Kimbo Ung celebrates his victory in the Heartland Poker Tour
It was a long and difficult journey from “The Killing Fields” of Cambodia for refugee Kimbo Ung, who has now settled in Las Vegas and become a full-time poker player. Kimbo recently defeated World Series of Poker bracelet winners and a Hollywood actor in the Heartland Poker Tour at Red Rock Casino to win the $125,000 pot.
Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari was there. Layne Flack was there. Lou Diamond Phillips and yours truly were there when 300 players from the Midwest invaded Las Vegas for the celebrity event. But the biggest star was a 42-year-old unknown who spent the past three years on the bubble.
Kimbo, the winner of $125,901, nearly busted out multiple times. He sat at the Final Table as the short stack, and at one point had 80,000 chips when his opponents had millions. But Kimbo is no stranger to starting over, having spent a lifetime overcoming horrifying and unbelievable odds as The Comeback Kid.
Kimbo relates his childhood to the Oscar-winning film The Killing Fields. He explained: “The movie didn’t even do justice to the horror we faced before we reached the United States as refugees.”
One of seven children, he learned English and graduated from high school on the East Coast. Without a college degree, Kimbo worked as a graphic designer in New York City. The daily grind of 14-hour days and traveling by train from Connecticut became too much, so he and his wife, Sokhim, moved to Texas to start over.
Kimbo and Sokhim, also from Cambodia, invested in the dream of owning their own business. Two years after opening a seafood restaurant, the couple realized the hard truths of the service industry and decided, having run out of money, to start over yet again. They packed their belongings in their truck and made the trek to Las Vegas.
During their drive three years ago, they had to stop to fill jugs of water for their overheating truck. Pulling up at Palace Station, the truck died for good. Kimbo and Sokhim started over a third time just as the economic recession began.
Unable to find a job, Kimbo made a living playing poker. “I never considered myself a pro, but I supported myself through poker,” he said. After 18 months of bad beats and missing the money, Kimbo gave up tournaments and played only two to five no-limit games.
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Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.
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