Going door-to-door selling Bibles is not the kind of job you’d expect to see on the resume of the top-ranked poker player in the world.

Yet that’s how John Juanda was making a living – along with a little blackjack on the side – when he discovered poker.

Born in Indonesia in 1971, Juanda was a star high-school track athlete before coming to America in 1990 to attend Oklahoma State University. He’d eventually earn his MBA at the University of Seattle, but poker became Juanda’s main vocation starting in 1996.

He has three World Series of Poker bracelets to his name, earning 2002 Tournament Champion Of The Year honors and a host of other accolades.

The year 2004 was especially kind to Juanda; he racked up an impressive 15 appearances at final tables that year, making nearly $1 million and shooting to the top of Bluff Magazine’s player rankings.

Juanda has a reputation as one of the nicest guys on tour – as well as one of the luckiest.

It’s a reputation Juanda enjoys, believing that some opponents are intimidated and become too tight. It helps pay the bills.

Juanda is a familiar face at high-stakes poker, even more so than on the World Poker Tour.

But he doesn’t consider himself a poker nut. If anything, Juanda wants to go back to having a regular job: as a doctor.

No doubt he’ll be successful at that profession, too.