MIAMIS VICE

Measuring Pain By The Degree

By Miami John Cernuto

WE’VE ALL HAD TO ENDURE THE painful experience of watching the dealer reveal the final five cards of our tournament too many times. The anxiety builds up to frantic proportions as the flop is laid down, little voices going off in our head saying such things as “no clubs” or “no ace.” Then we await the turn, which can change our fate in an instant. Then comes the agony of the river, where we either sink or swim.
The experience of watching those cards come out is where we form our love/hate relationship with the game. We call it “brutal” or “unbelievable” when we lose, and we jump and yell “I love this game!” when we win. If the Richter Scale could be internalized in our bodies, I am sure that moment would register a 10.

This experience has taken on many names, such as “sweating your cards,” “your tournament life on the line,” or lately, the more commercial “your Degree all-in moment.” I personally experienced this Degree all-in moment on national TV during the Day Two WSOP Main Event episode on ESPN this year—and I was sent home. When the cards don’t cooperate, sometime it feels like in the movie Alien when that incubating creature bursts out of the poor guy’s stomach. Experiencing pain like that can not be healthy, but this is the profession that we have chosen.

We all handle our emotions differently. I chose to end my Degree all-in moment with a smile and a quiet gracious exit from the table, but it’s taken years of frustrating finishes and meditation to perfect that kind of a departure. As I survived the flop and the turn, my opponent needed “a queen and a queen only,” as Norman Chad so eloquently put it. And sure enough, the river produced the queen of clubs and my 2007 Main Event was history. It is that moment that inspired my topic for this month’s edition of Miami John’s Top 10 list: the top 10 ways to sweat in your “Degree all-in moment.”

I will have to admit that this was an easy article to write. With all of the characters and antics we have watched on TV over the last five years, I have an abundance of material to choose from. I have everything from the Erik Seidel smile as he quietly leaves the stage to that Swedish kid Mattias Andersson screaming at the top of his lungs. (Who knows, maybe all that vibration can change a heart to a diamond or a deuce to an ace.) I have a somewhat subdued Daniel Negreanu cracking jokes while he is leaving, and I have Phil Hellmuth ranting about luck and how badly his opponent played his hand.

And then there’s UMMM-BURR-TOE. Humberto Brenes was always a nice guy who used to be quiet, respectful of others, and discreet when he exited a tournament. Since TV slapped the cards on the cameras, he now yells his name (requiring capital letters in print, as seen above) and brings out his toy chip-eating shark. It even has a light now! What will it do next year, shoot fireworks out of its fins?

One night I was watching poker on TV and there was a very loud and annoying player on the show. It actually gave me a headache to listen to him. So I turned off the set and timed turning it back on with when I thought he might be eliminated. I was successful; he was gone. But unfortunately for me, the TV producers replayed his exit just for the people who might have missed it. Maybe this is what TV programmers like about poker. Maybe the Mattias Anderssons, the Hellmuths, and the Humbertos are the real reason why everyone tunes in.
(Or maybe the TV producers just don’t have a clue.)

Now, I don’t profess to have a magical formula, nor have I attained total enlightenment on how to endure these distressful all-in moments, but I am still happy to suggest some alternative ways to help reduce the devastation and ease your pain. In a perfect world, I would like to see all of our exits end with a smile and a handshake. But who knows, maybe the viewers will all turn off their TVs if the poker players all behave themselves.

Anyway, here are the top 10 ways to sweat those all-in cards:

10. Close your eyes just before the dealer puts down the flop and listen to the roar of the crowd. (If you have aces and the crowd groans after the flop, you’d better pray for some help.)

9. Beg the dealer for whatever you need, and stay positive. (In this instance, beggars can be choosers too.)

8. Stand up, pack up, and put on your jacket. (This seems to help, jinxing your opponent by basically telling him he’s already won.)

7. Walk away from the table and ask the announcer to call you back to the table if you win. (This way you don’t even have to see the cards. Great for stress. It also eliminates the physical pain of high fives.)

6. Stare at your opponent’s face. (If he grimaces in pain, you know you’re sticking around.)

5. Clench your fist and keep yelling things like “Come on, baby,” and “Do it one time, dealer.” (No matter how many times you’ve been saved, you should still say “one time” as if you never get any luck.)

4. Just gaze at your opponent’s chair if you have him covered. (If it empties, you win.)

3. Berate your opponent so he won’t cheer for his cards to come up. (He’ll think he deserves to lose.)

2. Give your opponent a handshake and wish him or her well so that the outcome will be less painful for both of you. (Hugs are optional.)

1. Just get down on your knees and pray to the poker gods. (Whether there really are such things as poker gods is another discussion for another time.)

UNDER THE GUN 5 QUESTIONS WITH CLONIE GOWEN

1

You’ve done very well so far in the six-handed Poker After Dark tournaments. Which do you like better, single-table or multi-table tournaments?

