| ANYONE CAN NGUYEN
Ever the punster, legendary tournament director Jack McClelland came over to me when the outcome was no longer in doubt and said. "Mike, I know your headline tomorrow. 'Come to the Bellagio, anyone can Nguyen. '"
Thanks, Jack. I was running out of 'Nguyen Wins' gags. What with Men the Master, Scotty the World Champion and Minh Nguyen, Men's protégé, cashing so often what the poker pros needed is another Nguyen. Now we have another one.
31-year-old ex-dealer Van Nguyen won the first event at the Festa Al Lago III in startling fashion. In his first Final Table in a major ever, Van drove to victory over the prostrate body of beginning chip leader Tuan Le.
But let's start at the beginning.
At 3pm on the dot, the cards were in the air. The nine starters had played 15 hours the night before to get here and evidently they didn't want to play any longer than necessary.
FINAL TABLE
Seat/Player/Hometown/Chip Count
Seat 1 Brock Bourne Las Vegas NV 80,000
Seat 2 Tuan Le Los Angeles CA 243,000
Seat 3 Michel Abecassis Paris, France 100,000
Seat 4 John Pires San Jose CA 115,000
Seat 5 Philip Siegel Lemoore CA 12,000
Seat 6 Chris Tsiprailidis Syracuse NY 20,000
Seat 7 Richard Brodie Kirkland WA 14,000
Seat 8 Van Nguyen Toronto, Canada 145,000
Seat 9 Leonardo Feinzaig San Jose, Costa Rica 13,000
Ante 1,000 Blinds 2,000/4,000 34 minutes left in this level.
This was a writer's dream Final Table. The whole thing lasted one hour and ten minutes start to finish. That's a lot less time than it takes to write the report about it. Three guys were out in the first ten minutes, before even one orbit could be completed.
With 734,000 chips on the table and nine players the average beginning stack was about 80k or 20 big blind bets. But four of the players had a severe problem. With 20,000 or less each, they were just looking for decent hands to go all-in on.
This is a McClelland tournament. No namby-pamby 'pay everybody' schedule for Jack. The money is in the top three places and everyone else can starve. The difference between 9th and 6th was only $6k, so why not find a hand and shove it. That's what they do on TV, isn't it?
On the very first hand, Leonardo Feinzaig reaches for a hand from god In the small blind with only 10,000 in chips left after the blind and ante, Leonardo has no paint with the 5 3 of Diamonds. It was San Jose vs. San Jose and the north beat the south. John Pires has A 6 offsuit and the Ace high holds up. One hand, one out. Little did we know that this was going to be the theme of the table.
A few minutes later all heck breaks loose.
Richard Brodie wants to be nicknamed the 'Quiet Lyin'' I mean Lion. (Sorry Richard, but like Chris Berman I prefer to give my own nicknames.)
Richard goes all-in for his case 11,000 with K Q off and starts a fire storm down at the other end of the table.
In the small blind, Tuan Le calls. That brings Michel Abecassis in for a call as well from the big blind. The flop comes 3 2 2. Both blinds check. The turn is a horrible card for the Frenchman Michel. It's a 4. Two diamonds, two clubs. Abecassis has 10 4 off. Now Michel thinks he has the best hand with the top two pair.
When the loosest player at the table, Tuan Le, bets 30k into you and you have only 86k in your stack the temptation is irresistible to go all-in. Sacre Bleu! Michel probably didn't expect Tuan Le to call the extra 56k.
If he did, Michel must have been sure his two pair were golden. Mai No! Tuan stuns Michel by flipping up 6 5 offsuit for the nut straight. Jack McClelland says, "Michel needs a four or a deuce, Richard needs to take a bus home." The river's a trey and we're down to six players in under ten minutes. Amazing. 15 hours on and 10 minutes off. That's No Limit Final Table poker. Richard takes a quiet Brodie in 8th while Michel is 7th because Abecassis started the hand with more chips. The ebullient Philip Siegel comes over the shake Tuan's hand. Phil has moved up three spots by behaving himself.
Richard felt Michel made a bad play, Jack and I thought it was understandable under the circumstances. It's fun to disagree. Maybe Michel just calls or doubles the 30k and mucks a reraise. Maybe Michel can't muck his hand if he's reraised. What would you do?
Before we could complete one orbit around the table, there is one more fatality to dispose of. Chris Tsiprailidis is a Final Table habitué. But his starting 20k is becoming dog meat fast. Chris does 'The Shove' for 16k in the cutoff seat with K 10 off.
Tuan Le has the button and 2/3's of the chips on the table. He calls the peanut raise with A 7 off and hits a 7 on the flop. Chris flops out in 6th.
After winning his first three all-ins, reality hits Philip Siegel in the face. This isn't a love story, players have to leave. His high fives are about to be history.
Phil falls for an A 4 offsuit and goes all-in for his last 40k. Tuan Le is calling everything at this point and why not? It keeps working.
Tuan has A K off on the button. Philip 'Jonathan Livingston'
Siegel flies off in a very fortunate 5th.
The next few minutes are some of the most amazing this grizzled reporter has every seen.
Tuan Le is trying to run over the table. He doesn't have to. He could fall asleep and finish no worse than second. Yet in some misplaced machismo, Tuan is raising pots with a bet of 100k or so. There is 16k of blinds and antes in the pot. Remember Le has 2/3's of the chips on the table at over 500k. Tuan is flirting with a self-trapping disaster in No Limit.
Disaster strikes.
Van Nguyen makes it 21k to go from the cutoff seat. For some unfathomable reason Tuan goes all-in from the small blind. I guess he thinks Van will fold like Tuan had to the hand before when Van went all-in over the top of Tuan's raise. Anyway, Van calls immediately and without hesitation plunks down his Phil Hellmuth's (Two black 9's, Phil's Championship hand).
Macho-man Tuan Le is stuck with A J off against the only guy at the table who can hurt him. Well, we wouldn't have a story if the A J won. Suddenly, after dominating the table from the outset, we have a new chip leader.
Now it's Van Nguyen who has 2/3's of the chips. And these are one-way chips unlike Tuan's. This puppy is over.
Never play A J offsuit. On the first hand he held it, Tuan loses most of his chips. On the very next one, Le gets A J off again. This monster can't get cracked twice in a row, can it? Tuan Le gave away $120,000 today.
That's the difference between 1st place and 4th. Le's A J all-in for 72k runs into an A K held by his nemesis Van Nguyen, the only stack that can eliminate him. See ya!
Did I say never to play A J offsuit? Make that any A J. Brock Bourne is a slow learner. He tries the A J of Diamonds all-in even after seeing what's happened to Tuan Le. Just kidding, Brock. With only 29k left, the Bourne identity was going to be all-in with any decent hand. Van Nguyen (who else?) has pocket 7's which walk Brock to the door in 3rd.
Heads up, Van has a 5-1 chip lead on the prudent John Pires. John let all the others light their own funeral pyres. Pires would have had to double through twice for the chip lead. It wasn't going to happen to Van Nguyen at his first Final Table in a major.
Van has been playing tournament poker for only a year. He finished 46th at this years WSOP and has entered the last five WPT events. He doesn't have to pay the $25,000 fee for the WPT Championship Final next April.
He wins that and a beautiful trophy when his A Q of Hearts catches an Ace on the flop against the 120k all-in of John Pires and the dominated Q 10 of Spades.
Mike Paulle
MikePaulle@PokerPages.com | 
