Phil Ivey
Phil is known to some as the Tiger Woods of poker, but I have to disagree. He is the Phil Ivey of poker, totally in a class by himself. He is definitely my favorite tournament poker player and I love his aggressive style. He seems to be paying attention to everything, absorbing every bit of information that the other players give him. Another great strength he has as a player, is not realizing how good he actually is. He is constantly working to make his game better. Some of his credits include winning two events at the 2003 Bellagio's Five-Star World Poker Classic, including the Seven Card Stud event and the $2,500 Omaha 8 or better. He placed third in the World Poker Tour Final where he proved that he is among the best of the best tournament players in the world. His previous credits include 2002 World Series of Poker titles in S.H.O.E, 7-Card Stud Hi-Lo Split, and the $1,500 7 Card stud event. In 2004, he finished in first place at the 2004 Championship at Turning Stone.
Johnny Chan
Johnny Chan is a legend in the poker world for winning nine gold bracelets, but more impressively is that two bracelets were from back to back Championship events in 1987 and 1988. Amazingly he almost won in 1989 too, but finished second to Phil Hellmuth. He is not only known by poker players, but also by movie goers for playing himself as the best poker player in the world in the movie Rounders. The movie contained actual footage of Chan's victory against Erik Seidel in the 1988 World Series. His nickname is The Orient Express, flopped a straight and got Erik to move all his chips in with a pair of queens. Chan moved with his family from Hong Kong to Phoenix in 1968. They later moved to Houston where his family owned some restaurants. He was expected to continue in the family business, but poker took him on a life detour. He started playing in the early 80's and hasn't looked back since. When he started playing poker, he also was an avid bowler. He used to hide some of his poker escapades by saying he was at the bowling alley. The nine gold bracelets from the World Series of Poker are from the two Championship events in 1987 and 1988, Limit Texas Hold' em Poker in 1985, Seven-Card Stud in 1994, Deuce to Seven Draw in 1997, Omaha Pot Limit in 2000, No - Limit
Hold em Poker and Pot Limit Hold' em in 2003, and the last bracelet was from a match between previous bracelet winners. This time Chan was victorious.
Jennifer Harman
Jennifer's poker history began by watching her dad playing poker with his friends when she was eight years old. She's come a long way since then: she's now one of the best players in the world - male OR female - and has been known to bring in up to a million dollars a year. When she was 21, Jennifer started playing poker for a living, starting out playing low-limit games and working her way up to the $75-$150 and $200-$400 games. She eventually made her way into the $3,000-$6,000. Despite the fact that she hasn't played in many tournaments, she's still had some successful runs in the WSOP. She has had 12 money finishes and won two WSOP bracelets, her first one coming when she beat a three time winner at the Deuce-to-Seven No - Limit Draw in 2000, a game she had never even played before.
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