To be quite honest, I like the single-table formats more just because they are over within four-to-six hours and you either win $120,000 or get out. You aren’t sitting there for four-to-five days in a tournament not to cash at all.

2

Are there any specific players against whom you struggle so much that you prefer not sit down at the table with them?

There are some cash-game players that I will definitely avoid their tables when I walk into the Bellagio because I don’t want to play with them: Gabe Thaler, Lee Markholt, and those guys. They are great cash-game players, so if I walk in and see them sitting at a table, I want to find another table. They are great players and there is no reason to sit in the same game as them.
3

You’ve been featured in a photo spread in Maxim. What male would you like to see in a sexy photo spread?

That’s a goooood question! Patrik Antonius! Absolutely Patrik!

4

What is the funniest fan encounter you have ever had?

Believe it or not, the funniest fan encounter I’ve ever had was the first time I met [noted poker writer] Michael Craig. It was during the World Series. He walked up wearing a backpack and asked me to sign something for him. I didn’t realize he had his backpack with clothes in it because he was headed to the airport, so he reached in over his shoulder to the backpack and he pulls out his underwear. I looked at him and said, ‘I’m not signing that.’ He was so mortified that he had accidentally pulled out his underwear instead of a T-shirt.
5

What’s the best bluff you’ve ever pulled off?

I think the best bluff was at the Red Rock $120,000 buy-in against Mike Matusow and John Juanda. I had like J-8 and was in the small blind. Erick Lindgren limped under the gun, Matusow limped on the button, I made the call from the small blind, and Juanda checked the big blind. The flop came like 10-10-7. I decided to check, John Juanda bet, Lindgren folded, and Matusow called from the button. I felt like Juanda didn’t have a ten there with Erick Lindgren and Matusow behind him. He knows one of them is going to bet, so he doesn’t have to give away the strength of his hand. I really felt he didn’t have anything. I decided to call, knowing I was going to make a bluff at this pot. On the turn is an insignificant card, and I check again, and Juanda checks, and Matusow bets. When it comes to me and Matusow had bet, I pause and start to think. I made it look like I was going to raise in that spot and I thought for quite a while. I finally call and Juanda folds his hand quickly. Another insignificant card comes off on the river, so I bet about 45 percent of my stack, and before I even got my chips out there, Matusow folded. I was right on about that one and I won a huge pot.

You Need UB to Spell ARUBA

Hellmuth, Duke, and the gang invade the island for the sixth annual Aruba Poker Classic
BY KATIE LINDSAY

THERE WAS NO CHRIS MONEYMAKER, no hole-card cams, no poker boom, when the Aruba Poker Classic got its start. The year was 2002, and more than a hundred players scheduled a “working” vacation to play poker against an Aruban backdrop before poker had become what it is now. Five years later, as you might expect, the tournament is quite a bit bigger. More than a thousand people showed up this year to participate, watch, or write about a week of fun, sun, and, of course, poker.
September 29 marked the first day of festivities for the 2007 Ultimate Bet Aruba Poker Classic, and the Radisson Hotel and Casino’s pool was the setting for the opening party. Most of those participating in the tournament were in attendance, including UB representative Phil Hellmuth, who felt it was his duty to man the mic for the night. Hellmuth couldn’t help but let the prop bets roll and offered everything from $500 to $2,000 for people to jump into the adjacent swimming pool. Those who took him up on his offer included topless women, a fully clothed Kristy Gazes, and ALL IN Blackjack’s own “Hollywood” Dave Stann.
After a wild night, a weary but eager group of poker players dragged themselves out of bed for the World Series of Poker Academy being held the next morning. Annie Duke, James “KrazyKanuck” Worth, Mark Seif, and a late-as-usual Phil Hellmuth held a clinic in which they taught the basics of live tournament strategy and then finished it off with a Q&A.

Duke was particularly impressed by the turnout for the morning lesson. “It was great that we had a party last night and over a hundred people still showed up early in the morning to learn poker,” she remarked.
Bringing more well-deserved attention to the world of poker during the Classic was The Travel Channel. The cable network is no longer in the poker business on a weekly basis, but they still found an excuse to come to Aruba, filming an hour-long special called Your Travel Guide: Aruba Poker Adventure. The host of the show, Shane Reynolds, was lucky enough to receive a lesson from none other than Ms. Duke and get some tips on pre-flop strategy to aid him in the $5,000 buy-in tournament.

Not to be outdone, Phil Hellmuth was getting some camera time of his own up in his penthouse suite. After winning his seat in the VH1 Rock ’n Roll Celebrity Poker Tournament, Scott Ian from the band Anthrax received lessons from the one and only “Poker Brat,” and The Travel Channel got it on film.

