Tuan Lam (born 1 January, 1966) is a Canadian professional poker player of Vietnamese descent. Despite not having won any WSOP bracelets yet, his 2007 second-place finish has placed him in professional poker forefront.
Born on the first day of 1966, the New Year did not offer Tuan Lam any promising prospects. After spending two years at an Indonesian refugee camp, he immigrated to Canada in 1985. Forced to provide for himself in a strange country, he took up menial labor, eventually working as a general laborer for a metal company. Having been taught to play poker by fellow workers, he soon proved quite capable with a deck of cards. These early professional buds soon blossomed at a Canadian casino, where Tuan Lam found a job dealing cards. Moving from dealer to player came quickly: Lan would be asked to make up the numbers at tables that weren't full, meaning he would play real poker with paying customers. Lan got hold of a poker guidebook and began honing his skills.
Tuan Lam was now playing Canadian and US tables. He made his foray into the world of majour tournaments in 2005. Entering the $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em event at the 36th WSOP, Tuan Lam came in seventy-sixth out of an 894-player field. Interestingly, the winner was also of Asian origin - Chinese Jiang Chen. Tuan Lam was not discouraged by his modest achievement, and entered the following year's WSOP. This time he fared somewhat better, landing the forty-sixth position and netting $7,153.
In poker-scene terms, the $10,000 No Limit Hold'em tournament at the 2007 WSOP was an event of almost historic magnitude for the poker world. A field of 6,358 had thinned down to a pair of relatively-unknown players - Tuan Lam and Lao-born Jerry Yang, whose prior record was even less impressive than Lan's. The two players' paths to the final table were quite different - Yang had been calling his opponents non-stop, while Tuan Lam had simply "Folded his way in," as one television commentator said, and was a favorite with bookies, who gave him 7 to 2 odds winning the event. The game was a close one, with Lan seeming more confident than his opponent, who kept a demure facade. The final hand was certainly one to remember: Yang had a 6 on the river, defeating Lan's pair of queens. Tuan Lam came in second, somewhat consoled by the $4.8 million he won. The absolute lack of correlation between his his 2005 and 2007 WSOP experiences was amazing: he netted nearly 1,500 times his 2005 cash, going from 'incognito' to 'paragon' in what could very much be considered a flash.
Life has been kind to Tuan Lam since the 2007 WSOP. Like rival Yang, his winnings allow him to support Southeast Asian charitable causes. Considering his 2007 victory, it was only a matter of time before Lan was asked to join an online poker portal. As a team member for PokerStars, he now does much of his damage online.