Poker Legend Player ~ Amarillo Slim

Thomas Austin Preston, Jr. (born December 31, 1928 in Johnson, Arkansas), known as Amarillo Slim, is a professional gambler, famous for his poker skills and proposition bets. He won the main event at the 1972 World Series of Poker. He has been a member of the Poker Hall of Fame since 1992.

Poker career
Before becoming a well-known tournament player, Preston was a rounder, touring the United States looking for gambling action along with Doyle Brunson and Sailor Roberts.
Following his WSOP victory he appeared on several talk shows, including The Tonight Show, and had a bit part in the 1974 Robert Altman movie California Split.[2] He appeared on I've Got a Secret, where his secret involved losing $190,000 in one night of poker.
As of 2008[update], Preston has a total of four WSOP bracelets, including two in Omaha, with his most recent WSOP win in 1990. He has won over $590,000 in tournament play.

Super Bowl of Poker
In January/February 1980 Amarillo Slim hosted the Second Annual Poker Classic which became the second most prestigious poker tournament during its time. This series would eventually be called the Super Bowl of Poker and would continue until 1991. Gabe Kaplan became the first winner of this series and Stu Ungar won the title three times.

World Series of Poker bracelets
Year
Tournament
Prize (US$)
1972
$10,000 No Limit Hold'em World Championship
$60,000
1974
$1,000 No Limit Hold'em
$11,100
1985
$5,000 Pot Limit Omaha
$85,000
1990
$5,000 Pot Limit Omaha
$142,000

Career as author
In 1973, Preston and Bill G. Cox authored Play Poker to Win, published by Grosset and Dunlap. a revised edition was published by HarperCollins in 2005 as Amarillo Slim's Play Poker to Win (ISBN 0060817550),
In May 2003, Preston published his autobiography Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People, where he revealed tales of playing poker with Larry Flynt, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon, among others. In addition to his poker exploits, in the book Preston gives vivid descriptions of his exploits in proposition betting.
In April 2007, Preston opened a website and released an E-Book All In: An E-guide To No Limit Texas Hold'em, by Amarillo Slim Preston with Brent Riley.

Movie starring Nicholas Cage
Preston's autobiography is the basis for a biopic under development by Nicolas Cage since 2004; Cage will reportedly play Preston. Though stalled for several years it was reported on January 3, 2009 by ThePlayr.com that the movie will be released in 2009.

Personal life
Preston is divorced, has three children, and currently resides in Amarillo, Texas. Preston was the best friend of casino owner Benny Binion; when Binion died in 1989, he left his horse to Preston.

Encounters with the law
Since 2003 Preston has had several encounters with the law, both as a convicted misdemeanant and as a robbery victim.

In August 2003, Preston was indicted on three charges of sexual assault with a 12-year-old family member. The charges were reduced to misdemeanor assault in a plea bargain and on February 10, 2004, he pled no contest to the reduced charges, receiving a $4,000 fine and two years deferred adjudication.

Early on the morning of October 4, 2006, Preston was approached on a street by a would-be robber. He sped away, but not before the gunman fired three bullets at his car. Preston was not injured.
On January 28, 2007, Preston was robbed at gunpoint in his own home.
On January 22, 2009, Preston was beaten and robbed in a field near the intersection of Interstate 40 and Soncy Road while attempting to collect a gambling debt.

1988 WSOP Champion Johnny Chan

Johnny Chan (Traditional Chinese: 陳強尼), born in Guangzhou (Canton), China in 1957, now living in Las Vegas, Nevada) is a professional poker player.

Early life
Chan moved with his family in 1962 from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, then in 1968 to Phoenix, Arizona and later in 1973 to Houston, Texas where his family owned restaurants. He was going to continue in the family business, but when he was 16 he went on a junket to Las Vegas, Nevada. When he was 21, Chan dropped out of the University of Houston, where he was majoring in hotel and restaurant management, and moved to Las Vegas to become a professional gambler.

Poker tournaments
World Series of Poker

Chan attributes some of his early success to the fact that many players had not previously played against Asian players. He shot to fame in the late 1980s, winning the championship event of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in two consecutive years (1987 and 1988). A videotape of the 1988 WSOP final heads up match is featured in the movie Rounders, in which Johnny Chan makes a cameo appearance. He almost won a third consecutive title, but finished in 2nd place in 1989 to Phil Hellmuth. He is the last player to win back-to-back WSOP Main Events, a feat many prognosticators think he could hold forever given the increasingly larger fields. Jerry Buss, an avid poker player and owner of the Los Angeles Lakers, promised Chan an NBA championship ring if he could win three in a row.

