Justin Bonomo hates Men "the Master"

[pokerbucket]

Frrom Justin Bonomo's blog

SlowRolling Men "the Master"
05-02-2009
Disclaimer #1: Slowrolling is not cool. I've never done it in my life until....

Disclaimer #2: I'm not a hateful person. I can be cynical, but there are very few people I actually wish bad things upon. Men Nguyen just happens to be one of those people. The rest are mostly terrorists and rapists.

So it all started on day 2. Matt Graham was at my table in the Circuit Event. He raised AA on the button, Men moved all-in from the blinds, and Matt insta-called and flipped up his hand. He held and doubled up through Men. After the hand Matt came up to me and said, "Oh my God, that was the perfect slow roll opportunity! I can't believe I didn't think to slow-roll him!"

We had sushi w/ some friends during the dinner break. I told the table how badly Matt butchered a hand with aces. He wasn't sure what I was talking about, so I retold the story to the table. "Ok, so Matt has aces; he raises and Man shoves. Now listen to how badly Matt played this part: He insta-called!!". It became a little inside joke over the next 24 hours.

Going into the final day, I was pretty tilted by Men. Despite the fact that I've caught him cheating three times (and either called the floor or written a blog about it each time), he had no recollection of who I was. I've played with him A LOT too: more than almost anyone I've played with live. He was trying to impress me, showing me his big laydowns, etc. Oddly enough, he wasn't as huge of a douche bag to the dealers as he normally is, but I guess it's because he wasn't losing.

And to make things all the more tilting, he had sucked out on me three times already in the span of about two hours.

Here's a brief summary of Men "The Master" Nguyen for those that don't know:

A few years back he was cooking some rice in his hotel room. A fire started, and hotel workers came in to put out the fire. While there, they discovered a duffel bag full of tournament chips from around the country. For those unfamiliar with live tournaments, you never-ever-ever take your chips off the table. Turns out Men was forcing the players he staked to take chips off from their stacks to give them to him to slip into his stack when no one was looking. This is most likely how he was able to win Player of the Year multiple times.

My personal experiences with him consist of the following:

1) He's a huge douche bag. Constantly mean to dealers, especially when drunk (common) or losing (even more common). He once was so pissed at a ~65 year old gray haired dealer (a good one IMO too) that every time he folded, he would pitch his cards one by one straight into the dealers knuckles. He had surprisingly good aim and force with his throws too. This lasted for about 5 hands before the dealer yelled at him (very rightfully so, that must have hurt).

2) I wrote a blog about him cheating at commerce. Basically he and another player used a common raise + reraise play to knock others out of the pot. This is mostly fine, except after it happened, the opponent folded in a spot where it is NEVER correct to do so (he was getting ~20-1 in a draw game where both players were drawing 1 card. You are never a huge dog in that spot). Turns out the player was backed by him and was forced to softplay him.

3) At Bay 101 Men had a 5k bounty on him. This means that anyone that knocks him out gets $5,000. He became extremely shortstacked and asked the table who would give him $2,500 back if they busted him. A few players said yes, and he said he was only going to go all-in against these players. Matt Savage was called over, and as much as I love Matt Savage, I'm still completely shocked that no penalty was given. This is a ridiculous form of collusion that should result in instant-disqualification.

4) He's also a constant angle shooter. For example one time I saw him split a time pot (the rake for every 30 minutes is taken out of the time pot). Since the pot was split, they gambled to see who would pay the whole thing. "High card on the next hand pays it all" (they were playing Stud 8). Men gets an ace, other guy gets a deuce. Men refuses to pay because he claims ace is low. Ironically, the rules of Stud 8 stipulate that the low card brings it in, so the deuce brought it in. Men continued to refuse to pay. Everyone at the table agreed Men was wrong except for the Vietnamese player at the table that Men happened to be backing.

I could go on, but I want to get to the story.

So it's the final table of the Circuit Event the other day and 6 or 7 players still remain. There are 20 minutes left in the level, and Matt Graham starts saying he's not going to make it 20 minutes. He had to pee really bad. The guy next to him says, "Me too". Matt responds, "No, you don't understand. I'm REALLY in pain. I'm not gonna make it 20 minutes".

A few minutes later it folds to my button and I look down at two aces. Men moves all-in from the small blind. As Grinder folds his big blind, I say to Matt G, "Go run to the bathroom. Quickly."

He looks at me confused. "Wait... really?"

"Yes, go to the bathroom right now. You have time."

I hem and haw for a bit, ask for a chip count, count out my stack, etc. After three minutes, Matt and the other dude come back from the bathroom. I know how bad he had to piss, so I tell him, "You owe me one."

Immediately after that, I say call. Men flips up KQ, and I flip up two aces. Men looks at me annoyed, and I say something stupid like, "Was just trying to be nice to my friend. He really had to pee." This is when I get karmad out and KQx comes on the flop. Yes, Men sucks out on me for a fourth time in the same tournament. !@*&$(*!@&#*(!@&#(*!@#

Now I need to clarify what I mean by karmad out. I DO NOT mean that I received bad karma for slowrolling Men. I feel completely justified and would do it again. Rather, the bad karma came from the fact that I pussied out and did not take full credit for it. I claimed I slowrolled him to be nice to Matt. In fact the online coverage was titled, "Bonomo tries to be nice to a friend." So here I'm going to publicly get rid of the bad karma and take credit for my good deed: Yes I intentionally slowrolled Men, and would 100% do it again. I have no regrets.

