Thithi "Mimi" Tran (born July 5, 1960) is a

Vietnamese-American Vietnamese Americans () are Americans of Vietnamese people, Vietnamese ancestry. They constitute a major part of all overseas Vietnamese. As of 2023, over 2.3 million people of Vietnamese descent live in the United States, making them the fourth ...

professional

poker Poker is a family of Card game#Comparing games, comparing card games in which Card player, players betting (poker), wager over which poker hand, hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, with varying rules i ...

player.

Biography

Tran was born in

Nha Trang Nha Trang ( or ; ) is a coastal city and capital of Khánh Hòa Province, on the South Central Coast of Vietnam. It is bounded on the north by Ninh Hoà town, on the south by Cam Ranh city and on the west by Diên Khánh District. The city had ...

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

. After moving to the United States in 1982, Tran found work in the

electronics Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield ...

industry in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

. She began playing poker in 1989, after an auto accident left her disabled and unable to continue working in her field. Tran has finished in the money in multiple

World Series of Poker The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Paradise, Nevada, and since 2004, sponsored by Eldorado Resorts, Caesars Entertainment. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best ...

(WSOP) tournaments, including two second-place finishes, a third-place finish, and a fourth-place finish. A high-stakes specialist, Tran is perhaps best known as Barry Greenstein's ex-girlfriend. Greenstein not only taught her how to play poker, but also convinced her to compete in tournaments; until the mid-to-late 1990s she had been exclusively a side-game player. (Initially, Greenstein himself also played exclusively in side-games; he used to donate his tournament winnings to charity.) In exchange for Greenstein teaching Tran how to play poker, she taught him how to speak

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese people living outside Vietna ...

. The two have an ongoing debate about who is the better teacher; Greenstein says he is the better teacher and Tran says that is only because she is the better student. As of 2008, her total live tournament winnings exceed $1,400,000. Her 17 cashes at the WSOP account for $408,304 of those winnings. She also features highly in the list of most successful female poker players in terms of tournament earnings. Tran has two children and lives in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. At the inaugural

National Heads-Up Poker Championship The National Heads-Up Poker Championship was an annual poker tournament held in the United States and produced by the NBC television network. It is a $25,000 "buy-in" invitation-only tournament organized as a series of heads up poker, one-on-one ...

, Tran was the only female to make the money in a field that included Annie Duke,

Jennifer Harman Jennifer C. Harman (born November 29, 1964) is an American professional poker player. She has won two World Series of Poker bracelets in open events, one of only four women to have done so . Career Harman won her first World Series of Poker br ...

, Kathy Liebert,

Cyndy Violette Cyndy Violette (born August 19, 1959, in Queens, New York) is an American professional poker player who won a World Series of Poker bracelet in 2004. Background Violette often played poker with family members as a child. Her family relocated ...

and Evelyn Ng. All three of her opponents were WSOP Main Event champions: she defeated

1983 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning of the ...

champion Tom McEvoy and

2003 2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater. In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War. Demographic ...

champion

Chris Moneymaker Christopher Bryan Moneymaker (born November 21, 1975) is an American poker player who won the Main Event at the 2003 World Series of Poker (WSOP). His 2003 win is said to have revolutionized poker because he was the first person to become a wor ...

before being eliminated in the semi-finals by

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

champion

Chris Ferguson Christopher Philip Ferguson (born April 11, 1963) is an American professional poker player. He has won six World Series of Poker events, including the 2000 WSOP Main Event, and the 2008 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. Ferguson is ...

. She received $25,000 prize money.

References

External links

Card Player profileHendon Mob profilePokerNews profileWPT profileWSOP profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tran, Mimi 1960 births American poker players Vietnamese poker players Vietnamese emigrants to the United States Living people American female poker players