was born in Toronto, Canada. In 1992 he dropped out of high school after having some trouble his senior year. Over the next few years he started playing poker at Toronto's charity casinos and was soon earning a decent living from poker. When he turned 21 he headed to Las Vegas feeling invincible and was sent home without a dollar in his pocket. He wasn't ready to give up yet though, he went back to the charity casinos and grinded it out until he built his bankroll up.

Doyle Brunson was born in 1933 in the tiny Texas town of Longworth. He was a very promising runner and basketball player until he broke his leg in two places while working at a summer job. He went on to college to earn a master's degree in administrative education. In 1956 he got a job as a sales man and was soon invited to a company card game. After seeing that it was easier to make money playing poker than working he soon left the company and started a gambling career that would span 5 decades.

10 WSOP bracelets and two World Series of Poker championship titles. Johnny Chan was born in Guangzhou, China in 1957. He moved with his family to Hong Kong in 1968 and then on to Houston, Texas in 1973. He family opened a successful restaurant and after high school Johnny went on to the University of Houston to earn a degree in hotel and restaurant management. By this time Johnny was already in love with poker so when he turned 21 in 1978 he dropped out and took his life savings to Las Vegas.

Gus Hansen - Winner of the World Poker Tours (WPT) first ever event, Season 1 in 2002 the $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em tournament at the Five Diamond World Poker Classic. Gus Hansen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1974. Growing up he loved sports and was a teenage tennis champion. He was also a very good backgammon player but poker became his favorite game due to the big money. He started playing poker at the Ocean View Card Room in California when he was an exchange student in 1993. Then in 1997 he started playing poker for a living and had a lot of success. He played mostly cash games the next several years with no major tournament wins to speak of. Unlike most professional players Gus focuses on the World Poker Tour events opposed to the WSOP.

11 time WSOP Bracelet Winner and Poker Champion. Phil Hellmuth was born on July 16, 1964 in Madison, Wisconsin. He has won more World Series of Poker events that any other player and is well known for his bizarre behavior at the tables. He grew up loving poker and was set on becoming a pro at an early age. His first big break came in 1989 when he won the main event at the WSOP for a $755,000 payday. This is the first of 11 bracelet wins Phil has won over the next 19 years. His next win came in 92" when he won a limit Hold'em event.

2003 WSOP Main Event Winner Chris Moneymaker was born in 1975 in Atlanta, Georgia. He grew up in Farragut, Tennessee and later went on to earn a master’s degree in accounting at the University of Tennessee. After graduation he found a job as an accountant and got married to his wife Christina. Around this time he watched the movie “Rounders” with some friends and that’s when the “poker bug” bit him. He started playing online poker and soon Poker Stars became his favorite place to play. He enjoyed playing in the tournaments with buy-ins ranging from $10-$50. One day in 2003 he decided to sign up for a $39 World Series of Poker satellite.

2 Time WSOP Poker bracelet winner. Howard Lederer was born on October 30th 1964 in Concord, New Hampshire. Growing up Howard was a very good at math and a strong chess player. After high school he attended Columbia University in New York City. He frequented many of New York's famous chess clubs and it was at one of these that he learned how to play poker. Howard quickly mastered the mathematical aspect of poker but had a little trouble figuring out the "human" part", basically learning how to read a player.

Thomas Austin Preston, Jr., also known as Amarillo Slim was born on December 31, 1928 in Johnson, Arkansas. When his parents split up he went to live with his father in Amarillo, Texas and that’s how he got his nickname. After completing high school he joined the U.S. Armed Forces for 2 years. It was here that he met fellow poker legend Doyle Brunson. They became fast friends and after they were discharged they started traveling the country to play poker for a brief time. During his late 20's and all through his 30's he continued to play poker and also got married.