He’s not just an unknown 39-year-old Vietnamese-American gambler named Qui Nguyen anymore. He’s written his name in poker history, winning the main event and taken home a whopping eight million dollar prize, along with the famous WSOP bracelet. Before he won the WSOP Main Event, Qui Nyugen had won just $50,000 in all recorded live poker tournaments and his biggest win was $9,029. In my opinion, it’s a great thing for the poker industry, that an unknown poker player can win the biggest poker tournament of the year. Nguyen immigrated from Saigon in 1999, coming to the “very different” world of the United States. He opened a small nail salon, where he saved enough money to fund his love for gambling. Baccarat is his favourite game but discovered poker during his time in California.
The 2016 World Series of Poker attracted just short of 110,000 players who competed for $221,211,336 in prize pools over the 69-event, 51- day extravaganza.
In short, Nguyen a self confessed gambler, gambled his way to victory, putting his opponents under immense pressure with his aggressive poker style. “I worked hard to get there, it’s not easy,” he said. The heads up action began with a chip advantage to Vayo who had about 60% of the chips in play.
| Player | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|
| Gordon Vayo | 200,300,000 | 125 |
| Qui Nguyen | 136,300,000 | 85 |
This lead didn’t last long and within half an hour, Nguyen took over the chip lead. He managed to keep control of his game and continued with his aggressive play and even snap shoved a few hands. However, Vayo managed to regain the lead and it looked as if Vayo was going to win, the two players battled it out for over 90 minutes.
Once again the tables turned and Nguyen then took control of the heads up match and at one point had 80% of the chips. This forced Vayo to move all in and the odds were against Vayo. They both went all in, when a queen came on the flop. Nguyen was holding AQ against Vayo’s Q5 But Vayo got lucky and hit a runner-runner flush to keep his hopes alive, and play continued.
A little over two hours later, Nyugen had quickly recovered the chips he had lost and the game was drawing to a close. Nyugen then delivered the final crush to Vayo and took the $8,000,000 Prize along with the WSOP Bracelet. You can watch the final action here: