Diego Cordovez

According to Diego, it was a wise decision for him to read different books on poker and this helped him to improve his game. He thinks that reading manuals and books on poker made him understand the better part of the tricks that could be used in the game. Though he had a lot of disagreements to what he read in the books, he was encouraged to a great level to try out the tricks he read about. This made him take up poker as a game he knew all about, or so he thought, and there was no looking back for this talented player.

After taking up poker seriously in 1991, he started playing at low stake tournaments held in the Peppermint Club at Reno. He was so good at the game that he was awarded with the best player around award by the Club. Thus he realised that he was compatible to play at substantially high stake tournaments.

As a result of his talent and skills at poker, he had as many as 17 money finishes at different World Series of Poker tournaments and a World Series of Poker bracelet to boast of. His bracelet win earned him more than $290,000. He also won the first position at the Legends of Poker No Limit Holdem event. He has competed against poker stars like Phil Ivey and Dave Ulliott at final tables of many events.  He was the ultimate winner at the Limit Holdem Championship of the Los Angeles Poker Open held at the Commerce Casino. It won him a prize of $569,430.

Playing poker full time as a profession intimidated Cordovez, so he diverted some of his attention to co-founding a software development company called Aveo Inc which developed software for poker sites. In interviews about his career in poker he has confessed that poker has changed him, the change being both positive and negative. According to him, poker is a game which brings the real person in you in front of your opponents. You cannot have a fake face for a long time. When a poker player sits at the table, he is not hidden from his opponents and also from himself.

When Cordovez played poker as an obligation to earn money, he came across a different shade of himself which greatly disturbed him. That was not what he played for. Since then, he has played poker for being satisfied and not merely for money. Today he hosts the Spanish version of Poker After Dark which is broadcasted on the Discovery Channel across Latin America. His poker career earnings exceed $1.4 million.

Scott Clements

Clements began playing online poker and then started participating in live tournaments or games. Actually he quit playing online poker as the state of Washington banned online poker. But due to playing online poker for a long time, Clements had a better perspective of the game and that reflected in his live game performances. Clements went pro in the year 2005 and has since then achieved a lot for someone of his age.

In 2006, in the World Series of Poker, Clements had three money finishes in different events and also won his first World Series of Poker bracelet for his outstanding performance in the $3,000 Omaha Hi/Lo event. His win fetched him a prize of $301,175 and he was on the top of the world. His performance at the World Series of Poker boosted his confidence for playing at big tournaments and competing against seasoned professional players.

After his win at the World Series of Poker he continued to play at big events and tournaments and gained popularity and respect in the poker world. However, one World Series of Poker bracelet did not satisfy his urge of making it big in poker. He really proved himself worthy of the fame and respect he got after he won the World Poker Tour Canadian Poker Open that was also held in 2006. His winning streak showed event at the World Poker Tour PokerStars.com Carribean Poker Adventure which was held in 2007. He placed 8^th in the event.

After Clements got married in early 2007, his wife travelled along with him to various events. However, unlike most of the poker players Clements did not like to be at Las Vegas for too long. So he travelled to California and British Columbia where he played practice games to improve his skill so that he could do well at the 2007 World Series of Poker that was to be hosted at Las Vegas.

As a result of his hard work and improved skill, Clements won his second World Series of Poker bracelet at the 2007 World Series of Poker. He won the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event and also cashed in at events like $1,500 No Limit Holdem event and the $1,500 Limit Holdem Shootout event. According to Clements, when he was at the final table of the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event, he could see how his opponents were keen on winning a bracelet. But he made sure that he played aggressively and wisely, and that is what made him win his second bracelet. He won $194,206 in prize money. In late 2007, he also managed to clinch the World Poker Tour’s North American Poker Classic held at Fallsview Casino making it his second WPT win. He was richer by $1,137,593.

Scott Clements is one of those young poker magicians who come and go at a tournament and make their mark through spectacular wins. This young man has surely a long way to go and more WSOP bracelets to win.

Thomas Chung

He is the winner of two World Series of Poker bracelets and has the reputation of being a strong winner. He has been playing poker for more than two decades and doesn’t want to stop as long as he can have a good game and a spirit to play.

Chung’s first World Series of Poker bracelet came in the year 1989 when he won the $2000 Limit Holdem event. The win fetched him $212000 in prize money and got him recognition. His second World Series of Poker bracelet came in the year 1991 when he won the $5000 Seven Card Stud event. He took home a prize of $142000. Apart from his bracelets, Chung has had 13 World Series of Poker money finishes in different events.

