Nguyen is pronounced win. That was true before Scottie Nguyen took down the Main Event, Men “The Master” Nguyen became one of the career leaders in lifetime earnings, Minh Nguyen (which should be Allen Kessler’s Vietnamese name based on pronunciation) won two WSOP bracelets, and any number of Nguyens won a poker tournament. Brunson may be the first family in poker, but Nguyen is the first name in casino poker. Therefore it’s no surprise Cuong Nguyen is at the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event. The only surprising thing may be that his first name is Cuong and not Scottie or Men.
Cuoung Nguyen unlike the other Nguyen-ers is playing on his fourth live poker tournament. With the aggression that comes so easy to a rank novice Cuong steamrolled through the World Series of Poker’s Main Event early days as cooly as if he were playing a $5 Sit’n go tournaments. His pressure with a big stack and his willingness to let it ride took him quickly to the top of the chipleader board. Unlike many that have come before him he’s stayed there and his aggression hasn’t come back to bite him yet.
Born in Vietnam, Cuong found poker a little late in life, but like the other November Niners he is delighted he found it. The 37 year old Medical supplies distributor from California understood a few key principles in live tournament poker but applied them with the heart of a champion. Aggression wins tournaments, chips win tournaments, and you have to be willing to gamble to win tournaments. Nguyen didn’t sit on his chips, didn’t avoid confrontations, and applied pressure through-out the event.
He returns in November with the eighth largest chip stack and probably is forced to find a new way to play. He won’t be able to bully any of the stacks at the table with only 9.65 million in chips. Though, his aggression early on could certainly flip things back to the way he likes them. The Santa Ana native will be itching to return to his reign of terror on the Main Event felt.
A hand that typifies his fearlessness was a pot he played to knock out Patrick Eskander. Eskander shoved preflop, Nguyen called with Pascal LeFrancois also calling. The board dropped Q910 and Nguyen pushed out a bet. The frenchman left Nguyen to try and knock out Eskander on his own. Nguyen turned over KQ for top pair, Eskander had but A7 for Ace high. The two waited with bated breath as the turn and the river were dealt out. Nguyen breathed a sigh of relief as a 10 fell on the turn, and exhaled even bigger as a King hit the river gave him two pair. Eskander headed for the exit, and could only wish in retrospect a Jack was dropped on the turn instead of the 10.
Nguyen held the chip lead in the entire tournament 22 eliminations prior to that. Nguyen won a huge pot against the chip-leader at the time Theo Jorgensen. Nguyen didn’t mind mixing it up with one of the few guys that could eliminated him on day 6. In a hand that typified Nguyen’s play the California check-raised a pot with top pair.
Perhaps, reckless but successful. The hand had three players see the flop. Nguyen checked, Theo Jorgensen bet out with the board reading Kc5h9c. Nguyen looked at KJ in the hole (jack of clubs) and found the commitment to push a bet over the top, raising Jorgensen’s 525k bet to 1.5 million. Jorgensen pumped that up to four million. That was over half of Nguyen’s stack of 7.6 million.
Nguyen tanked and shoved all-in. Jorgensen called withh the Ac3C for the nut flush draw. When the board bricked out for Jorgensen he was crippled and Nguyen took over the leader spot with almost 20 million in chips.