Jeffrey Anderson wrote a great article about Nguyen in the LA Weekly - covers the chips/room fire, and his "apprentice" program.

I've found it in the past but haven't been able to bring it up now - perhaps someone else can find it - it's worth it.

Dealing with the Master
Men the Master and His Vietnamese Poker Cartel
by Michael Kaplan
http://pokerworks.com/article-166.html

Good catch, nflods.

That's the article. Google made me think it was by someone else.

Fantastic read.

When you stand within a foot of Men, you realize how respectable the people you thought were *******s really are.

great read!

a quote about what negreanu said:
"If you are looking for first hand knowledge, that I feel comfortable
sharing, this is an absolutely first hand fact. I'm curious as to how
you feel about the following hand, and comments that followed:
In 98', after I won a bracelet and had some money, both Men and I
put Nhut Tran into a limit hold'em event, each putting up half the
money. Down to three tables, Men had a moster stack, while Nhut only
had 4 small bets left. Men raised in 1st position, and everyone
folded to Nhut. Who then re-raised it to three bets. When the bet
came back to Men, he had to call one small bet, as well as one more
small bet to get Nhut all-in...he FOLDED! That alone is a cardinal
sin by any competent player, that should have been punished, but
wasn't.
That's not all. Men then takes me aside to the corner and says, "I
had to throw the hand away to keep Nhut alive! We have big percent,
so I have to give him chip." So in other words, Men dumped chips to "

nguyen did this for himself, tran AND negreanu.
I can understand someone not liking "cheating" but I cant understand calling somebody out that wanted to "cheat" in your favor
its not cheating to nguyen (and tran and myself and I think a lot of others), its just a logically decision he made. arent you guys always talking about +ev?
to me thats just what he did: take the action that suits his interests the best.

and a quote from the artice I (and hopefully you, too) just read:

"is earliest recollections are set in the South Vietnamese seaside town of Phanthiet, 150 miles outside of Saigon. During Men’s formative years there, he saw American soldiers slicing ears from wounded Viet Cong and slipping the souvenirs inside their star-spangled shirt pockets. Dead bodies, bomb blasts, midnight interrogations — those things were regular occurrences in young Men’s world. “A friend was about to get married,” he remembers. “The night before his wedding, a bomb dropped on his house and he died. Things like that happened all the time.”"

to my eyes he is a hero. he once had nothing and now he conquered his enemy (you, the fat and rich americans)
but he still shows respect for the single person when hes dealin with him.
to men, its easy: you just have to try and do everything you can to make more money in a game where you can make money by just saying "call, raise, fold".
also he is is helping other vietnamese to get out of their poverty.

I think when you think about where he came from and how he appears to see the (poker-) world its perfectly undertstandable that he doesnt give a **** about poker etiquette.
in internet poker, some peole use screennames with the intention to tilt their enemys (9/11 references for instance)
I cant see slowrolling as worse than that.

See, I have to defend the Devilfish. I played with him at the 2006 WSOP. He was actually very nice to me, and even went as far as to buy me a beer at the Milwalkee's Best tend out by the port-o-johns. Had a few great conversations with the guy, and he was nothing but helpful to my poker game.

nguyen did this for himself, tran AND negreanu.
I can understand someone not liking "cheating" but I cant understand calling somebody out that wanted to "cheat" in your favor
its not cheating to nguyen (and tran and myself and I think a lot of others), its just a logically decision he made. arent you guys always talking about +ev?
to me thats just what he did: take the action that suits his interests the best.


That's not +Ev, that's collusion, numbnuts. Are you kidding me that you don't know the difference?

The slowrolling thing in that setting is deplorable. I can see in a friendly cash game where it's an obvious chop, and it's funny, etc. He was doing it to be a dick, pure and simple.

Bad form, sir.

So you have no clue what collusion is?

Really? dumping chips is not collusion?

I really hope you are attempting to level here.

You already posted that above n hour ago Spiff, better wait till he comes back eh?