Prior to the lesson, Ian mentioned he had a hard time dealing with the bad beats poker can sometimes give, and Hellmuth was quick to jump in with a response. “I’m the best player in the world and I always have the best hand when I get it in,” he modestly mentioned. Then, thankfully, he followed up with some actual advice, telling Ian that you just have to move on and not let it get to you.

A couple of hours after their respective lessons, both Ian and Reynolds were quickly put to the test when they decided to join a private poker party thrown by Hellmuth. The buy-in was $200, and it quickly became pricier after the single-table tournament was deemed a re-buy event. Annie Duke, Joe Reitman, and Annette Obrestad all found themselves yelling out “Re-buy!” to Matt Savage, who acted as tournament director. In the end, Hellmuth picked up another reason to brag with his $5,900 first-place cash.

After a few days of fun, it was time for the players to settle down and focus on the major tournament about to take place. The event was broken into two Day Ones, 1A and 1B, to accommodate the 548 registered players.

On Day 1A World Series of Poker Europe champion Obrestad continued to prove what a force she is, playing her aggressive game well and managing to get a hold of a mountain of chips early. Things didn’t go quite as well for some other notable players. Those sent to the beach early included Hellmuth (who actually was always in with the best hand), Duke, who said she “never had a hand all day,” and Joe Sebok.

The players that busted didn’t seem to mind too much; Hellmuth played cash games, Duke went to the spa, and Sebok hung out at the pool.

Ultimate Bet went all out for their players and those attending the Aruba Classic this year. Every day, they trotted out a new surprise by the poker room. On Day 1A, it was an open Grey Goose Martini Bar. Spotted enjoying some spirits were Seif and online standout Mark “Poker H0” Kroon. Other events for the week included a sushi-and-champagne-tasting day and a wine-tasting session.

As for those playing poker, Obrestad ended the day in 22nd place with more than $30,000 in chips, while Mike Matusow was nipping at her heels and finished with $28,000.

Day 1B featured a whole new flock of faces including martini pals Kroon and Seif. David Williams and Evelyn Ng also played Day 1B and had an interesting story to tell from the previous week in Turks and Caicos. It seems online and live player Matt Gianetti took a $15,000 prop bet agreeing to swim in the Club Med hotel pool for 12 straight hours. From midnight till noon, Gianetti treaded water with several onlookers and friends providing support. He made it through the night, and Ng said she was there with him when he finished and collected on his bet.

When the cards got in the air on Day 1B in Aruba, Williams was left wishing he could tread water half as well as Gianetti did. Williams’ Aruba trip was a short one, as he made an early exit and headed right back to the States. Other early bustouts included Seif, top-ranked online player Jon “PearlJammer” Turner, and Gary “Debo34” Debonardi.

Robert Williamson III showed up late to the tournament after staying up until the wee hours of the morning playing in the casino. It served him well, though, because he finished the day with $31,900 in chips.
The fields from the two separate Day Ones were combined for Day Two on October 4, with 246 hopefuls still alive. Williamson showed up on time for Day Two, and it was a good thing he did. In one of the first few hands, he won a $20,000 pot holding As-Qs on a 8-Q-Q-5-5 board.

Play moved quickly on Day Two, with three tables being broken within the first hour. UB’s own online pro Kroon was one of those early casualties after getting his 9-9 all in pre-flop and finding he was dominated by an opponent’s K-K. Meanwhile, Obrestad survived the early elimination spree, but the 19-year-old phenom was knocked out right before the dinner break.

The day finished at 1 a.m. with 54 players returning for Day Three, all of them taking home a paycheck. Going into Day Three, online pro Jonathan “FireyJustice” Little (who’s also had a great year in live tournaments) led the pack with $300,000 in chips.

Michael Gracz was also among the chip leaders, but that changed when he took a bad beat early in the day. He got all in on a K-Q-9 flop holding K-J to his opponent’s K-10. The turn was a jack, which gave Gracz two pair, but it gave his opponent a straight, and the meaningless eight on the river crippled the former WPT and WSOP titlist down to $6,300 in chips. Gracz ended up busting a few hands later in 45th place. Williamson and Matusow joined him on the rail shortly after, less than two hours into play for the day.

Once it got town to 35 players in the mid-afternoon, they redrew seats and started playing six-handed down to the final table. J.J. Liu was the last big name pro to bust, departing after her A-J got in dominated by A-K. One player who outlasted Liu was Club Med pool boy Matt Gianetti, who eventually busted in 12th place and pocketed more than $26,000.

The final two tables kept battling until shortly before midnight, but with considerably more eliminated players than in-contention players left on the premises, Phil Hellmuth decided to throw a lavish private party in his penthouse suite while the poker action was still going on. He hired a two-man Caribbean band as well as a deejay, kept the hot tub at a constant 104 degrees, and, of course, had plenty of bottles of Dom Perignon and Grey Goose handy. Among the attendees were UB spokesmodel Serinda Swan, Duke, Williamson, Ian, and the Anthrax rocker’s fiancée Pearl (who is the daughter of musician Meatloaf). Pearl and Ian surprised the crowd with an impromptu performance of songs off her upcoming album—her singing, him playing guitar.

