An Open Letter

For the past 15 years, I have traveled all around the country to play poker tournaments. During these years, I have won so many tournaments that I can't count them all. Some of them include the World Series, the Hall of Fame, state championships, and even Player of the Year in 1997. I have won many all-around point championships, as well. I enter every tournament to play hard and fair. This approach has earned me many titles and the respect of my peers throughout the country. A few months ago, a rumor started and then was posted on the Internet that I was thrown out of Foxwoods because they found tournament chips in my room in 1996.

The following is exactly what happened:

On the very first day I arrived in Connecticut, for the very first tournament I ever played there, I checked into the Double Tree Inn at 2 p.m. I had a roommate, Nhut Tran. I put the room under both of our names, but used my credit card. After checking in, I went down to the pool, where I saw Kenny Flaton. We chatted for a while and then I went to the casino to play in a supersatellite. Nhut Tran stayed in the room. He was heating up some food when the smoke detector went off. Nhut, I later found out, took the smoke detector out of the wall. Smoke was still in the room when he left for the casino. Someone passing by our room saw smoke coming out of it and notified the management. Since my name was on the registration card, the hotel thought that I did it, and sent security to get me from the casino. When I got to the room, there were four fire engines outside and security and hotel staff there. Hotel management was very mad that the smoke detector was removed and that a fire hazard had been created. I told them that I hadn't done anything, that I was innocent. Even though they saw that I had a roommate and that I was innocent, they told me to check out because my roommate and I were not welcome there anymore.

Notice, at no time have I mentioned any tournament chips. The reason I have not mentioned tournament chips in this story is because there were none. None were ever found in my room, or anywhere else. How could any have been found? I wasn't even there a full day. The only time I traveled from the casino to the hotel was with security, so how could I have any chips?

The gossipers and the liars, who for whatever reason choose to try to damage my reputation, made up that part of the story. While leaving my room, I ran into Mike Sexton; he thought it was a terrible thing that they were throwing me out. He is my witness that the whole thing was about the smoke and the smoke detector, not any tournament chips! To those of you who know and respect me, I know you'll understand why I felt this had to be written. For those of you who choose to believe that my reputation is in question, I will be playing at a casino near you very soon, so don't hesitate to stop by and ask me personally, or E-mail me with any question that you may have.

Sincerely,

Men Nguyen

[email protected]

Editor's note: Kathy Raymond, director of poker operations at Foxwoods, has confirmed Nguyen's account of the story.