The life of Scotty Nguyen, coming to your local bookstore soon!

This morning I was checking some e-mails, facebook and my twitterpage and stumbled upon this tweet: TheScottyNguyen ‘New Blog Post Baby! I Need A Writer For My Book Baby!’ I followed the link and it’s true. Scotty is looking for a writer to capture his life on paper.

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Scotty Nguyen winning 4 million dollars at the 2009 WSOP?

At the L.A.P.C. two months ago Scotty Nguyen declared that he would win 4 million dollars at the next WSOP. If he wouldn’t do it he would quit his job, meaning he would not play poker anymore for the rest of his life.

I just watched some of the reactions from some other pokerpro’s about Scotty’s bold statement. You can find the clip here. To be honest I do not believe Scotty will win the 4 million dollars at the next WSOP. I am ruding for him of course. But you have to be realistic about these things. Four million is a high standard to set for yourself! And I believe it’s a bit too high. I wouldn’t ever make such a statement against myself.

The majority of the pro’s that are interviewed have the same opinion as I have. He will not make 4 million and he will not quit playing poker if he doesn’t make the 4 million. Except Annie Duke. She is a bit blabbering about how it would be better if he just quits. She doesn’t say that in those exact words but it comes down to just that. I think it would be a shame if Scotty quit playing poker. Not only do I have to look out for a new favourite player :-), but it would be a loss to the entire game! Scotty’s a great player and has been a good ambassador for the game for most of the time (except for his behavior at the final table of the 50k HORSE-event at the 2008 WSOP). And like Daniel Negreanu said: ‘He can’t quit, he has 417 kids to feed!’

What I do believe that is positive about this statement is that he’s going to be very focussed on doing very good at these World Series! And that’s also good for me :-)! As me favourite player Scotty is my team-captain for the WSOP-bet I have going on with some of my close friends. He will play at his best to get close to winning that 4 million, and winning me my bet!

We’ll just have to wait and see what aces he might have up his sleeves!

Mickey C

Scotty Nguyen wins LAPC 10k H.O.R.S.E.-event!

Just a few days after I won our HSOP H.O.R.S.E.-event Scotty Nguyen captures the LAPC H.O.R.S.E.-event! Although I am extremely busy for school I just found a bit of time to write this small post on Scotty’s win. I followed the event a bit on Cardplayer.com during the past few days. And every time I checked in on the chipcounts Scotty was doing pretty good. They went into the final day with 16 players still in it. As you know a final table exist of normally 8 players in a HORSE-event but they decided this time to play a 9-handed final table.

The last nine standing were:
1: John Monnette
2: Matt Graham
3: Kenny Tran
4: Jeff Madsen
5: Amnon Filippi
6: Chris Tsiprailidis
7: Chino Rheem
8: Bob Golick
9: Scotty Nguyen

John Monette was the first to fall earning a nice $29,491 for his efforts. They played two entire levels before another player was knocked out, Amnon Filippi became the seventh place finisher earning $40,550 in the proces. Next player to bust was Bob Golick earning a nice bit of pocket-money $52,531. After the elimination og Golick Scotty Nguyen surged into the chiplead becoming more vocal by the minute. A repeat of his WSOP HORSE-antics? Scotty always has some fun playing poker, otherwise he wouldn’t be the Prince of Poker anymore. This time he didn’t take it as far as he did at the World Series, he just is a loud entertaining player :-)!

After the elimination of Matt Graham in fifth place earning $66,355, Chino Rheem got on a role and didn’t look back until heads-up play. He took out both Chris Tsiprailidis in fourth place earning $86,630 and Jeff Madsen in third place earning $122,573. After knocking out both players Chino’s stack evened that of Scotty Nguyen. After a short break the two remaining players decided to chop up the prize money and part of the deal was that Scotty would win the event and Chino would finish runner up.

I’m a bit amazed by the ending of this event. They were both even-stacked starting heads-up play and in that scenario I would understand why they would chop up the prize-money but why not battle it out for the title? I’m sure I would do something like that :-)! But I’m happy for Scotty! Once again he proves he’s amongst the top players in the game!