A storm hit the island that night and delayed Saturday’s final table. It finally kicked off a little after 2 p.m. on October 6, about two hours after it was originally scheduled to, with a table full of talented but relatively unknown players taking their seats.

Travis “TravestyFund” Rice arrived as the chip leader with $1.5-million in chips, with Brad Smithson right behind him with $1.4-million. Next was Jim Mordue with $997,000, then Nick Blackburn with $949,000 and Jordan Rich with $700,000, and on the short stack was Jason Gray with $247,000. Rich was the first player eliminated, and he took home $77,075 for his efforts, and Gray went out in fifth place, earning $106,310.
In one of the biggest hands of the night, Smithson, the chip leader at that moment, got all in on the river holding As-Ac vs. Rice’s Jc-8s on a 8-J-8-2-7 board. Smithson may have nightmares about aces after this, especially because this was the third time in this tournament his were cracked. He leapt from the table when he saw the full house, visibly upset, and he was suddenly crippled.

Nearby commentators “Poker H0” Kroon and Duke both didn’t like how slow he played the aces. “With hands like aces and kings, it’s just more profitable with them in the long run to raise,” Annie said.
Rice continued steamrolling the table and took out his next victim, Blackburn, with 4-4 against Blackburn’s K-Q. Blackburn took home $146,180 for his fourth-place finish, not a bad profit from his original $120 online investment.

With three players left, Rice was in command with approximately $4-million in chips, followed by Mordue with about $1-million and Smithson with $400,000. Rice used his chip stack to his advantage, making hyper-aggressive moves and raising every other hand.

“Travis is playing this excellent,” Duke commented. “This is a clinic in what to do with people that don’t want to take control of the tournament themselves. No one is putting Travis to decisions; Travis is the one putting the decisions to everyone else. The one putting people to decisions wins.”

After Mordue busted Smithson in third place with A-K vs. Smithson’s A-J, heads-up play didn’t last long at all. Mordue raised pre-flop with A-K, Rice re-raised with K-10, and Mordue pushed all in. Rice thought for a while, the crowd inched closer, and then finally Rice called and found himself dominated.

The flop blanked out for Rice, coming out Q-8-4, and it looked like Mordue was going to double up and make it a serious fight. The turn, however, dashed Mordue’s hopes, as Rice hit his three-outer when a ten fell. The meaningless king on the river ended it and Travis Rice was the 2007 Aruba Poker Classic champion.
Mordue got in with the best, but as everyone knows in poker, that can only get you so far. Mordue’s second-place finish earned him $478,405.

And Rice’s first-place finish earned him $800,000 and a well-deserved dive in the pool. The 25-year-old from Houston got everything he could possibly have wanted out of the day—except maybe for the bonus of a few bills from Phil Hellmuth for jumping into the water.

Six-Pack In The Sun: Aruba Final Table Payouts
1. Travis Rice $800,000
2. Jim Mordue $478,405
3. Brad Smithson $252,490
4. Nick Blackburn $146,180
5. Jason Gray $106,310
6. Jordan Rich $77,075

Teen Spirit

Understanding the poker mentality of one of the brightest young guns the game has ever known
BY ANNETTE OBRESTAD / 2007 WORLD SERIES OF POKER EUROPE CHAMPION

EVERY POKER PLAYER TAKES A different approach to the game, and each individual has to determine what techniques work and don’t work for him or her. My approach may not work for you. But it helped me to win more than $2-million at the WSOP Europe, and the following is an explanation of how I’ve been able to be so successful:
Early in tournaments, I play a lot of hands. I don’t limp in a lot, but I will usually raise any suited connectors, any pocket pair, whatever hand I want to play. If I get a call, I usually make a continuation bet, depending on the player I am up against. I usually don’t put a lot of chips into the pot unless I have a really good hand, so if I get a call I most likely will check-fold my hand.

When the blinds go up, I start playing a little tighter in early position and I raise more in late position. I usually try to take advantage of people who are limping because there is more money in the pot. Whenever I see a really weak player limp into the pot, I might raise with any two cards just to take it down pre-flop.
It depends so much on the table where you are seated. If you are on a really aggressive table with a lot of pros, you don’t want to be playing suited connectors and stuff like that because they are going to pick up on it.

At the WSOP Europe, I think I did so well because there were so many pros in the event and most of them probably didn’t know how I played. I mean I’m a girl, I’m a teenager, and most people don’t think girls can play. They think we don’t bluff much or stuff like that. I played a lot more aggressive there than I usually do because I didn’t think they knew who I was, so I think that helped me.

