Men Nguyen - Global Poker Player

Men Nguyen is a highly skilled Vietnamese-American professional poker player who has won many bracelets in World Series of Poker main events and winnings. His strategy and style of playing poker has inspired many players to participate in poker tournaments. Many poker players consider Men as a legendary player in the world of poker.

Personal Life

Men Nguyen was born on 1954 in the beautiful Phan Thiet, Vietnam. At the age of 13, to support his family economically Men quit school and became a bus driver to earn a living.

Men Nguyen was an anti-Communist and so in the early part of 1978, he escaped Vietnam by boat and sailed towards Pulau Besar, Malaysia with his 87 compatriots. And in the same year, he was given political asylum from America and eventually settled in Los Angeles, California.

He gained American citizenship in 1986 and went to Las Vegas, Nevada where he developed interest towards poker and played for the first time. His passion grew extensively and visited Las Vegas every weekend only to lose hundreds of dollars. Because of his trait he earned the nickname "Money Machine."

But with the passage of time, he learnt how to play the intriguing card game and mastered it eventually winning his first tournament in 1987. Men Nguyen invested the poker winnings in his dry cleaning business and furniture store. But as the business was not providing good returns so he sold them in 1990.

He is usually popular for his habit of being brash and abusive at times while playing. Men Nguyen is a smoker and many times he has even left WSOP Final Table without no reasons. But interestingly he has earned such a reputation that the popular Card Player Magazine has termed him as the best card player over the past decade in the world.

Some poker player even calls Men Nguyen as the messiah of poker. He has his own stable of protégés among who includes newbie and belong to native Vietnam. His protégés are made to live by Men’s rules. Most of his protégés have successfully emerged winners in major tournaments among which David “The Dragon” Pham has won the WSOP bracelet.

From his student’s winnings, Men Nguyen claims a portion. Because of his teaching skills, oone of his students nicknamed as "The Master," and currently he popularly known as "Men the Master."

Men is also known as a philanthropic as he philanthropy donates a portion of his earnings to charities in Vietnam. In the year 1996, he built a kindergarten in Vietnam from his earnings of the World Series of Poker.

Currently, Men Nguyen resides in Bell Gardens, Southern California.

Tournaments

Men Nguyen has an impressive poker career which includes winnings and achieving of titles. In his poker life, he has won more than 75 tournaments.

Because of his exceptional and impressive poker skills, Men Nguyen won the Card Player Magazine Player of the Year award in 1997, 2001, 2003 and 2005. He also earns reverence as one of the most accomplished tournament players till date.

Men Nguyen has won 6 World Series of Poker bracelets, 57 World Series of Poker cashes and 9 WSOP circuit cashes. His live tournament earnings amount $10,000,000 (approx). Apart from poker player Johnny Chan, Men Nguyen is known for as a successful non-US player to have played and win major tournaments.

Men Nguyen is a much admired member of the LA community. For his achievements and excellence in poker he was featured in an article in the May, 2003 edition of the magazine LA Weekly.

Certain allegations were raised against Nguyen's possible involvement in cheating during tournaments but so far no evidence is made available. Nguyen has also denied such allegations. In 2011, his live tournament winnings are expected to exceed the whopping amount $10,300,000.

He participated and won WSOP bracelets in the year 1992 (tournament-$1,500 Seven-card stud) winning $120,600, in 1995 (tournament-$2,500 Seven-card stud hi-lo) winning $96,000; 1995 (tournament-$2,500 Limit Texas hold 'em) wining $110,000; 1996 (tournament-$2,500 Omaha hi-lo) winning $110,000; 2003 (tournament-$5,000 Seven-card stud) winning-$178,560; 2003 (tournament-$1,500 Ace to Five Triple Draw Lowball) winning $43,520 and 2010 (tournament-$10,000 Seven-card stud) winning $394,807.