Some things on a sidenote:
- I had a bet against the Mad Man (even odds), I bet him Scotty Nguyen would first win a tournament before Daniel Negreanu would. So I won this one :-)!
- Tonight we are playing some Omaha8 in our two-weekly cashgame. I’m looking forward to it and hope to end the night with a profit. But we’ll see.
- Next sunday: our sixth edition of TPC. I’m not that nervous now maybe it’s because I’ve won the last two small tournaments we’ve played, I don’t know. But what I do know is that I want that bracelet! I’m gonna try as hard as I can. For the people who are playing sunday, good luck and I’ll see you there!

Mickey C

Happy Birthday Scotty!

Yep, today the 28th of October: it’s Scotty’s birthday baby! Scotty was born in 1962 as the first of 13 children (omg 13!!!!) At the age of 11 Scotty fled his war torn home country of Vietnam. He took his younger brother with him and their sight was set on America! They first fled to the nearby country of Taiwan. The boat they were on got lost and they almost ate (yeah you read this right) Scotty’s younger brother because there was no food or water anymore. Scotty convinced them not too and a day later they were rescued! They stranded there in a refugeecamp for two years.

At the age of 13 Scotty got a sponsorship for Chicago. Due to the inclement weather of which he was not accustomed to, he requested a new sponsor that would be located in an area with weather more like his homeland.  His request was granted and he received a new sponsor in California. Scotty went trhough school their and later moved to Las Vegas. Their he got a job as a dealer working for Harrah’s casino’s. That’s where he learned his pokerskills, watching the winning and loosing players. Scotty now stands 6th in the All Time Money List for tournament earnings, with over $10 million. He holds 5 WSOP bracelets and a WPT-title. So you can say that life has been good for Scotty! He now resides in Vegas with his beautiful wife Julie, his kids and his two monkeys! 

Enjoy your birthday Scotty!

Mickey C

Scotty ‘The Prince of Poker’ Nguyen

As you can see on the right side of my website, my favourite poker player is Scotty Nguyen ‘The Prince of Poker’. Let me first tell you how he became my favourite player. The first actual poker-shows I saw were the episodes from the Main Event of the World Series of Poker 2007 (No Limit Hold’em tournament with a buy-in of $10,000). During this event Scotty made a deep run to eventually finish 11th, so close to the important final table. While I was watching these episodes Scotty kept popping unto the screen while he was busting player after player. It was his flamboyant appearance and his funny little catchfraises that let me fall in love with the character that is ‘Scotty Nguyen’. The whole character with the accent, the sunglasses, the bling and offcourse his confidence made me look up to this man. ‘Beople look up to me’ he says in his funny vietnamese accent. And I believe that to be very true.

Knowing where Scotty came from, he IS the American dream. A refugee from wartorn Vietnam arriving in the United States with no money. Starting out cleaning tables at Harrah’s casino. Shortly after he started dealing poker, that is where he gained his knowledge of the game. Watching the winning and losing players. Scotty never looked back! Now he stands 6th in the all time money list for tournament earnings. He holds 5 WSOP-bracelets, including the 1998 Main event and the 2008 50k H.O.R.S.E. and a WPT-title.

Now I would like to say a few words about the 2008 50k H.O.R.S.E. Scotty came out first after a gruelling session of 5 days of top tournament poker with the best players in poker today. He eventually defeated 147 of the best players to win his dream. But his antics during the final table were a bit out of line. Scotty’s behavior during the final table has led to an outburst of critique. He berated players, showed his cards and drank (a lot)! I do not approve of his actions but I can in a way understand them. The pressure that lay on his head after his huge Main event meltdown of 2007, this was his chance to get back on top! He would not let anyone or anybody stand in between him and the title. And eventually that is what he did! I would also like to stress out that ESPN only shows an hour and a half of a final table that lasted for like 14 hours. We only see a little bit of what happened. But it wasn’t pretty and I will admit that. But I wonder why the tournament officials didn’t step in when Scotty got out of line. They never gave him warnings or called a penalty. Scotty should have known better and he was out of line but it’s the tournament officials job to prevent something like this from happening. Anyway I believe he has a long way to go to clean up his image. Once again I will tell you that I do not approve of his actions but I remain a fan of Scotty Nguyen!

Best of luck baby! ;-)