Johnny Chan was born in China with his family moving to the United States when he was ten years old. Initially they settled in Phoenix but would soon move on to Houston where his parents opened a restaurant. As a child on of Chan's favorite hobbies was bowling which he did on a regular basis. It was at the bowling alley that he first got into poker. After initial success in small stakes games at the bowling alley he started playing in illegal games at the family restaurant. He proved to be so successful that the other players refused to play with him.
Firmly bitten with the poker bug Johnny Chan went to Las Vegas as a sixteen year old and started playing illegally in casinos. He won a lot of money and then managed to lose it all. After graduating from high school Chan attended to college to learn restaurant management with the thought of taking over the family business. However he soon decided that this wasn't for him and he moved to Vegas to become a professional poker player.
In Las Vegas Johnny Chan started playing in cash games to make his living. His success varied as he would win a lot of money and then lose it, often requiring him to take a job to rebuild his bank roll. Part of the problem was that he had hard time controlling his temper which caused him to make some pretty big errors at the table. However with experience he got better and was soon a regular winner and making his full time living playing poker.
After a few years in cash games Johnny Chan entered his first tournament, which he won. This encouraged him to enter a number of other tournaments and he quickly built a reputation as one of the best tournament players in the business. His biggest success came in the World Series of Poker where he won what was then a record ten bracelets. His tournament success is what led to Johnny Chan becoming famous as a poker player.
While he has been one of the top tournament players for several years now Johnny Chan never gave up playing in cash games. Indeed that has largely been how he has made his living even when he was winning tournaments. These days Chan focuses mainly on high stakes cash games mainly because they are more lucrative than tournaments. Over the years Chan has developed a reputation as one of the most versatile players in the game. Not only is he equally good at both cash games and tournaments but he is also very good at many variants of poker. The result is that Johnny Chan is not only one of the best known players in the world but he is also one of the best. Although he doesn't enter that many tournaments anymore when he does enter them he is always a threat to win.