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I see a lot of strange shit at the Rio every day– freaky hairdos, outlandish and/or offensive fashion choices, grown men rolling around on the floor like toddlers after a bad beat, and the hookers that slink out of the shadows and into the Amazon Room after midnight to pick up cash-flush final tablers looking to celebrate– but how about a guy who ends Day 1 of the $1,000 NLHE with rebuys event as the second-largest stack and then doesn’t show up to play Day 2? That’s what happened to Vinny Vinh.

I didn’t think much of it when one of our junior reporters handed me a note about an hour into play that Vinh had yet to arrive. Pros do that all the time. It’s more common on Day 1, but maybe he had just overslept or thought the re-start was at 3 PM instead of 2. I told him to keep me updated.

Four hours later, Vinh still wasn’t there and half his stack had been blinded off. Friends of his like Men “The Master” Nguyen were frantically trying to locate him, barking into their cell phones in Vietnamese. No one knew what was up. Vinh ended up getting blinded off in 20th place, outlasting 61 players that well… actually played.

The various poker forums are flush with theories. On 2+2, Shane “Shaniac” Schleger and Shannon Shorr, both of whom cashed the event (Shaniac in 5th for over $111K) weighed in with their own experience with Vinh at the tables:

Said Shaniac:

“I actually think there’s a good chance that the reason VV didnt show up today was because of some kind of incapacitation (whether it be death, hospitalization or whatever). When I saw him yesterday, I couldn’t believe how he looked–he was emaciated and appeared like he had aged years in the course of a month. I’m assuming it’s the result of some kind of hard-drug problem, but I have no real insight.

Vinny played one table over from me all day yesterday, seeming to hold onto chips the whole day and not missing any opportunities to refer to himself in the third person (”Don’t they know how Vinny Vinh plays?”). It’s almost inconceivable to me that he missed day 2 with the chip lead unless something drastic happened. Also, fwiw, his stack outlasted over 60 players.”

Shorr’s take:

“I cashed in this event and agree with Shane completely. I saw Vinny Vinh around the tables yesterday and he looked like he was on a different planet from hard drug abuse. I very much dislike playing with Vinny because of the way he treats other players and dealers, but I really hope that he is found to be in ok shape. It, indeed, must’ve been very serious for a player like Vinh to miss this kind of shot at a bracelet.”

Daniel Negreanu offered this on his own forum:

“He looks terrible. Scary actually. He’s lost a ton of wait and it looks like he is suffering all the symptoms of possibly crystal meth or something along those lines. He looks half dead.”

And Todd “Dan Druff” Witteles, who finished 10th in this event, had this to offer on Neverwin Poker:

The consensus among the remaining 27 players at the event (myself included) is that he’s dead, with an outside shot at being incapacitated or in jail.

Supposedly he looked emaciated and sick the day before. I didn’t see him so I can’t comment.

So let me repeat this. No one knows what happened to Vinny Vinh. All sorts of rumors are flying about but absolutely nothing has been confirmed. I’ve heard everything from an O.D., to a family emergency in Asia, to a prop bet on how far into the money he could blind off.

More information as it becomes available…

This entry was posted on Friday, June 8th, 2007 at 2:23 pm and is filed under WSOP, poker news.