Scotty Nguyen

Thuan “Scotty” Nguyen was born on October 28, the first of 13 children. At the early age of 11, he left Vietnam for American. After years of manual labor in Tawiwan, he finally made it to America at the age of 13. Nguyen grew up in Orange County, California and then moved to Vegas, a place he dreamed of. His first job was cleaning tables at Harrah’s Casino under the name Scotty, simply because no one could pronounce “Thuan.”

Shortly after his move to Vegas, Nguyen started dealing poker, learning poker and playing poker. He quickly moved up to tournament level and had a few bumps in the road as he progressed. He dealt poker until he saved up enough money to quit all together. At the age of 23, Nguyen started to make a name for himself.

In May of 1998, Nguyen made it to his first World Series of Poker Championship event. After three days he found himself at the final table, knocking out the 6th and 7th place finishers. It was the first time in WSOP history where the final table had only five players instead of six. Using his signature retorts, Nguyen said, “You call this one, and it’s gonna be all over baby,” to his opponent, Kevin McBride. Moments later, Scotty Nguyen was crowned the world champion of poker, with four WSOP titles.

In January of 2006, Nguyen won the World Poker Tour championship title and currently has four WPT titles. He’s the third in the world to have won both competitions.