Chan is known for keeping a "lucky" orange in front of him on the table, and after the second consecutive WSOP title other players began bringing fruit to the table in hopes of increasing their luck. Chan says he only had an orange with him because of the pleasant scent, as smoking, which was allowed in many tournaments then, bothered him. Chan was once a smoker, but now he neither smokes nor drinks alcohol.

In 2005, Chan became the first player to win ten World Series of Poker titles, defeating Phil Laak in a Texas hold 'em event. He is currently tied with Doyle Brunson for second place with 10 World Series of Poker bracelets, behind Phil Hellmuth (11). He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2002.

In 2008, Chan cashed for the first time in the main event since 1992, earning $32,166 for his 329th place finish.

Poker Superstars

Chan competed in the $400,000 Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament in February 2005. He came back from only having $20,000 chips out of $3,200,000 in play to finish in second place to Gus Hansen. Chan later competed in Poker Superstars II during the summer of 2005. He defeated 22 of the best players to make it to the finals. Then he defeated Todd Brunson in the finals after three matches to win the $400,000 first prize. Chan appeared in Poker Superstars III where he made it as far as the semi finals but was defeated by Todd Brunson after three matches.

Poker After Dark

On NBC's late-night show Poker After Dark, a six-person $20,000 buy-in winner-takes-all tournament, Johnny Chan has the distinction of having the most victories to date with four wins in six appearances. He came in second and fifth when he did not win.

His appearances in which he made it to heads-up were:

  * WSOP Champions - originally aired Jan. 15-20, 2007 - Won heads-up against Chris Moneymaker
  * Golden Men - originally aired June 11-16, 2007 - Lost heads-up against Joe Hachem
  * World Champions - originally aired Feb. 11-16, 2008 - Won heads-up against Phil Hellmuth
  * International - originally aired Feb. 25-Mar. 1, 2008 - Won heads-up against Patrik Antonius
  * Dream Table III - originally aired Mar. 23-27, 2009 - Won heads-up against Jennifer Tilly

Other tournaments

One of Chan's earliest victories in poker was in Bob Stupak's 1981 American Cup poker tournament. Johnny Chan made it to the final table, and defeated all 9 other players in less than an hour. After this feat, Stupak gave Chan the nickname, The Orient Express.

Chan has yet to make a final table on the World Poker Tour (WPT), despite playing in numerous events.

Chan also featured in the 2004 and 2005 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions events and the National Heads-Up Poker Championship in the same years.

As of 2009, his total live tournament winnings exceed $8,067,792.[1] His 42 WSOP cashes account for $4,241,448 of those winnings.[2]

Personal life

In addition to playing poker, Chan owns a fast-food franchise in the Las Vegas Stratosphere Hotel and is a consultant for various casinos and game makers. He has aspirations of opening his own casino. Chan has also written for Card Player magazine. He appeared in the first season of the GSN series High Stakes Poker.

In 2005, Chan collaborated with Mark Karowe to release Play Poker Like Johnny Chan (ISBN 1-933074-48-5), an instructional book on several different types of poker. On November 28, 2006, the follow-up titled: Million Dollar Hold'em: Winning Big in Limit Cash Games (ISBN 1-58042-200-4), which focuses on limit hold'em strategy, was released.

In 2007, Chan launched an online poker room, ChanPokerOnline.com. It closed in August 2008.

Chan wrote a regular article in the bi-monthly magazine Trader Monthly.
 

In Popular Culture

Johnny Chan was portrayed in 1998 film Rounders as himself. In a flashback, he's shown as having been bluffed by the main character Mike McDermott (Matt Damon).

13 Cards

Chinese poker, also Pusoy (but not Pusoy Dos or Russian Poker), is a card game that has been played in the Asian community for many years. It has begun to gain popularity elsewhere because it has many features of an "exciting" gambling game:

• The rules are simple—only a basic knowledge of poker hand rankings is needed to get started.
• There is a large element of luck involved, therefore a beginner has a good chance of winning in the short term, even against experienced opponents. Poor players may not be so easily deterred by losses as they can more easily attribute bad results to their cards rather than their plays.
• More advanced players can still apply enough strategy to the game to give themselves a significant advantage over poor players.
• The game format results in frequent unexpected wins and high ranking hands.
• Only a few players are required to play the game.