I do pretty much what the guys do, and they just aren’t expecting me to do that. I play aggressively and raise a lot of hands. I raise garbage on the button and re-raise people out of position. I got more respect doing that than I should have, and I’m not expecting that to continue. I’m probably going to have to tighten up a bit now. It’s the same thing that happened online. As soon as people got to know that I was aggressive, they started playing back at me a lot, they started calling me down.

Another thing I did in London was research my opponents. It’s important to know your table, so when we got the seating arrangement the day before we started playing, I Googled everyone to see how many cashes they had and that really helped.

When I play online, I don’t use any poker-tracking software, but I do take a lot of notes on players in case I play with them again. I see a lot of players who, if they are pissed off when they get a bad beat, they call other players a donkey. But you aren’t going to get any use from a note that says “donkey.” You could just copy the hand history and paste it in a note box. I do that sometimes, or just write down what he did wrong in the hand. You can’t just call him a “donkey,” because that’s not going to help you.

As for other mistakes players make, when I first started out online, I played really loose-passive, which is what most people do. That’s just a normal mistake that people make, but then you realize that you can’t win that way, so you have to start raising a lot of hands. Sometimes you overcommit with draws and stuff like that. You are playing aggressive, but you aren’t controlling the size of the pot, so that’s also a beginner’s mistake and that’s something you can pick on if you see other players doing it.

I guess if I had to explain my style of play, I would say I usually play pretty aggressive. I am not the one calling. I never like to chase draws by calling. As for limping, I really don’t like it, but I might do it sometimes. I am never first in the pot with a limp. If there are two limpers before me, I might limp in late with a marginal hand, but I usually don’t limp in. If I want to come into a pot and I am in first position, I am going to raise.

Let’s say I am early in a tournament with a $20,000 starting chip stack and blinds at $25/$50. If I pick up a small pocket pair in first position, I am going to raise to $150, and if they make it $500 then I can still call because I have the right implied odds. Late in the tournament, though, I would just fold that pocket pair in that position.

I switch my style up depending on my table and the players’ stack sizes. If you have two aggressive stacks to your left, you don’t want to be raising a lot of crap because you know that they are going to be re-raising you. Now, if you have aggressive players to your right, you are going to be the one re-raising them.
I think that if I had started out playing live, I would have a totally different style. Most importantly, I would only be able to have been playing for like a year now. I have had so much experience playing online. I have talked to so many of the good online players, talking strategy, and it has really helped my game. I don’t think I would have done the same thing if I would have started out playing live.

The Mouth That Soared

His dark days seemingly behind him, Mike Matusow is finding that ability plus stability equals success
BY JONATHAN GROTENSTEIN

FREE ASSOCIATION TIME: What are the first five adjectives that spring to mind when you think of Mike Matusow?

Your list almost certainly began with something related to his ability to speak, seemingly without end, often without a filter. Play a little poker with Mike, and you’re going get an earful. His famous nickname, “The Mouth,” might be metaphorical, but it’s in no way ironic.
The rest of your choices may have skewed toward “brilliant” and “hilarious” if you’re a fan, “obnoxious” and “self-destructive” if you’re not. What you probably didn’t include was the word “consistent.” And Mike Matusow has a problem with that. “There’s nobody that’s more consistent than me,” Matusow asserted in an interview with ALL IN, his poker face firmly intact.

If your immediate response involved, say, dropping your jaw, you’re not alone. “When he’s focused, he’s one of the best players I’ve every played with,” observed fellow pro Phil Gordon. “Unfortunately, his ability to focus intently is measured not in hours, but in microseconds. But boy, for those few microseconds, he’s really tough.”

Consistent? Matusow has lost more money playing online poker than many of us will make in our lifetimes. He has battled, quite publicly, with psychological issues, legal troubles, a hard-partying lifestyle, and multiple financial devastations that could have ended his career. Could have ended his life. Under the relentless (albeit selectively edited) scrutiny of TV cameras, he has fallen apart enough times for his name to have become synonymous with a grand act of self-sabotage: The Matusow Meltdown.

Poker, however, is a game rooted in deception. And in Matusow’s case, it can be argued, the results are deceiving. Or, better said, everything but the results is deceiving. “A lot of people want to knock me,” he observed. “Look at the results, that’s all. Just look at the results.”

Over the last three calendar years—with two months still to play in 2007 and nearly half of 2005 lost to prison—Matusow has averaged just shy of $1.5-million per annum in tournament winnings, outpacing many supposedly more consistent players like Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, and Daniel Negreanu. He’s never won “The Big One,” or any tournament with a purse larger than $1-million, yet he’s currently 20th on the list of all-time tournament earners; eliminate the exaggerated purses claimed by the last four WSOP champions (and the $6.1-million Paul Wasicka won for finishing second in ’06), and he’s actually five places higher.

