Khiem Nguyen

Born in 1986, German poker pro Khiem Nguyen has been playing cards full-time since 2007. He has accumulated more than $1,000,000 in live tournament earnings with a similar amount generated online under the screenname ‘akia86’ at PokerStars.

Khiem had a particularly successful few years between 2010 and 2012 on the live scene. In November of 2010, he earned himself a $200,000+ score when he finished third in the €6,000 No Limit Hold’em Main Event at the Master Classics of Poker in Amsterdam.

It was during this period that Nguyen proved himself as a multi-talented poker player, excelling in a number of Pot Limit Omaha tournaments. He actually picked up three EPT titles in three years – first in Berlin in a €1,000 PLO side event, the second in London at a £2,000 PLO tourney and the third in Monte Carlo in a €1,000 PLO Re-Buy event.

This hot streak culminated in the German reaching a WSOP final table, again in the variant that he specialises in. The 2012 $3,000 PLO tournament was the setting, and Khiem made it down to the final nine after outlasting big names such as Erik Seidel, Isaac Haxton and John Racener. Although his exit in fifth was not the ending he had hoped for, the deep run earned him a nice payday and confirmed his PLO skills once again.

As well as playing MTTs online, Nguyen has been known to battle in the toughest PLO cash games around. His opponents have included Jens ‘Jeans89’ Kyllonen, Illari ‘FIN’ Sahamies and Ben ‘Ben86’ Tollerene. The German has played as high as $50/$100 online according to HighStakesDB.