Poker Fair US

John Juanda: Action Speaks Louder Than Looks

John Juanda is one confident and strong contender. His strong presence is certainly a threat to his opponents. However, his poker prowess has put him at the right place and at the right time. Juanda became the 2002 Champion of the Year after winning the World Poker Open Championship title and three World Series of Poker titles. He also won the 2004 Professional Poker Tour inaugural event. Juanda already received two "Best All-around Player Award" and he has won in major tournaments eleven times over the past few years.

Juanda participated at the 2005 World Series of Poker and went home with $ 274,090 from the Championship Event. The even had more than five thousand participants and the buy-in was worth ten grand. In the same year, Juanda participated mostly in Hold'em events. He also participated at pot-limit Omaha through re-buys and came out with $ 11,565. As of 2005, Juanda's tournament winnings are over $ 4.6 million.

Juanda is one mysterious player for there is only little known about him. As what his opponents and audience know is that he is one strong player and his appearance speaks of it; his Asian features is quite distinguishable and sharp and he has a cool, levelheaded, confidence but internally fierce. He once said that the one thing he wanted to change in the current poker circuit is how intimidating the poker rooms are, especially for the newcomers in the industry. He also expresses concerns regarding tournament sponsorships these days and he wish to have more corporations and firms to support the tourneys and poker events.

John Juanda is a native of Indonesia and he was born on July 8, 1971. He is American through citizenship. He went to the United States in 1990 to attend college at the Oklahoma State University. He then relocated and took hi MBA at the University of Seattle. It was in 1996 that he decided to play poker. Juanda was also an athletic champ. He used to be a high school track and field champion specializing in 200-meter sprints and 5000-meter races.

Pot-limit and No-limit Hold'em are Juanda's favorite games. He also worked as a door-to-door bible salesman for a short period of time. Juanda admits that he is interested in medicine and would have been pursuing it if not for his poker career. Juanda's all-time favorite poker heroes are Phil Ivey, Allan Cunningham, Randy Holland, Erik Seidel and Daniel Negreanu. He considers them as his role models, not just poker champs. John currently resides in California.