Scotty Nguyen in Pokerista.fi interview: “Ilari Sahamies who?”

• Author: News2
• Filed under: Ilari Sahamies, Poker, Scotty "Baby" Nguyen, Scotty Nguyen, WSOP
• Date: Apr 28,2010

Pokerista.fi interviewed the poker legend Scotty “Baby” Nguyen on March 26th as he was promoting Expekt in Helsinki.

-Scotty representing @ Motellet

Scotty told having chosen Expekt especially because the site does not force him to do anything he doesn’t want to do. Unlike at Full Tilt or PokerStars, at Expekt he is not obliged to play any certain amount of online hours.

Scotty likes to play only now and then with small stakes and is still winning from these games - although he claims not to enjoy playing that much (“I am scared of stealing some old lady’s money”). According to his own words he does not feel well at all if he as a pro ”accidentally” takes money from a beginner or from someone who is suffering from economic problems.

“Ziigmund is a Baby!”

Scotty stated already in the beginning of the interview that he hardly follows the highest stakes online games. But still it was quite surprising that he did not recognize Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies. Showing the picture of Ilari did not make it any easier for him: Nguyen only shook his head slightly embarrassed, smiled and continued in his very own style: “I’m sorry, I’m really bad with faces. All these young guys – they are all Babies to me.”

Despite he finds it hard to remember faces and names, Scotty gives high respect for both online and live professionals. For example the playing conditiong of 76-year Boyle Brunson doesn’t cease to amaze him. Scotty says he really values Doyle’s performance and is sure that he himself won’t probably be able to play poker on the top level in the same age.

Scotty is also very sure that poker will become more and more popular. Texas games will keep their place as the most popular game form and Pot-Limit Omaha – “a funny action game where everyone likes to gamble” – is a good runner-up.

Partying and grilling at Boot Camp

Scotty’s and Expekt’s co-promotion “Scotty’s Boot Camp” shall be a great experience for the players who will qualify there. That is to say Scotty is planning to introduce some Las Vegas nightlife for his “students”. Besides, these players get to feast at Scotty’s barbecue where the maestro himself will be in the role of the grill master. And poker will be discussed there too. Of course.

“Baby, you gotta see the parties at Vegas, and the Babes.. the Babes! We are gonna go all around and check out the Babes, you really gotta see the Babes! Such amazing Babes there, Baby!” (There is no expression on the face of Scotty’s wife who sits next to him, so it looks like she is fully accustomed to her husband’s stories.) ”We’re gonna have an amazing barbeque at my house, on my backyard – you don’t wanna miss it! This is your only chance to have Scotty Nguyen cook for you!”

-The Expekt representant in Boot Camp equipment

WSOP and being sober

Scotty - who is nearly always spotted holding a beer - recently surprised the poker world by giving a promise to stay completely sober while playing live poker tournaments. According to Scotty this decision was based on the negative feedback from the fans after he had messed it up loud during the $50 k H.O.R.S.E. tournament in 2008. Scotty talks long about how much his fans mean to him and clearly understands the value of fans in this more and more showbusiness-alike live poker circus: “They are the reason we’re here!”.

Last year Scotty announced that his goal was to win 4 million dollars from WSOP. But all this turned against him as someone always recognized him and made him to listen to annoying comments. The pressure from the tables was huge; people were shouting like“Hey Scotty, how can you win 4 million if you can’t even make it to the final tables?”.

This year he is not up to expressing any public goals. Instead, his only aim is to play the best possible game he can. To the question of bracelets he gave a laconic answer: “Hey man I gotta win my sixth so I get one closer to Hellmuth”.

Scotty Nguyen has earned an amazing 11,1 million dollars from the live tournaments, and at the moment he is holding the fifth place on the tournament money list of all times.