If you were to pick two cities on this planet that are as opposite as cities can possibly be, Saigon and Las Vegas would certainly be leading candidates. Yet, for poker professional Chau Giang, born in 1956 and raised in that Vietnamese city before he left the country in a small boat, Vegas has now become home. This gravitation towards the gambling capital of the U.S. is because, as someone who worked for minimum wage as a cook in a Chinese restaurant, Chau Giang discovered that poker, that most American of card games, paid significantly better.
In his first year of playing fulltime, he made $100,000. But, like taking to sea in a small craft, poker playing is a risky adventure. He lost most of his early winnings on baccarat, and then decided to concentrate entirely on game of poker. Odds are that, if, on a given weekday, you walk into the high-stakes area of the poker room at Bellagio, you’ll find this now Vietnamese-American pro at his craft, usually in a $2000/$4000 mixed game. His fellow players might well include fellow legends Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan and Chip Reese. And, odds are, there will be thousands of dollars in chips, possibly tens of thousands, waiting patiently in front of him for his command. Giang is best known as a full-time cash player, and has been known to win… and then lose...as much as $1 million in a single marathon session. “Poker has a lot of challenges,” he has said, and certainly one challenge is to support…and find time with…his wife and three children. But those challenges include winning tournaments as well. He holds three World Series of Poker gold bracelets: in the Pot Limit Omaha event in 2004 (which featured a dramatic come-from-behind win), where he pocketed $187, 920; in the Omaha 8 event in 1998, for $150,960; and in the Ace to Five Draw in 1993, for $82,800.
