About An Tran

Name	An Tran
Current Residence	Las Vegas Nev.
Birth Place	Saigon, VN

An Tran played Five-Card Stud for fun in his native Vietnam and learned other games upon his arrival in the United States. He landed in Houston, Texas in 1975 and opened a martial arts studio; by 1980 he was playing tournament poker.

From Houston he relocated to Las Vegas in order to play quality poker every day. The move paid off and by 1987, he had made a final table in the World Series of Poker, landing thirty-three World Series final tables since.

Tran knows how to roll with the punches. "I go broke all the time," he says, "but that doesn't make any difference. It doesn't bother me. I've lost a lot of money on the stock market. I bet on the options, and sometimes I go broke. There are plenty of parallels. It just doesn't matter much to me."

Tran's outlook on his poker playing is equally optimistic. "I don't have any favorite venues. It's all the same to me. As long as there is a game going on, I can win."

Highly respected among his peers, Tran went heads-up against John Hennigan in the 2004 WSOP $5,000 Limit Hold'em tournament and ultimately finished second. Afterwards, however, Hennigan had this to say about his competition: "I don't look at it like I had his number. An Tran is a great player. He's won a lot of big tournaments. A few freaky hands came up, like the spade flush, and I got lucky enough to win some of the big pots."

Tran is known for his volatile playing style. "Some people are always aggressive," he says, "while others are always tight. But I can't play just one style. I play different every game. It depends on who I'm playing with and how I'm doing with my chips."

His unpredictable play has, in addition to cash, actually won him a lot of fans through televised tournaments. "I think it's a good thing that poker is growing, getting bigger. The fact that poker is now televised doesn't matter to me. It makes me look good on the TV. It makes things more exciting. It's a positive development."

So far, Tran has lived up to his poker nickname, "The Boss." He took first place in the 1991 WSOP Pot-Limit Omaha event and, in both 2002 and 2003, he came in first in the No-Limit Hold'em event at the Four Queens Poker Classic.

Trivia

• Former lieutenant in the South Vietnamese Green Berets
• Escaped Vietnam in 1975
• Karate master and former karate teacher