For those of you that don't believe any of my stories about Men, here is a bit of proof/justification: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRCbuoVnt8k"]YouTube - Men Nguyen Monster Slow-Roll WPO 2008[/ame] . Again, I just want to clarify, this is the only time in my life I have ever slow rolled someone, and definitely think that in general it's a very douchey thing to do.

Despite this suckout, I did go on to win the tournament! This involved a grueling 4 hour + heads up match against The Grinder (who was really tough to play). I'll write about that in my next blog. I really wanted to get this awesome (IMO) story out there first.

-Thanks for reading
-Justin Bonomo

[GreaseStain]

Even though Justin cheated in the past, I think he is a good guy. Cause when he did it, he was young and stupid, he knows better now.

[DeadBabySoup]

Even though Justin cheated in the past, I think he is a good guy. Cause when he did it, he was young and stupid, he knows better now.

do you mean "men the master?" i live in vegas and i've heard stories about the dude. he's a good player. but he's a dick.

[phosphorescence]

do you mean "men the master?" i live in vegas and i've heard stories about the dude. he's a good player. but he's a dick.

no justin = justin bonomo, the guy who wrote the blog.

yeah men the master has a pretty awful rep, including getting his minions to take chips off the table in lower buyin tournies so he could add them to his stack in a bigger tourney. scumbag.

[Fictive]

yeah men the master has a pretty awful rep, including getting his minions to take chips off the table in lower buyin tournies so he could add them to his stack in a bigger tourney. scumbag.

See, now I don't get that... How the hell is that even possible? That has got to be against rules, so how come he is able to shit like that and why hasn't the tournament director (or someone else in charge) stopped him ?

[DeadBabySoup]

no justin = justin bonomo, the guy who wrote the blog.

yeah men the master has a pretty awful rep, including getting his minions to take chips off the table in lower buyin tournies so he could add them to his stack in a bigger tourney. scumbag.

right. but the guy i was responding to said even though Justin cheated in the past, he thinks he's a good guy. the article is about men the master cheating in the past. i think he meant to say men the master.

[pokerbucket]

See, now I don't get that... How the hell is that even possible? That has got to be against rules, so how come he is able to shit like that and why hasn't the tournament director (or someone else in charge) stopped him ?

Yes duh it is against the rules but if you read the entire blog justin says that he would do it when no one was looking. It is hard to keep track of all the chips in a large tournament... it isn't like there are security cameras watching everyone at every min.

[DeadBabySoup]

there's also the fact that top poker pros are treated like gods by the casinos. they'll turn a blind eye to almost anything they do.

[phosphorescence]

right. but the guy i was responding to said even though Justin cheated in the past, he thinks he's a good guy. the article is about men the master cheating in the past. i think he meant to say men the master.

no justin bonomo also cheated in the past, he multi-accounted in tournaments.
he was banned for a couple of years but is now allowed to play again.

[DeadBabySoup]

no justin bonomo also cheated in the past, he multi-accounted in tournaments.
he was banned for a couple of years but is now allowed to play again.

ah. in that case this article is basically the pot calling the kettle black. if he wants to talk about how much of a dick men is, that's cool. but he doesn't have much credibility to be calling out another player for cheating.

[pokerbucket]

ah. in that case this article is basically the pot calling the kettle black. if he wants to talk about how much of a dick men is, that's cool. but he doesn't have much credibility to be calling out another player for cheating.

Bonomo did play with multiple accounts in online tournaments which is bad but if what he is saying about Men the master is true I think it is way worse. What Men was doing is collusion with other players, Bonomo acted on his own. Plus Bonomo said he was young and stupid when he did it and he has turned into a classy player that a lot of pros respect..but the fact that he cheated will always be with him.

[GreaseStain]

Yes, i was referring to the multi accounting, by Justin, my point was that even though he did it, I think he is a good guy. Men on the other hand is cheating in a way that takes effort and conspiracy, he is also older and been around longer. I therefore think Men is an ass, he knows better but is just greedy. Justin was just a dumb kid when he cheated and is really an honest guy.

[DeadBabySoup]

Bonomo did play with multiple accounts in online tournaments which is bad but if what he is saying about Men the master is true I think it is way worse. What Men was doing is collusion with other players, Bonomo acted on his own. Plus Bonomo said he was young and stupid when he did it and he has turned into a classy player that a lot of pros respect..but the fact that he cheated will always be with him.

i don't know. it's really the same thing. if he's playing multiple accounts, he can see multiple hands if he's at the same table. he can put moves on other players. and he can pass chips to himself. basically, he's colluding with himself. and stealing money from honest players. i guess it seems less real when you do it online. i've seen him play before and he seems like a nice enough guy. so i wouldn't put him in the same category as men the douche bag. but i still think it's a bit hypocritical to call someone a cheater when you've been caught red handed.

[C8H10N4O2]

Nah, I have much more respect for Bonomo than Men. It's really a different scenario in my opinion. If I remember correctly, Stars banned him for something like 3 years, and eventually has allowed him to play again when he had been banned indefinitely. Read up about everything that has gone on lately with this, and then make a decision. You'll likely reach a different decision than I have, but it'd still be better to go get all the facts about the situation before jumping to conclusions based on what all has been said here.

[don. scoobie]

this practise of adding chips to a stack maybe more common practise than just men on his own, i seem to rem a final table of the world series where the chips in play were way bigger than they shoulda been ,even allowing for stacks to be tidied up at the end of certain levels. think it was the year raymer won. there was summit like 10 million more chips on the table than were issued at the start of the tourney.

[DeadBabySoup]

major tournaments should use unique chips. yeah, it'll cost a little more. but they can turn around and sell them on ebay. probably for more than they cost in the first place.