Chung has been a modest but a strong poker player all his life and has no intention of quitting the game. According to him, poker has been and always will be a game that engages him to no end. In 1993, Chung made it to the final table of the Main event of World Series of Poker. However, he did not win it. Jim Bechtel was the man who devoured all his competitors. Chung was placed 5^th in the event and won $72000 in prize money. This was his highest main event finish spot. According to him, not winning an event was not something that bothered him for long because playing against great players was an enriching experience for him.

Chung participated in various tournaments and events like the L.A Poker Classic tournament where he was placed 2^nd, the Legends of Poker tournament, the California State Championship, Five Diamond World Poker Classic II event and the World Poker Tour. Apart from these he participated in many other events and played poker non-stop for a really long time. He is listed amongst the notable American professional poker players.

Thomas Chung is a poker player who will keep on winning or making money finishes now and then because he is one of those poker players whose love and skill at poker will never wane. Today, his total live tournament earnings are more than $6, 00,000.

Bob Ciaffone

Ciaffone was born in Brooklyn in 1940 and showed great interest in chess since he was four. He kept on working hard and by the time he was nine he was already participating in local and state level chess championships. It was then that he learned about poker. He realised that poker was a game which required a lot of skill and luck was not the only key to win. He also loved playing bridge and was so good at it that he even coached at a bridge club. That is how he was nicknamed as ‘The Coach’.

When he was studying at the University of Notre Dame, he scored amazing grades. But then he learned about pool and soon got engaged in playing it. Like every other game he played, he was good at pool too. He made a lot of money and started wondering why he needed to go to school. He decided to drop out of school much to the dismay of his parents. He took up pool hustling. After some years, he was totally bored of the game and stopped playing it.

He then started playing high stake backgammon. As usual he was good at it. He made ample money by playing backgammon and he was happy with how life looked. He travelled across the country playing against top notch backgammon players and made a lot of bucks. Later, backgammon had to see a dry patch and Ciaffone had to find yet another game that would satisfy him. Finally, he saw his way to the poker table and began playing poker. In 1987 he participated in the World Series of Poker and was placed third in the $10,000 No Limit Texas Holdem Main event and won $125,000 in prize money. That very year, he was on the fourth spot in the $2500 Pot Limit Omaha Holdem event at the World Series of Poker and on the fifth spot in the $1000 No Limit Texas Holdem Event. Like every other game he played, he proved that he was good at poker too.

Bob authored the book ‘Robert’s Rules of Poker’ and is a regular column contributor to the Card Player magazine. He knows all about gambling laws in the USA and writes extensively about them. ‘Fair Laws on Poker’ is a non profit organization that he has founded to improve the poker laws that are being applied to state as well as local poker games. He held the post of the President of Michigan Chess Association and was bestowed upon the title of Life Master by the United States Chess Foundation. He has penned three books on poker and two on chess. His total live poker tournament earnings exceed $300,000 and he is definitely a player at heart.

Paul Clark

According to him, poker is a game that keeps him engaged and ever since he started playing poker, everything turned out to be on his side. When he participated in the World Series of Poker, little did anyone know that Clark was going to cash-in in the Limit Omaha event. But he was going to perform more than a money finish. Clark won his first World Series of Poker bracelet in the year 1992 when he won the $5000 Seven Card Stud event. He was richer by $122,000 because of his win.

Clark won his second World Series of Poker bracelet when he won the $1500 Razz event in the year 1999. He won $84,610 as prize money for his win. His stint of winning the coveted World Series of Poker bracelet was yet not going to end. He won his third World Series of Poker bracelet in the year 2002 when he was the ultimate winner of the $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo event and won $125,200.

Apart from his World Series of Poker bracelets and 20 money finishes in the World Series of Poker tournament, he also managed to win the $1500 No Limit Holdem event in the year 2003. It was a part of the Bellagio’s Five Diamond World Poker Classic tournament. He defeated amazing poker players like Huck Seed, Chris Karagulleyan, Erik Seidel, Johnny Chan and Dave Ulliott. He won $160,095 as a result of his win. He also participated in the World Poker Tour when it was in its second season. He was in the second spot in the World Poker Challenge and won $310,403.

Clark is a satisfied poker player who thinks the poker industry was really easy to bond with. He loves baseball a lot. Clark is a modest poker player with a treasure of more than $260, 0000 that he has earned through his live tournaments. His poker nickname is ‘Eskimo’. According to him, he loves to obstruct his opponent’s play by trapping them by playing various limply hands. He also thinks that no matter how bad a player is, he has his own good hands that can win him a game or two in the long run but he believes that when there a perfect mix of skill, some luck and a lot of confidence a game is won effortlessly.

Michael Chu

Chu is a political science major from the University of California. He played poker since his high school and he loved everything about it. According to him, the film ‘Rounders’ was what aroused his interest in Texas Holdem and he has never let go of the game since then. He had fun playing poker games with his friends at high school as well as his college friends and then it was ‘in’ to play poker games in college.

