His
persona as a cigarette smoking, hard-drinking, lovable loudmouth
proceeds him every where he goes, from the poker table to the liqour
store. Scotty Nguyen
or "Thuan Nguyen"
is easily one of the top ten tournament spros
active in the world today, a millionaire many times over and amongst
the most cherished members of the poker community.
Yet beneath it
all, he is a boy named Thuan who survived civil war, hard labor and
worse only to reject the metropolis of Chicago because the weather
wasn’t right. Thuan “Scotty”
Nguyen is truly the
Prince of Poker.
Thuan’s
request would be granted and he’d finish his high school career in
Orange County, California then head out to Las Vegas to find his
fortune as a table cleaner in Harrah’s Casino. It was there that
Thuan’s pit manager dubbed the future poker superstar “Scotty”
because Thuan was “just
too hard to say.”
Scotty
Nguyen had his first
poker
experiences at the felt took place at friends' houses, and despite
his inability to take down pots, his ambition led him to pool halls
and backrooms, where he tested his game at the higher levels. When
Scotty Nguyen was
in in his early 20s he moved to Vegas to be closer to the action.
Growing up, he had heard stories about the city, and after arriving
in California his interest in it grew alongside his passion for
poker.
And blessed as he was with an insatiable appetite for excitement and
cards, there was no better place for Scotty to put down roots and
learn his trade.
He
picked up a job cleaning tables at a casino
and somehow managed to
build a bankroll. Scotty then turned to the felt, where he hoped to
transform his poker hobby into a true career. But his game still
wasn't developed enough. He quickly lost his bankroll and took a job
dealing cards, first at Harrah's
Holiday Casino and later,
the Golden Nugget.
Dealing poker turned out to be a valuable career move; Scotty Nguyen sharpened his understanding of the game by observing the methods and mistakes of his customers. He began applying his new knowledge to the low-limit games he played, and his bankroll - and confidence - started to grow. Scotty Nguyen cashed in hundreds of tournaments, including nearly 40 WSOP events, more than a dozen WPT tournaments, and countless standalone events like the California State Poker Championship, Aussie Millions, Poker Superstars Invitational, U.S. Poker Bowl, Caribbean Poker Classic, Monte Carlo Millions and Austrian Masters, to name a few.
Since
Scotty Nguyen's first Series in 1995, he's collected five bracelets
and made history as the first player to ever win both the Main Event
(1998) and the $50k
H.O.R.S.E. Championship
(2008). Furthermore, of the numerous events he's cashed in, he's
final-tabled in nearly half, and has rarely finished outside the top
25.
And his WPT record is nothing to sneeze at either. With more than half a dozen Championship finishes under his belt - most of them at the final table - Scotty holds several World Poker Tour titles and was the first player in history to win the triple crown of a WPT Championship, the WSOP Main Event and the WSOP H.O.R.S.E. Championship.
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