Minh Nguyen has been well known on the Australasian poker circuit for a long time but in 2014 it was his brother Edison Nguyen who was getting all the attention. Well, that was until just a few weeks ago when Minh won APPT Auckland to restore balance to the family bragging rights.
We caught up with Nguyen following his victory to find out how it felt to get the win, his thought process throughout the tournament, why he and opponent Thomas Ward flipped for the title and more.
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Congratulations on winning APPT Auckland. How does it feel to have secured your first major championship?
It feels great! I’ve been playing poker for several years and have come second numerous times so it’s great to finally get that monkey off my back.
Is winning a live title something you’ve always had aspirations to achieve? Or is just a nice bonus that comes along with hard work?
It is definitely more of a bonus as the money is more important than the title for me. However, nothing compares to the feeling of actually winning a tournament regardless of the amount involved. I can also say from experience alone, you actually never feel truly satisfied in a tournament if you come any other placing than first.
You dominated the event for two days – crushing on the bubble to accumulate a big stack, and then using that to your advantage on the final table until you reached heads-up. Up until that point, would you say it was almost a “perfect” tournament? Did you lose any pots at all? At what point did you start to think this was your tournament to win?
The tournament was near perfect for me from Day 2. I started off with a slightly above average stack and was able to find a quick double up right from the start. From there, I was moved to a different table and pretty much won every pot I played. Every time I bluffed my opponent would fold and every time I had a big hand and bet, I would get paid off. I made one bad call early on where I lost a large chunk of my stack, but from that point and continuing through the bubble period, I pretty much won every pot I played. I think the point where I felt I was going to win it was when I knocked out Ben Rendall in eighth place in a cooler hand with my KK vs his QQ. At that point I had around 2.2million, which was about half the chips in play and the next biggest stack was around 500k.
There were some talented players on the final table, but that didn’t deter you from continuing to press your advantage. How important is it for a big stack to maintain aggression, especially on a final table?
It is very important to maintain your aggression and put pressure on the rest of the players. With the largest stack in play you are given the most room and options to push around other players and accumulate chips in the process. I was quite lucky to have such a dominating chip stack that the second largest stack couldn’t put pressure on me, only slightly denting my stack if they had doubled up through me.
Everything went to plan, until Thomas Ward put up a real fight heads up. What did you think of Thomas prior to reaching heads-up? Had you played much before? And why do you think he was able to gain the upper hand heads-up?
I had met Thomas once before in Macau and knew he was a competent cash game player. My only experience playing with him started from the end of Day 2 and then throughout the final table. With regards to heads up, I felt like we both played quite well and were quite evenly matched in this department. I believe he gained the upper hand as there were several hands where I had flopped top pair but had to fold by the river. He later told me on each occasion that he did indeed have a bigger hand, which was a bit of a relief to me.
With chips pretty even, you both agreed to do a deal and then flip for the title. What was the thought process behind flipping rather than playing it out?
At the time, the main reason why I didn’t want to play it out was because I was very tired and I believed we were quite evenly matched heads up. I had so much adrenaline running through me the night before that I had only had a few hours sleep and given how deep the stacks were, it was going to take at least another 4-5 hours to finish. The money meant more to me and because he had all the momentum at the time, it was a good time to make a deal.
Some people may see it as gambling, but when two players are evenly matched heads-up and deep-stacked, would you argue that flipping is really not all that much difference in variance to playing it out, except that it saves everyone many hours of heads-up grinding?
Given how evenly matched I believed we were, I was happy with the decision to flip. He had all the momentum at the time and I was quite tired so I was happy to save on the hours of grinding ahead of us.
Do you think that tournament organizers should look at ways to better allow players to close out tournaments once a deal has been reached? For example, increasing the blind structure? Or do you think it’s not really an issue?
At the time, I didn’t think about it too much but what we could have done was ask for the blinds to be increased and then play it out. I think ideally that should have been the way to go.
You’re always compared with your brother Edison. Now that you’ve matched his victory from Melbourne, do you reclaim bragging rights in the family?
He will always have the upper hand on me as he won the first and bigger ANZPT! I now have pressure on me to bring home the next trophy, and then bragging rights are all mine!
You can follow Minh Nguyen on Twitter - @Miksta2
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