Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2006 | 8:12 a.m.
Jeff Haney's sports betting column appears Monday, Friday (gaming) and Wednesday (poker). Reach him at (702) 259-4041 or [email protected].
ROBINSONVILLE, Miss. -- Baby, he's the greatest.
Henderson resident Scotty Nguyen -- whose signature phrases range from "all-in, baby" to "Michelob, baby" to just about anything else "baby" -- outlasted a field of 327 players to win the Gold Strike World Poker Open late Monday night, the latest stop on the lucrative made-for-TV World Poker Tour.
After collecting the event's top prize of $969,421, Nguyen (pronounced "win") called his victory the second most significant in his career as a poker pro, behind only his 1998 World Series of Poker championship event title at Binion's in downtown Las Vegas.
Although he had made several final tables on the World Poker Tour, this was Nguyen's first WPT title.
"Right now I'm not even thinking about the money," Nguyen, 43, said. "I'm just thinking about the World Poker Tour title. I always come so close, and I always blow it.
"I knew I was going to win this one. I said four days ago, I'm gonna do it. And I did it."
Monday's final table at the Gold Strike in Mississippi's Tunica region had a distinct Southern Nevada flavor. Three of the final six competitors were from the Las Vegas Valley -- Nguyen; Gavin Smith, fourth place, $173,052; and An Tran, fifth place, $125,856.
When Nguyen finally got heads-up against 25-year-old Michael Mizrachi of Hollywood, Fla., the two had roughly equivalent stacks of chips, with Nguyen holding a slight lead with about $3.3 million in chips to Mizrachi's $3.2 million.
During a smoke break just before heads-up play began, Nguyen engaged in some of the playful trash talk that had marked the raucous final table.
"I've got to show the young kid how to play poker," Nguyen said.
In his book "Harrington on Hold 'em," tournament champ Dan Harrington quoted the philosopher Thomas Hobbes with regard to heads-up play at the end of a big event. One-on-one play is usually "nasty, brutish and short," Harrington wrote.
Never was that more accurate than Monday night, when the heads-up portion of the program lasted precisely one hand -- setting a World Poker Tour record that might be tied but will never be broken.
Dealt the ace-queen of spades, Nguyen put in a moderate raise. Mizrachi reraised with an ace-jack, and Nguyen went all-in, baby.
Mizrachi called to set up the ultimate win-Nguyen situation. No jack came on the board, and in fact Nguyen made a spade flush to win the tournament.
Just before the final card was dealt, Nguyen got up from his seat, grabbed a microphone and made a gracious announcement about his opponent.
"No matter what the last card is, I have to give this man credit," Nguyen said. "He can play poker. The last couple of years, he showed the world."
Mizrachi, one of the most aggressive young stars on the poker tournament circuit, said he had no choice but to push all of his chips in with the ace and high kicker on the final hand.
"I did the best I can," said Mizrachi, who won $566,352. "Ace-jack against ace-queen, there's nothing you can do. You've got to gamble to win sometimes."
In another World Poker Tour first, Nguyen and Mizrachi advanced to the final table at the Gold Strike after doing the same at last year's WPT event at the resort. For them, it truly was Highway 61 revisited, as the region's casino district lies just west of that legendary road of the American South.
Whereas they were the first two to exit the final table a year ago, this time they were the last two standing.
"We've known each other for a long time," Nguyen said. "We were the only two to come back from last year's (final table). I always wanted a World Poker Tour championship. So many times, I could almost taste it, baby, you know?
"You know, baby, it is so sweet."
Doug Dalton, the Bellagio's director of poker operations who was on hand to witness Nguyen's victory, said jokingly now that Nguyen has collected so much prize money, he won't have to deal poker anymore.
More than 20 years ago, Dalton hired Nguyen, who came to America from Vietnam on a boat, to deal at the Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas.
By his own admission, Nguyen wasn't exactly a model employee.
"He was always off playing in poker tournaments," Dalton said.
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