Nguyen, Nguyen baby!
July 16, 2007 | 10:11AM | maudie dot b - gmail d c | |
I was sincerely crushed to read that Scotty Nguyen's bid for a second world championship came to an end just two spots out of final table glory.
Scotty is a player who's grown on me. When poker hit the tubes and became everybody's favorite pastime and passion, Nguyen emerged as a colorful, flashy, quintessential Vegas (baby) personality. He's old school Vegas with a background rich in movie-of-the-week fodder.
He came to the great land of opportunity from Viet Nam at age 14 and took advantage of said opportunity. He's used his great poker skills to help family in his home country. He's not just flash and dash.
Young players could take a page out of his book and learn how to lose with grace. I pulled the following quote from Pauly, who pulled it from BJ Nemeth*:
"First, I want to congratulate all the players here, and I wish the best to all of you. But the most important thing is, I want to thank the fans. Without you guys, we wouldn't have Scotty Nguyen. We're disappointed, but let me tell you, you guys gave me all I need."
At this point, a woman screamed out, "We love you!"
Scotty continued:
"I want to thank ESPN, the Bluff, the whole crews, the whole staff, and everybody here. I wish I could give you more, but for 2007 [he pronounced it as "two-thousand-oh-oh-seven"], that's the end of me. I'll see you back here in 2008."
Scotty is the Cherokee Casino's poker ambassador and hosts an annual tournament in his name. When I was playing up there one weekend, I was surprised to be shaking his hand as he breezed by my table and greeted each one of us as if we were old friends. He has soft hands.
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* I went looking for the source over at Poker Works, but couldn't find it in the short time I had to sling up this post. Pokerworks is doing a great job of its WSOP coverage, but the web-site is not easily navigated. I'm just saying.
