William “Bill” Chen was born in 1970 and currently resides in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania. He graduated during 1991 with a Ph.D for quantum analizes in mathematics from the University of California, Berkley, and aside from being a good mathematician is also a professional 38 year-old poker player.
After graduating, BILL CHEN started his own research and experimented on how arithmetics can help or even improve poker abillities. He began working for a financial trading company that encouraged poker playing amongst its staff, believing the game would be beneficial to the performance of their employees.
BILL CHEN first appeared in poker world in a No-Limit Hold’em event at the Bycicle Caisno’s Legends of Poker in 2000, where he won $ 41,600. About six years later came his big winings. In the 2006 World Series Of Poker (WSOP) BILL CHEN won a $ 3000 limit Texas hold’em, with a prize of $343,618 in July, 2006, and a $2500 no limit-Hold’em short handed event, receiving $ 442,511 in cash, shortly after the first win. Then, a month later, his participation in the WSOP $ 3,000 Limit Hold’em, won him the 7th place, cashing $22,973.
Although it’s a common belief, that one can play professional poker after atleast a couple years of practice, BILL CHEN has proven exactly the opposite, using specific mathematical methods during his play. The poker player and businessman, has been a participant in the rec.gambling.poker newsgroup for a very long time, is B.A.R.G.E.offshoot and a member of Team PokerStars.
Away from the gamling table, Bill co-authored the book ‘The Mathematics of Poker’ with Jerrod Ankenman, which helps players see that poker is essentially just a game of numbers and nothing more. As a result of that cooperation, BILL CHEN was offered the title of Honorary Chairman by the Churchill Regular Association for Poker, a poker club run by mathematicians at the University of Cambridge. BILL CHEN is also the author of the Chen Formula book, which was published in Lou Krieger's 2000 book Hold’em Excellence.