Gameplay

Chinese poker is typically played as a four-person game, though it can also be played with two or three.

Playing a hand

In Chinese Poker, each player receives a 13 card hand from a standard 52 card deck. Each player then has to divide his cards into three poker hands (known as "setting"): two containing five cards each (known as "the middle" and "the back"), and one containing three cards ("the front"); the back must be the highest ranking hand, and the front, the lowest ranking hand (note that straights and flushes do not count in the three card hand). The back hand is placed face down on the table in front of the player, then the middle hand is placed face down in front of the back hand, and the front hand is placed face down in front of the middle hand. After all the players have set their hands, each player will announce in turn (clockwise, starting from the left of the dealer) whether or not he is playing his hand. All players then announce their royalties, before revealing their hands.

Scoring

The stakes played for in Chinese poker are known as units: an amount of money agreed on before the game starts. Basic scoring rules dictate that a player collects one unit from each opponent whose front, middle or back hand is beaten by his own corresponding hand. Thus, unlike most poker games, being second-best at the table is good enough to win money. In some variants players are also paid an additional unit if they win in two or three of the hands. In other variants players only get an additional unit if they win all three hands (known as a scoop). Also, due to the head-to-head nature of the comparisons, it is possible for different players to play for different stakes. For example, A and B could play for $10/unit, while all other pairs play for $1/unit. Many variations of scoring are in common use; refer to the external links for more information.

The two most common scoring systems used in Casinos today are the 2-4 scoring method, and the 1-6 scoring method.

In the 2-4 method you receive 1 unit for each of the three hands you win, and 1 unit called the overall unit is awarded to the player who wins two out of the three hands, or all of the three hands. In the event of a tie in one of the hands, then no money is exchanged for this particular hand and one player either wins both of the other hands, and collects 3 units (1 for each hand, and 1 overall), or they each win one hand and no units are exchanged (each win 1 unit, and there is no overall).

In the 1-6 method you receive 1 unit for each of the three hands you win, and 3 bonus units (on top of the three for the hands) if you win all three hands.

Example

	Ivey	Gus	Winner
Front	6♠ 6♣ 4♥	A♥ K♦ Q♦	Ivey
Middle	10♦ 10♠ 9♣ Q♠ 8♣	9♥ 9♦ 5♥ 5♦ 4♣	Gus
Back	3♥ 3♦ 3♠ 2♥ 2♦	K♠ J♠ 9♠ 8♠ 7♠	Ivey

In the 2-4 method, Gus would pay Ivey two points. In the 1-6 method, Gus would pay Ivey one point.

Royalties

Royalties, or bonuses as they are sometimes called, are extra units that may be awarded to players with particularly strong hands. In some variants all royalties are worth the same amount (e.g. 1 unit per royalty). In other variants each royalty is given a different payout (e.g. 1 unit for a four of a kind in the back, and 2 units for a straight flush in the back). Sometimes only the winner may be awarded a royalty (e.g. four sevens in the back beats four sixes in the back, therefore only the player with sevens is awarded a royalty). In some games players are allowed to break up straight flushes or four of a kinds and still receive royalties (e.g. a player is dealt four sevens; he may use three of them for a three of a kind in the front, and one as part of a straight in the middle). Some rules say that players are only allowed to claim one royalty per hand.

Royalties must be declared prior to the revealing of the hands.

Some hands and combinations of hands that are commonly awarded royalties are listed:

• Straight flush
• Four of a kind
• Full house or better in the middle
• Three of a kind in the front

Naturals are special types of royalties where if dealt to a player, the player is rewarded immediately (prior to anyone surrendering), and the player does not set their hand.

• Three straights
• Three flushes
• Six pairs (counting all three hands)
• 13 unique cards (i.e. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, A)
• No face cards or called "No People"

Mis-set Hand

If a player mis-sets his hand (e.g. he puts three of a kind in the front, but only two pair in the middle) then he must pay each of his opponents still in the hand (players who have not surrendered) an amount equal to being scooped. In some variations players are still required to play their hands.