Poker legend Johnny Chan in 13th place heading into 5th day of tournament

Poker legend Johnny Chan is comfortable with his place in history.

He's the last player to win back-to-back World Series of Poker Main Event Championships in 1987 and 1988. A year later, Chan was runner-up to Phil Hellmuth Jr., just missing a third straight crown.

His 1988 Main Event final poker hand with Eric Seidel was immortalized in the movie "Rounders," in which Chan was given cameo appearance playing himself.

In his World Series of Poker career, Chan has won 10 individual event championship bracelets, tied with Doyle Brunson, and is second only to Hellmuth, who has 11 bracelets.

Chan, 53, has won more than $4.24 million in the World Series of Poker and more than $6 million in tournament poker play.

He's a throwback to the days of no-limit cash games and the smoky poker rooms of Las Vegas past, which is why Chan's run in 2010's $10,000 buy-in No-limit Hold'em World Championship event at the Rio is somewhat improbable.

Going into Wednesday's fifth day of competition, Chan stood in 13th place out of 574 remaining players with almost 1.2 million in tournament chips.

"I don't have a big plan, I'm just playing as it goes," Chan said. "Sometimes you lose a hand or get a little bump. You have to know how to switch gears."

During the previous four days of the tournament, he's alternated between the chip lead, the top 10 and top 20 in the tournament that drew 7,319 entries. A victory in the Main Event is worth $8.9 million, more than double Chan's career World Series of Poker winnings.

Consider that the number of players that will cash in this year's Main Event (747) is 33 percent higher than the total number of Main Event entries from 1987-89 (497), Chan clearly represents another era.

"I haven't had this many chips in the Main Event in the last 20 years," Chan said on a break Tuesday. "So I think this tournament is a blessing. I'm very happy. My family is supporting me."

Chan, who lives in Cerritos, Calif., and is the father of six, hasn't won a World Series of Poker event since 2005. He took first in a pot limit hold'em event and won $303,025 that year. The 1988 championship was Chan's biggest single World Series of Poker payday -- $700,000.

He finished 329th in the 2008 Main Event, but Chan has pretty much been relegated to spectator status at the most recent tournaments. In 2006, he served as an unofficial coach to eventual champion Jamie Gold.

Chan still believes he's relevant to the game, and his current run in the Main Event seems to signal a new focus. He foreshadowed his performance by finishing third earlier this month at the Tournament of Champions event, winning $100,000.

"For anyone to win the Main Event, it's the toughest thing in the world," Chan said. "It's like swimming from here to China. I'm the last person to win it back-to-back and I was runner up a year later. That's a record no one will ever break, so I'm happy with that."

In the 1998 film "Rounders," Mike McDermott, a law student played by Matt Damon, is obsessed with the final hand Chan played against Seidel, re-running a video of the hand over and over. The character also plays heads-up with Chan in Atlantic City.

In the 1988 hand, Chan was dealt the jack of clubs and nine of clubs, while Seidel drew the queen of clubs and seven of hearts. The flop gave Chan a straight and he slow-played the hand, drawing in Seidel to make a futile all-in move on the river.

The movie helped make the hand one of the most famous poker hands in World Series of Poker history and created a new legion of rounders hoping to take down Chan.

He's seen a few of those players this week.

"The young online players play crazy," Chan said. "They'll make gutshot straight check-raises. I did crazy things like that when I was 21. But I'm a senior citizen now."

The Main Event field will be cut to 27 players on Friday and to the final table of nine sometime Saturday night or early Sunday morning.

Contact reporter Howard Stutz at hstutz@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3871.