“That’s what poker’s all about,” said Matusow. “Consistency. A lot of people are going to go and get hot andhave a big year, but then they’re going to fall short for two years … I want to be the most consistent player on the tour. I don’t care if I win. I don’t want to win ‘Player of the Year,’ or ‘Best of This.’ I want people to say, ‘Look how consistent Mike is.’ That’s the bottom line.”

***
“I always had money from poker,” said Matusow, when asked to describe the tumultuous years that preceded this three-year run, providing both explanation and excuse.
Born and raised in Southern California’s San Fernando Valley, his family relocated to Las Vegas in 1978, around his 10th birthday. It was “all right,” he claims, quickly adding that he wouldn’t want his own kids growing up in Sin City, a place where parents tend to focus their energies on activities other than parenting. “The first time I went to a skating rink, there were 11- or 12-year-old kids smoking cigarettes. That kind of flipped me out.”

By the time his 21st birthday rolled around, Matusow was already a self-described degenerate gambler, pouring money into video poker machines in between occasional visits to Gamblers Anonymous meetings. A well-wishing observer introduced him to Texas Hold ’Em, a game that, with dedication, might actually provide an income. For Matusow, who suffered from an often debilitating lack of self-esteem, dedication was in no short supply.

“For me, it was my escape. I just put all my energy and power behind poker … My lack of self-esteem, I used to build it by playing poker. My personal problems, I used the energy on poker. A lot of people are like that … Winning makes you feel good.”

His dedication quickly translated into results. Within a few years, he was taking on some of the biggest cash games in town and, during one storied 53-session run, came out winner 51 times. He finished second in a WSOP Omaha event in 1997, and won his first WSOP bracelet in 1999. During the Main Event in between, he helped stake an aspiring star named Scotty Nguyen, netting a third of his million-dollar prize when he took down the championship. Just 30 years old, Matusow was rolling in money.

Five years later, he was arrested on charges of drug trafficking, the culmination of a wild stretch of fierce partying and hard living. Does he remember the moment when things began to spin out of control? “I actually do. But my autobiography’s coming out, and I really don’t want to talk about it.”

***
Matusow was willing to talk about it, in 2006, to Michael Kaplan for an article in the British magazine Total Gambler. It’s something he prefers not to rehash anymore, even requesting that ALL IN not mention that period in his life in this article. He wants to tell the story his way, in complete context, in his book. It’s an understandable request, but it’s impossible to tell his story without at least covering the basics.

According to the Total Gambler article, Matusow’s triumphs at the poker table were punctuated by dalliances with excess, battles with the typical temptations of the Las Vegas night life. He battled addiction—and he battled through addiction, reaching the final table of the 2001 WSOP Main Event and finishing sixth.
The party continued. Somewhere along the way, he was introduced to Mike Fento, a reputed affiliate of the Chicago Mob, who ferociously latched onto Matusow as a friend. Driven by some combination of fear (a real-life mobster!), a desire to please, and the seeming invulnerability that comes with the easy flow of money, Matusow agreed to help his new friend secure some drugs, ostensibly for other “friends” visiting from out-of-town.

He also, perhaps with assistance from Fento, began to clean up his own life, quitting drugs and seeking psychiatric help for his mental issues. He was diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder and manic depression, began a more appropriate program of medication, and felt wildly optimistic for the first time in years.

Even when an associate advised him that Fento was actually an undercover narcotics cop, Matusow’s optimism remained intact. When the police arrived to arrest him, in September 2003, on charges of selling and trafficking illegal narcotics, he was convinced that the whole affair was a simple misunderstanding that would soon be swept away.

Except that it wasn’t. The Las Vegas Police Department asked Matusow to wear a wire in an attempt to nail another suspected drug dealer and, when he refused, elected to push ahead with the charges. In September 2004, Matusow began serving a six-month sentence in Clark County Detention Center.

Matusow managed to lose $250,000 in prison, more or less his entire bankroll, betting sports. But the more devastating loss, which didn’t become apparent until later, was a mix-up in his medication: Somehow he’d stopped taking Depakote, a mood stabilizer designed to combat his manic depression. There was enough residue in his system for Matusow, upon his release, to make a miraculous run online, transforming a $5,000 stake from Phil Hellmuth into $750,000. But as the remaining Depakote drained from his system, so drained Matusow’s ability to control his emotions. Over a three-week period, coinciding with the 2005 WSOP, Matusow managed to demolish his new bankroll.

He began taking Depakote again, and the drug kicked in just in time for the 2005 Main Event. Matusow put in one of the best performances of his life, outlasting a field of more than 5,600 to make the final table. The only “name” pro at the table, he was favored to win it all … until two unlucky hands, starting with his kings running into aces, eliminated him in ninth place.