His skill with numbers was what made his good at the game or so he says. But its more than the numbers that keep him floating in a game, it is his knack of playing his game so that he wins most of the times. His deep interest in the game comes from the fact that he loves it for the fun it provides than rather the money he wins.

Chu won his first World Series of Poker bracelet in the year 2007 when he won the $1000 No Limit holdem re-buy championship. He won a whopping prize of $585,774 and that too without an actual re-buy while all his competitors had to re-buy at least 8 times throughout the championship. His performance at the tournament got him a lot of attention and praise from poker players as well as poker lovers. Winning a gold bracelet along with the prize came as a huge bonus to his small investment in the game. He was just 27 when he won his first bracelet.

After his win at the World Series of Poker of 2007, he participated in the World Poker Tour and he won $16,005 in the No Limit Holdem Championship event. He kept on participating in the World Series of Poker tournaments and managed to cash in the tournament of 2008. He was placed 8^th in the $1500 Mixed Holdem event and took home a prize of $27,440. In 2011 World Series of Poker he was placed 31^st in the $2500 Mixed Holdem event and won $7653 in prize money.

For a poker player who plays for recreation, Chu has more than $630,000 from his tournament winnings. He has had a consistent poker career though he never wants to take it up professionally. This poker player is more than a stock trader and proves to be a cool player whenever he finds a chance. His being pretty good with the numbers gives him the added advantage. Michael Chu is definitely a player to look out for.

David Chiu

Chiu has four World Series of Poker bracelets to his credit, which is a feat that only few players have managed to achieve. His first bracelet came in the year 1996 when he won $2000 Limit Holdem tournament. He took home a prize of $396000. It was as if Chiu was not going to stop winning. In 1998 came his second World Series of Poker bracelet when he won the $3000 Limit Holdem tournament and got $205200 in prize money. Chiu was soon proving to be one of the best players of Limit Holdem around the world.

In the year 2000, he won his third World Series of Poker bracelet when he won the $5000 Seven Card Stud event and got $202000 in prize money. In the year 2005, came his fourth World Series of Poker bracelet when he won the $5000 Omaha Hi/Lo event and took home a prize of $347410. Chiu also won the 2008 World Poker Tour World Championship and won a whopping $3.4 million prize. Chiu has cashed in as many as 25 World Series of Poker tournaments and has an unparalleled knack of winning games.

Chiu attributes his success at poker to an accident that left him partially deaf in both ears. Due to this he began to access people and read them through their faces and body language. This ability allows him to make crucial decisions in toughest of games by relying on his instinct and playing a hand. He is unbelievably talented at reading his opponents at the table and so it is very rare that he loses to someone. It is not a surprise that he has come to be known as one of the finest poker players in the poker world and is revered by his peers for his outstanding game. Chiu played on the Full Tilt Poker site for a long time.

Today, Chiu has more than $7 million in live tournament earnings and has a reputation of being a very soft spoken poker player who does not like to show his aggression through words but through his play. Chiu shall dominate the poker arena as far as he has skill and talent and also until he is bored of the game, which is highly unlikely for a player of his calibre. David Chiu is a player who is here to stay and dominate the poker world and win a lot of titles and tournaments.

Jimmy Cha

As a child, Jimmy was exposed to various extracurricular activities like playing the piano, learning taekwondo, martial arts, swimming, playing table tennis, pool, and violin. According to him, he was not a genius but all the talents he possessed helped him become a better poker player. His exposure to playing Go helped him a lot as he was advancing to become a professional poker player. He grew up mostly in Seoul and did everything to be strong at poker and by the end of his training, when he was in his 11^th grade; he was as good as a pro.  He graduated from his college in Economics and by that time he was considered as one of the strongest amateur poker players in South Korea.

When he moved to the USA for doing something big as a poker pro, he initially had to take up different jobs to make things work. He worked at a gas station for some time and after that he began to train under the guidance of Chip Johnson who was a very well known poker theorist in California. Following his training, he was able to secure a good reputation in the poker world and in 80s and 90s he was at his best. He was awarded the ‘Best Player’ award by the Dangguk University where he attended college and he was also the winner of the South Korean National Amateur Championship twice in a row. He also has considerable contribution in spreading Go in the USA after he moved there.

From the year 2002 to 2006, Jimmy has been playing in the World Series of Poker tournament and has cashed in several events. However, he hasn’t won a bracelet yet. His knack of reaching the quarter finals and then bowing out has been unusual but he doesn’t regret his moves or his game. IN 1989, he reached the quarter finals of the Fujitsu Cup after defeating Yamashiro Hiroshi and Ohira Shuzo but he lost in the quarter finals. He has the runners up title of the North American Masters Tournament for 1995 and 1998.

