John Juanda - SOMUCHPOKER

– General Introduction –

John Juanda

John Juanda is an Indonesian professional poker player. He was born on July 8th, 1970 in Medan, Indonesia.

He has won 5 WSOP gold bracelets and reached a total of 16 WSOP final tables. Overall, he has $25.240 million in live tournament cashes.

Juanda also appeared on the classic poker TV show Poker After Dark on NBC, and played at the highest stakes cash tables on the now defunct poker site Full Tilt.

– Key Career Dates –

1990: He travels to the United States to pursue his higher education. In his spare time, he starts playing live poker at his local casinos.
2002: He wins his first WSOP gold bracelet after finishing first in the $1,500 Limit A-5 Triple Draw event for $49,620.
2008: He wins his 4th WSOP gold bracelet after finishing first in the £10,000 WSOP Europe Main Event for £868,800.

– John Juanda’s Career –

Juanda moved to the United States to attend Oklahoma State University in 1990. He graduated with a double Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and Management. Afterward, he continued his studies by taking an MBA at Seattle University. To meet the costs of education, Juanda made money by working as a stockbroker and by being a Bible salesman. In his free time, he would often be playing poker at the local casino. It was there that he decided that he wanted to pursue playing poker for a living.

Beginning 1997, Juanda had started playing in major tournaments. But he caught the eye of the community when he made 2 final table finishes at the 30th World Series of Poker in Las Vegas in 1999; namely, in the $1,500 No Limit Holdem event and the $3,000 Limit Holdem Event for $14,615 (9th place) and $12,675 (7th place), respectively. Three years later, he won his very first WSOP gold bracelet in 2002, taking down the $ 1,500 Limit Ace to Five Triple Draw Event for $49,620.

In the following years, he collected 4 more World Series titles: in the $2,500 Limit 7-Card Stud event for $130,200 in 2003; the $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha Rebuy event for $203,840 in the same year; and the $10,000 No Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw Championship for $367,170 in 2011. His biggest achievement, however, is winning the £10,000 WSOP Europe Main Event for £868,800 in 2008. He beat Stanislav Alekhin from Russia heads-up for the title.

He also has consistently made it into the money inWorld Poker Tour (WPT) tournaments. In December 2013, he won his very first WPT tournament in Jeju, South Koreaat the WPT High Roller Event for $288,000.

Amidst rumors of his death, Juanda won the €5,300 EPTBarcelona Main Event in 2015, an event that broke records for having the biggest Main Event field in EPT Barcelona history. He took home $1.164 million for winning first place. In that same year, Juanda became part of the Poker Hall of Fame along with Jennifer Harman.

The year 2016 didn’t see much of John Juanda in the circuit. But 2017 produced 8 final table finishes in major events around the world for Juanda. One of which was a grand victory against Fedor Holz. In October 2017, Juanda defeated Holz heads-up in the HK$1,000,000 Triton Super High Roller Series Main Event in Macau. He won a whopping $2.870 million, which is the biggest single live tournament cash of his career to date. In May 2019, he took down another Triton event. He finished first in the HK$250,000 Short Deck No Limit Hold’em – Ante Only event for $601,358 in Montenegro.

John Juanda is #1 on the Indonesian All Time Money List on Hendon with a total of $25.240 million in live earnings as of this writing. He is also known to play the biggest live cash games in the world. He is one of the first players to join the high stakes cash games in Macau and is also known to be a regular in Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

Between 2007 and 2011, he appeared in a total of 10 episodes on the classic show Poker After Dark on NBC. As for online poker, the online high stakes cash game database has 84,690 hands tracked on his account “John Juanda” on the late poker site Full Tilt. In that sample, he’s up $501,880, playing cash games as high as $500/$1,000 No Limit Hold’em.

Juanda is also known for creating one of the few popular poker memes. In a cash game at the 2008 Aussie Millions, Tony G flopped a Royal Flush holding KJ of diamonds while Juanda had three Queens by the river. Tony G bet and everyone folded. After Tony G turned over his Royal, Juanda proudly proclaimed “I had trips!”. You can come across this funny quote from him in comments under many poker videos across the internet.

Read more about this player on Somuchpoker :