***
If the ninth-place finish at the WSOP—good for a cool million—hinted at a new maturity to Matusow’s game, the 2005 Tournament of Champions provided hard evidence. Matusow survived a field of all-stars and a grueling three-way showdown against Phil Hellmuth and Hoyt Corkins to claim his second million-dollar prize of the year.

While Matusow refers to 2006 as “a disastrous year,” he still managed to secure more than $700,000 in tournament winnings. This year, Matusow finally seems to have put it all together. He earned a half-million for winning a Poker Superstars event in February. After a moderately disappointing World Series—he cashed three times without making a final table—he battled to a second-place finish and nearly $700,000 at the WPT Bellagio Cup (“That was really, really a war,” said Matusow. “It was really something that I did just out of spite because I played so bad [at the WSOP Main Event] this year.”) Then he earned a sixth-place finish at the WPT Borgata Open, and a tough-but-satisfying cash at the UltimateBet tournament in Aruba.
In other words, he’s been winning money with consistency.

“My improved consistency is credited to (a) my hunger to win, (b) my medication, and (c) my newfound value of money,” laughed Matusow. “I’m still sick, but … now, a couple of thousand dollars means something to me. My new value of money has really helped me make decisions I need to win.”
It’s still a daily struggle, thanks to his ongoing battle with depression. “Very few people know what I go through,” he said. “It all comes down to if I have a good day or a bad day. Now, with the new medication I’m taking, I have mostly good days.

“I don’t take it near as emotional anymore. My whole life was about poker and I used to take it so seriously, so hard. Now, I still take it hard, but, it’s like, Gavin [Smith] and me talk a lot, and he says, ‘You know what, Mike? It’s just poker.’ You learn to go to the next day. There’s a tournament every other week. You get knocked out, you go and you do it again.

There’s a part of Mike Matusow, long averse to holding a traditional job, that hates the rigors of the never-ending tournament trail. “I liked it better when I was playing a lot more live poker and not traveling as much. I’ve got a weight-loss bet [with Smith—Matusow has to lose another 40 pounds by June] that I’m struggling with because of the fact that I’m traveling all the time … I’m not a big fan of it.”

Will he still be doing it in five years? “Hopefully fucking not,” he laughed. “I’ll hopefully be retired … I don’t need much. Just give me $10-million and that’d be enough for me … Really, five. Five might do it, too.”
Then, he reconsidered. “If you want to stay on top, you’ve got to keep playing every week. You’ve got to keep your name in the headlights.” Matusow laughed at his linguistic slip, correcting himself. “Not the headlights, the headlines … If you don’t play and keep your name out there, that name goes away pretty fast. I don’t care who you are … I believe you’ve got to keep your name on top.”

There are two books on the way, an autobiography and a Hold ’Em tutorial. A potential reality show is in the works. His business dealings include Full Tilt Poker, an energy-drink venture with Phil Hellmuth, and an agreement with a T-shirt company. Regardless of how he might come across on television, Matusow has the respect and, perhaps more satisfying, the affection of every professional poker player we asked.
Matusow, however, will continue to measure his success by his ability to make each day a good one.

“It’s nothing to do with wanting to be the best, because it doesn’t mean anything to me. Nor does being Player of the Year. Those don’t mean shit to me. But what does mean a lot to me is to consistently stay consistent. I want to consistently cash, I want people to say, 10 years from now, look how many million-dollar years Mike’s had. Who’s had more, you know?”

Jonathan Grotenstein is a writer living in Los Angeles. He is the co-author of All In: The (Almost) Entirely True History Of The World Series Of Poker, and has collaborated on books with Phil Gordon and Scott Fischman.

A Defense Of The Meltdown

It’s the ultimate low-hanging fruit for television commentators: Mike Matusow, in the late stages of a tournament, is going to make some ridiculous play, seemingly driven by emotion, to donkey off all of his chips. Fellow pro Scott Fischman, however, believes that Matusow’s “blow-ups” indicate a subtle genius lost on most television commentators.

“Think about how most players get knocked out,” said Fischman. “You will hear about guys that get cold decked. You will hear about guys that played too tight and were essentially blinded out. You will hear both sides of the flush- and straight-draw hands. The bottom line is that they may have let their cards do all the talking … [They] will only go as far as the cards can take them. Sometimes that means you win the tournament, but it’s very rare.

“In the past year or so, I have really found myself as far as playing goes. One thing that I was missing was the ability to do well in the main events with deep stacks, but the lightbulb finally went off for me … Now that I know how to play great, I have witnessed very few players using most of the tools that I do. Mike is one of them.

“If I’m on my A-game, you will most likely only see me all in when I am making some kind of really weird bluff or unique read on a player.” In other words, a play that might look like a “blow-up” to an untrained eye. “The blow-up,” Fischman continued, “is really the only viable way to get knocked out of a tourney, other than getting some really bad beat.

