Scotty Nguyen

Thuan B. Nguyen, who plays professional poker under the name of Scotty, is of Vietnamese origins, settled in the US. One of the most active professional poker players in the industry, Scotty Nguyen has won almost all types of World Series of Poker (WSOP) events except an event based on the poker variant 2-7 lowball. 

Early Life

The Vietnam-born Scotty migrated to America with his foster parents when he was 14 years old. He had fled to a refugee camp in Taiwan when he was just 11 and had to wait till he was 14 to get his new foster family.

Right from day one, he was fond of poker and had to face expulsion from school because he played too much poker. He later enrolled for croupier training and landed a job at Harrah’s. Scotty began his poker career as a tiny fish at the poker tables, blowing up most of his earnings.

Poker Career

In 1985, Scotty was invited to be the dealer at a No Limit Hold’em tournament in Lake Tahoe. He worked as a croupier all day and spent the night playing cash poker games, building a bankroll of $7,000. After getting back to Las Vegas, he further built it to $1,000,000 and felt greatly encouraged. Scotty became famous and soon found himself playing against the top professional poker players of the day. Unfortunately, Scotty lost his poker earnings after getting addicted to drugs and alcohol and was forced to build his bankroll again from scratch.

Scotty is known to be an emotional player with little control over his millions. He blows them up as easily as he makes them. For instance, he won WSOP 1997 $2000 Omaha 8 or Better and added a cool $150,000 to his bankroll, which he blew up in just one year.

Scotty has reached the WSOP final tables several times and also won a WPT championship in 2006. He won the Los Angeles Poker Classic $10,000 H.O.R.S.E World Championship at the annual LA Poker Classic Series launched by Commerce Casino in 2009, adding a cool prize of $339,743 in the process.

By 2010, Scotty had made over $11,250,000 by winning live tournaments alone; and $4,727,717 of this came from winning WSOP events.

Personal Life

Born on October 28, 1962, the 48-year-old player is affectionately called The Prince of Poker and The Train by his innumerable fans. Scotty loves his fans and gives them an important place in his life, always ready to provide them with autographs and photographs. He also communicates with his fans regularly on Twitter and sometimes even calls them up.

Scotty has featured in a poker film called The Big Blind in 1999. He has also appeared in a Diet Pepsi advertisement in 2006 and on Late Night with Conan O Brien in 2004.

Scotty Nguyen is fond of his family, garden, and exotic pets—a cat, a monkey, and a serval. When he is not playing poker, he can be found at his home in Las Vegas with his wife and kids.