Nick Laurrell

Thuan Nguyen was born a different man than most will know him when he dies. Thuan was born on October 28, 1962 in Nha Trang in the war-torn nation of Vietnam, the first of 13 children born to his parents.

What is Omaha and how do you play it? With Hold’em tables overflowing with players, many new players are heading over to the Omaha games. So with that in mind, here is a guide for getting started at Omaha and making sense of Omaha Hi-Lo as well.

Barry Greenstein is a unique and cherished member of the poker community. Not only is he the only poker player to have won at least 3 WSOP bracelets and 3 WPT events, he’s the only player to give all of the money won from those 3 WSOP victories and 3 WPT victories to charity. For more than a decade, Greenstein aka “Robin Hood of Poker” has been donating every penny of his tournament winnings to children’s charities. That would mean that Barry has given away about $8 million.

Phil Ivey was born in California in 1976, but his family moved to New Jersey when he was months old. Growing in a city famous for its gambling, Ivey’s family wanted to prevent him from becoming another hustler, so his grandfather famously cheated Phil Ivey while teaching him to play Five-Card Stud at the age of 8. But Ivey was not discouraged, and he was playing for money as early as 16.

Some players get their fifteen minutes of fame at the WSOP Main Event final table and are never seen from or heard from again. 2007 WSOP Main Event champion Jerry Yang is a good example of that.

The third largest stack in the 2008 November Nine (the WSOP Final Table) is a young Canadian player with the perfect poker pedigree: Scott Montgomery, born in 1981 to a card-playing family in Perth, Ontario, grew up to study mathematics at the University of Waterloo (like other poker legends such as Bill Chen.)

Young Danish pro Peter Eastgate could make history at this year’s WSOP – at 22 years old, he could beat Phil Hellmuth’s record as the youngest player to win the Main Event (Hellmuth was 24 at the time.) Eastgate looks every bit as young as he is, and a definite advantage of all the publicity stemming from the Final Table is that he probably will not be carded as often when entering a casino.

Ivan Demidov is the latest in a series of Russian natives finding incredible success at the WSOP. Last year’s WSOP saw Russian pro Alexander Kravchenko win the first bracelet in Russian history to go along with 6 other cashes, while this year saw Nikolay Evdakov obliterate the previous single WSOP record of 8 cashes by making 10 cashes himself.

David Rheem is a successful tournament pro based out of Miami, FL. His trademark sunglasses and hooded sweatshirt disguise an extremely talented up and coming player.

Curly-haired New Yorker Ylon Schwartz is a career hustler: he started playing chess on the streets in Manhattan when he was 13 before widening his repertoire to pool and horse betting. A friend suggested that if he wanted to be a real hustler he would have to master several games, so he also took up poker and backgammon.

Stu Ungar, the brightest star in poker, blazed his way through circuits and tournaments with a superhuman poker skill till he ended his days as a burnt-out supernova in a haze of drugs and debt. Born in September 8, 1953 in New York, he came from solid gaming stock: his father Ido Ungar was a loan shark who ran a gambling saloon, familiarizing Stu with gambling from an early age. In spite of his parents’ attempts to keep him away from gambling, he won a gin rummy tournament at the age of 10 and by 23 he had earned an excellent reputation as a card player. After his father’s death he took up full-time gin rummy to support his mother and sister, and he turned to alleged mafia boss Victor Romano who became a father figure to him, protecting him in the New York back-alley casinos.

Ted Forrest’s fans claim he is not only one of the best poker players in the world, but one of the nicest as well, and he is highly respected by his peers because of his manners and poise. One of his biographers, Michael Craig, writes about buying a car with Ted: when asked what he was looking for, Ted replied, “Good AC.” This from a man who has won 5 WSOP gold bracelets.

Beirut-born Ihsan (Sammy) is famous for his unpredictable poker style, expensive fashion sense and entertaining personality, but mostly for losing to Chris Moneymaker, the poker rookie who made poker an “everyman” game.

The story of Jeff Madsen’s rise to poker power is short – really short. In fact, with the possible exceptions of Stu Ungar and Phil Hellmuth, it is the shortest rise to the top in the history of poker.

It’s a good thing for Absolute Poker to have Mark Seif in their stable of pros. Not only is the two time WSOP bracelet winner a world-class poker talent (particularly in NL Hold’em) but he’s a former attorney.

The legend of Johnny Chan began in 1957 in Guangzhou, China, where Johnny was born. Before Johnny’s 16th birthday, his family had migrated to the US and moved from Phoenix, AZ to Houston, TX in the pursuit of growing the family restaurant business. Johnny worked hard for the family business and at the age of 16, the Chan clan took a trip to Vegas.

Men “The Master” Nguyen is an unlikely messiah. He is loud, brash and borders on abusive at times at the poker table. He is a smoker and a drinker and has even left a WSOP Final Table in no condition to legally drive. But according to Card Player Magazine Men Nguyen has also been the best card player in the world over the past decade.

After Josh Arieh took down his first WSOP bracelet in the 1999 $3,000 Limit Hold’em event, he was asked if he had been intimidated by a final table that included Humberto Brenes, Howard Lederer and John Juanda (link all 3). He said that he didn’t know who any of them were so he didn’t even have a reason to be intimidated.

Thomas James Cloutier was born in October 13, 1939 in Albany, California. He attended the University of Berkeley on an athletic scholarship for baseball and football.