Jimmy has won as much as $370,000 in a day and his total tournament earnings exceed $20 million. He is considered as one of the three best poker players and cash experts in the world, the other two being Doyle Brunson and Chip Reese. His consistency in earning big money through his game lasted for a good 11 years but he decided to help the Casino industry in Korea and so left USA in 2005. Today, he works as a professor at Sejong University and is the chairman of the Casino International Group in Korea. He divides his time between his businesses and playing ‘Go’ and poker.

Don was born in Kansas City in 1964. He moved to Colorado where he completed his graduation from the East High School. His inclination to poker came after few years of pursuing his first love- stage, music and acting. He loved everything about them and so he secured scholarships for both acting and music school. He eventually chose acting over music and took a BA degree from California Institute of Arts, Valencia.

Acting in television shows and movies followed and he was really good at what he was doing until he came to know about the situation of Sudan where thousands of people were dead owing to political conflicts. He was totally devastated when he visited Sudan’s Darfur region and decided to do something about it.

He along with poker player Annie Duke and Normal Epstein founded the ‘Ante Up Africa Tournament’ in order to generate awareness among people and to raise money for the betterment of the people who were rendered homeless in the Darfur and Rwanda areas of Sudan. It was $5000 buy in event and their initial goal was to at least raise $20,000 to $30,000 but when the tournament ended, the amount that was raised was equal to $700,000. In a period of 4 years, from 2006 to 2010, the tournament was able to raise $3,000,000 which was donated for the cause.

Don was already a famous man amongst the poker players. He appeared on Poker After Dark in 2007 as he had astonishingly defeated poker pro Phil Ivey in the first round of the ‘National Heads Up Poker Championship’. Until then, Don was considered an amateur player and an underdog to Phil. The Ante Up Africa takes place every year as one of the two non bracelet events held in the World Series of Poker. In 2010, famous professional poker players like Phil Ivey, Ben Affleck, Brad Garrett and Chris Ferguson and celebs like Matt Damon sat to play at the tournament and another $2,75,000 were donated for different humanitarian causes through the tournament.

For his selfless humanitarian work, Don was awarded the BET Humanitarian Award of the year 2007. He along with George Clooney also received the Summit Peace Prize Award which was presented to them by the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates in 2007. In 2010, he was appointed as the UN Environment Program Goodwill Ambassador.

In his free time, Don loves to spend time with his family and playing golf, though free time is something that happens rarely to Don. Don is a poker player who has changed a lot of lives through poker and thus he has changed the perspective of people who once saw poker as a means of only earning money or being in the tournament circle. We salute this friend of poker for all that he has done for suffering people through poker.

Bill Chen

Bill grew up as a boy who knew the importance of analysis and research. He was an undergraduate at the Washington University majoring in three subjects-physics, math and computer science. He was also a research intern in the university’s Computer Science SURA program. Before shifting his attention to playing poker, Bill spent a lot of his time working in the quantitative analysis field and software designing.

Researching through various trends of poker in the year 2000, Chen formulated the famed ‘Chen Formula’ which allowed a player to assess the value of his pre flop hand by simple arithmetic calculations and then categorizing the hand in different groups. His formula was deeply appreciated and was considered as a breakthrough in the history of the game.

Using his own formula and lots of good luck, Bill won two World Series of Poker bracelets in the year 2006. One was for $2500 Short Handed No Limit Holdem and the other was for $3000 Limit Holdem event for which he won a total prize of $7, 86,129. Chen’s first tournament cash came in the year 1999 followed by his first World Series of Poker cash in 2000. He also won the No limit holdem event in the year 2000 at the Bicycle Casino’s Legends of Poker which got him $41,600 as prize money. In the next decade, he was able to have 18 big tournament money finishes. In 2009, he appeared in the show ‘Poker After Dark’s special tournament ‘Brilliant Minds’ and won the 5^th spot. His success was overwhelming but not unexpected owing to his profound knowledge of math and the application of his analytical abilities.

Chen has also co-authored a book titled ‘The Mathematics of Poker’ with Jerrod Ankenman. The full consists of deep analysis of the quantitative techniques of poker and the book is considered to be a milestone in the history of poker, but is complicated.

Chen was a member of the Team PokerStars and has significant involvement in the rec.gambling.poker newsgroup and B.A.R.G.E. He is also an honorary Chairman of the Churchill regular association for poker which is in affiliation with the Churchill College.

Today, Chen resides in Lafayette Hill, PA and spends his time working at SIG and playing poker throughout the year at different tournaments. He likes to practice yoga in his free time and is considered to be a jolly poker player as he is found laughing and smiling as he sits on any table to play. With his impeccable abilities at poker and knowledge of its little aspects, he is sure to make better title additions to his poker career.