“Previously, I may have been similar to the public in assuming things about Mike. I have to be honest, until I made my switch I never knew how good Mike was. The ‘blow-ups’ are a crucial part of the game and go hand in hand with winning. Show me a player that never ‘blows up,’ and I’ll show you somebody that will win a tourney once every 10 years.”

More Complex, By A Nose

Handicapping ESPN’s expanded coverage of the 2007 WSOP H.O.R.S.E. event
BY MARK McGARRY

WINNING THE H.O.R.S.E. EVENT AT the World Series of Poker isn’t easy. And neither is providing TV coverage of it. But ESPN welcomed the challenge this year with a whopping six hours of coverage. The network didn’t really have a choice; the H.O.R.S.E. event is considered by many to be the most prestigious event to win on the entire poker calendar next to the Main Event.
H.O.R.S.E., as ESPN explained at the start of each broadcast, is a combination of Hold ’Em, Omaha Eight-Or-Better, Razz, Seven-Card Stud, and Stud Eight-Or-Better (the “E” standing “Eight-Or-Better”). “We added special graphics and had Lon McEachern and Norm Chad explain more strategy and highlight the rules more than they would in our non-H.O.R.S.E. shows,” said Jamie Horowitz, senior producer. “It was a particularly challenging production.”

And yet it came across as a seamless production. “I do know that before the TV Hold ’Em craze started, most people playing poker were playing all these games,” said Chad. “They were playing Stud, they were playing high-low, they were playing wild cards. The people we’ve seen come along since the Hold ’Em boom just know Hold ’Em. So we had to assume a lot of people didn’t know Omaha Eight-Or-Better and Stud Eight-Or-Better. I don’t like to analyze much to begin with, so I tried to keep it as simple as possible and give people the basics and hope it wasn’t too confusing. There wasn’t a science to it.”
There was a science to how ESPN calculated the percentages, though, as viewers were shown the chances a player had of winning the high and/or the low in each hand. But Chad didn’t think that graphic necessarily helped the novice player in the viewing audience.
“If nobody understands the game to begin with, they’re not even going to look at those numbers,” he noted. “Those numbers are there if you understand the game on a more advanced level. They’d be mind-blowing for some; it’s too much information. So they were there if you wanted them, and also there to ignore.”

What was the toughest game to call? “As I said to the producers, even though Omaha/8 is my second-favorite game (next to Stud/8), it’s the most difficult to call, because there are so many possibilities. You would think it’d be Stud/8, but that has less variations.”

Even if you were a little lost watching the H.O.R.S.E. event, you could still sit back and enjoy watching poker’s biggest names battle for the coveted bracelet and top prize (this year’s winner, Freddy Deeb, took home $2,276,832). “The H.O.R.S.E field was a veritable all-star event,” said Horowitz. “It was a who’s who of the top players. We believe H.O.R.S.E. is a great complement to the Main Event. While we see the Main Event as the last American gold rush, H.O.R.S.E. helps highlight the all-around skills needed to be one of the top players in the world. Fans love to see the best players competing against each other, and that’s what they saw.”

Chad had his favorites going into the final table. “It’s a sports event, so it’s hard not to root for someone,” he admitted. “Even if you try to be objective, it’s impossible. I found myself rooting for the players who handled themselves well. When we got down to the final table, of course I’m going to hope Barry Greenstein does well. I like the way he plays. I like that he plays the highest level in cash games. It wasn’t that I was rooting against anybody in particular; it’s just you root for some guys more than others.”

Greenstein finished seventh, earning $259,296. When asked how he thought ESPN fared covering the event, he said, “They did a good job. They did as good a job as we can expect on the high-low games. They are harder to present than No-Limit Hold ’Em and lead to inevitable confusion in the graphics and explanations. Norman seemed to always think that whoever started with the best hand should win. In poker, there is much skill beyond starting-hand selection. But I give them an ‘A’ for their overall approach.”

And Greenstein gets an “A” for his clever on-screen explanation of Razz. “You need five lower cards than the next person,” he summed up succinctly, leading Chad to crack, “I had to read three or four books to learn how to play Razz.” (Chad had another gem when Gabe Kaplan was about to bust out: “Gabe knows he’s deader than a WB sitcom.”)

“I was being facetious,” said Greenstein about his Razz remark. “Even more than most forms of poker, the rules of Razz are easy to understand, but there are always strategical and psychological subtleties that determine the skill levels of the players.”
Indeed, besides being entertained, viewers may have also gotten a great lesson in H.O.R.S.E. watching this year’s event. As for what viewers can expect next year, Horowitz said, “Every year we tweak the schedule—always trying to deliver the best, most compelling poker to our fans.”
For those who look at poker as more than just Hold ’Em, there can be no denying that ESPN did just that this year.

Mark McGarry is a writer and editor based in New York City.