Men Nguyen was born in 1954 in Phan Thiet, Vietnam. At 13, he left school and became a bus driver to help support his family. In 1978, he and 87 other refugees escaped the Communist regime of Vietnam by boat, landing in Pulau Besar in Malaysia. Six months later he was granted public asylum by the United States and moved to Los Angeles, California. He naturalized in 1986. By then, Nguyen already had been playing poker for profit. Earlier, he had booked junkets to Las Vegas and lost a lot of money, earning the nickname "Money Machine." However, he improved his game and won his first poker tournament in 1987 at the Byicycle Club in Bell Gardens, California. It was a
Diamond Jim Brady $330 buy-in seven-card stud eight-or-better tournament.
Then, Nguyen came in second in the Amarillo Slim's Superbowl of Poker at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. It was a $200 buy-in, and he received about $32,000. After that, Nguyen was on a roll. He now has six WSOP bracelets, and his 59 WSOP cashes put him in second place on the all-time list behind Phil Hellmuth. He also made the final table of the 1996 WSOP main event, finishing in fourth place. He made his fifth World Poker Tour final table at the 2008 World Poker Open. He placed third for $241,000.
Nguyen has been named Card Player Player of the Year a record four times (1997, 2001, 2003, 2005).