Just because somebody can, on occasion, be nice, does not make them a nice person. I also met Devilfish once, in Aruba, where me and my buddies got drunk with him and his friends. He was a good laugh and we had a fun evening. Yet this in no way makes up for the countless times he is unpleasant to people at the tables. Anyone who saw the recent UK poker programme where he swears unrepentantly at the female dealer several times wouldn't be under any illusions that he is a nice guy, imo.

yes.
and only because nguyen maybe cheated on and doesnt behave nice to his enemys this doesnt mean he isnt a good person.

yes. dumping chips is collusion.
I personally never colluded and I would of course never play in a game where I may suspect there might be collusion.
yes I would get very mad or even call the police or whatever if somebody colluded on me.

but I really cant blame anyone for colluding. how dare I?
everyone is responsily soley (is this an english word? spelling?) on his own life and his own actions.
in this our own world nobody has to be nice or fair to others if hes willing to take the risk not to be.

not killing someone who will grant you anything good is just as a smart action as any other at the poker table.

say the enemy that always acts after you is extremely passive and never calls any move you make but is not your friend.
why would you kill him if its in your interest him staying where he is.
as long as he is alive, you get the button twice, maybe he even will get some chips by others and you can take them slowly slowly...

is this collusion?

or maybe there is a bigstack maniac at the table terrorizing everyone.
finally he loses a big pot and now is killable.
he shoves and three players that are not friends to each other call, primary to get rid of him.

is this collusion?

these are examples of doing things that suit your interests best although they arent nice - but not forbidden.

can you feel why some (most?) people do this things?
its for the same reason one would dump chips to someone he staked.
in fact it would be dumb to kill your horse since his tournament life is of more worth to you than the few chips he got.

Of course I think staking people in a tournament where you play yourself and/or one person/group staking multiple players in one tournament should simply be forbidden.

but then again its standard for a lot players to swap or sell some piece of their action.
I think this kind of collusion (not killing someone if you benefit from it) is superstandard in tournaments.

lets say you play a big tournament and swapped 20% (or whatever..) with another player.
no one can tell me that they not at least tighten up their range to call an all in from that player at least a littlebit.

thats collusion.

Okay, at least you now admit this is collusion, and therefore cheating which is something.

But no, in no-one's eyes does this make it ok. I agree there are a lot of players in live play who will soft play their opponents, however blatant chip dumping as described by Negraneu is not soft playing, it's chip dumping, and therefore cheating.

would you then say this is not simplycheating?

Did you read my part on soft play above? Of course it's cheating, harder to catch and prove than chip dumping, and much more common, but still just as much cheating.

There was an interesting discussion on this when Tuan Le and Hassan Habib made the final 3 at the WPT Championship (2005?). Tuan was short stacked and shoved with QJo. Hassan was in the BB, was getting pretty decent odds to call, and had KJs. He folded. It turned out they both had pieces of each other in the tournament. As laggy a player as Tuan is known to be, people thought it was softplaying. This laydown most likely cost Hassan the championship.

Another thing. This really bothers me. He lived through the horrors of Viet Nam. Ok I get that. I'm sorry about that, really I am. But so did Scotty Nguyen. He came over to this country on a raft, etc., and he's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. Very competitive, but not a cheat. Having negative experiences in your background doesn't give you carte blanche to rob people, period.

That's true, which is why I never would swap 20% with someone. Can people please stop defending persistent, blatant, premedititated cheats by implying that everyone cheats a little bit sometimes. Even if that were true, the degree makes a big difference.

There are allot of things "out of line" that occur in poker tournaments, one of which is having a cheering squad on the rail - If there is a crowd behind you cheering when you are percieved to go broke then a slowroll and "**** you" to the crowd is warranted IMO!!!! I would never di it but im not so quick to fault those that do...


I think that players like "RainKahn" show just as little class in tournaments with his "antics" as anybody else!!!

how do you know he doesnt or did in the past?

I don't, but if he had, I'm sure the fine citizens of this forum would have informed me. He buys railbirds Heinikens ffs!

You wouldn't by any chance be seemorenuts on fullcontactpoker.com?

Same crazy rant defending Men there.

You are saying it's okay for Men to cheat because sometimes you have to cheat to win/make money?

By your logic everyone should cheat whenever they feel like it, because they can profit from it? What a great place the world would be..

Who here posted the youtube vid of men cheating?? do we have evidence of this or just gossip??

It's interesting how this started out as a mens an ******* thread to being men is a convicted cheat, yet no proof has been brought....

I am not saying that men has not done these things but i'm surely not going to say that he has and neither should any of you!

Why not?

Why not spread rumours?? is that the question??