Posts Tagged ‘Mike Matusow’

Mike Matusow Bitter over Full Tilt Poker

Tuesday, January 29th, 2013

With his fanny pack and big attitude, Mike Matusow recently did an interview about his lack of a Full Tilt Poker contract.

Matusow is fresh off of winning the 2013 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship ($750,000) – a tournament where he had to overcome 12-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth in the finals. With that being said, “The Mouth” is simply dumbfounded as to why Full Tilt wouldn’t renew a contract with him because obviously he still has what it takes to make them money.

Matusow expressed his extreme annoyance about FTP signing Viktor Blom, Gus Hansen, and Tom Dwan after they reopened. He stated, “You know, I was hoping to catch back on with Full Tilt. But they don’t want me, it looks like.” He added, “I don’t know why – I’m a walking billboard. It’s crazy, I walk around here and everybody knows who I am. Everybody wants pics and autographs.”

Matusow is a confident player and fully believes he is being overlooked. He said “Why anybody wouldn’t want me to represent them is beyond me. But they wanna have these internet kids with no personalities and nobody even knows who they are. Hey I’m not gonna beg somebody to make them money. I know what I bring to the table.”

He even pulls out some low blows by saying that Blom and Hansen were “stone degenerates who go in and out of money every week.” Of course, this may just have been the tampons talking that were in his fanny pack. It’s unfortunate that Matusow has become a bitter menopausal over the situation; but hopefully he will catch the eye of another well known online poker room and have more success with them after the NBC victory.

Tags: ,
Posted in Poker News | Comments Off

Mike Matusow thinks WSOP Tournament Buy-ins should be Dramatically Lowered

Sunday, June 17th, 2012

Mike Matusow says a lot of things, which means that not everything coming out of his mouth is in anywhere, shape or form newsworthy. However, he did recently make a good point about how WPT and WSOP tournament buy-ins should be lowered so more live players can make a living. ”The Mouth” discussed this in a recent interview by saying the following:

I’m not a big fan of traveling the circuit. Unless they bring the buy ins down to around $3,000 now, everybody is going to go broke. I think all the WPTs and all the WSOPC events should be like $3,000 and they should cut the rake in half. People are hurting. If you’re going to play a $10,000 tournament once a month, it’s impossible to survive. That’s why you don’t see me.

It costs like $700k a year to play all the big tournaments. That’s about one second place finish. Do you have any idea how hard it is to win second place every year? You’re playing the best players in the world.

Matusow went on to say that he doesn’t think the poker world can sustain itself without the big sponsorship deals coming from sites like PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. He specifically pointed out that the WSOP has to “start giving back” because times are rougher right now.

The Mouth also talked about the Full Tilt Poker situation a little, and he basically backed Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson up by saying, ”

I still believe Howard is not a criminal. Chris is not a criminal. I know they would never steal from anybody. They made mistakes. When they had no money they needed to sell right away. They had offers but they wanted to be greedy about it and keep control. They lost the offers. They put themselves in this position.

As evidenced by his nickname, Matusow has always been known as a loudmouth. However, with 18 years of experience in the poker world, he does have some good insight into the current state of the game. And it’d certainly be nice if the WSOP took his advice about cutting tournament rake in half!

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Poker News, Poker Tournaments | Comments Off

Scott Matusow and Mike Matusow reconcile

Sunday, December 4th, 2011

Three weeks ago, an abrupt feud between poker pro Mike Matusow and his brother Scott Matusow was dominating the poker news headlines. The fight started when Mike Matusow dissed his brother for promoting a negative article about Phil Ivey and Full Tilt Poker through Mike’s twitter feed.

Then Scott Matusow wrote an unflattering post about Mike entitled An open letter to Mike Matusow. The jest of the post was that Mike is a degenerate gambler who only comes around his family when he needs something. In any case, I got to wondering about how things would be over the holidays when the Matusow brothers got together again. And apparently, they’ve already reconciled as Scott mentioned in his most recent blog post.

The most telling excerpt from the blog post read as follows:

There was a good deal of somewhat heated convo, but I was able to get my point across to him pertaining to the things I wrote on my last blog. I stated to him that I did not want to publicly air our stuff out, but that I felt I did not have a choice in the matter, since talking to him privately up to this point, and getting him to listen was a virtual impossibility. It seems that he now understands things much better, and he expressed to me he wished I did not publicly do what I did. However, I did apologize and explain it was not meant to hurt him, and explained to him why I did and both of us have come to a common understanding over this issue.

Is this the end of the drama for the Matusow’s? With two such explosive characters so closely related, it seems unlikely, but only time will tell. As for Mike Matusow, the former Full Tilt Poker pro continues to play in tournaments and build upon his impressive $7,828,911 in career cashes. Scott Matusow appears to be posting on his blog every once and a while, and benefits from his relationship to Mike.

 

Tags: , ,
Posted in Poker News | Comments Off

Phil Ivey in WSOP Main Event?

Saturday, July 2nd, 2011

Back in May, Phil Ivey made a very strong statement that he had no intention of playing in any WSOP events this year. This statement was made along with Ivey expressing his disappointment in Full Tilt Poker over their non-payment of player funds. And it preceded his big $150 million lawsuit against FTP, which was blasted by several pros like Tony G and Mike Matusow.

However, it appears as if Ivey may be changing his tune following the possible sale of Full Tilt Poker to European investors. The news came via Ivey’s friend Barry Greenstein, who talked about the plans in an interview with PokerNews. You can check out Greenstein’s interview right here.

Going back to Ivey, his original statement was that he didn’t want to play in the 2011 WSOP because he said it wasn’t fair if other players could participate – due to their money being locked up in FTP. But weeks later, we saw him opening up to Full Tilt by meeting with the company’s executives in Ireland. It was reported that the meeting involved Ivey and FTP settling over the money he had tied up in the site.

Following this news, the LA Times broke a huge story about FTP working on a deal with the mysterious European investors that are still unknown at this point. And bringing this all to the present, Ivey plans on playing the Main Event as long as the deal gets completed soon.

However, even though the LA Times reported that the deal was already done, we’re still waiting on it to be officially completed. Seeing as how the Main Event starts in a few days, that doesn’t give Ivey much time to finalize his decision on playing in the tournament.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Poker News, Poker Tournaments | Comments Off

Full Tilt firing Poker Pros?

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

Just days after UB and Absolute Poker let go of their signed pros, rumors are flying about Full Tilt Poker possibly dropping their poker pros.

The rumor started on the popular podcast site QuadJacks.com, where they discussed potential firings after Full Tilt apparently blocked signed pros from appearing on the show. The most infamous event so far is when Mike Matusow was on the show talking about Full Tilt’s situation, and an FT rep called Matusow while the show was happening to get him to quit talking. Matusow stayed on QuadsJacks and switched the topic to sports, only to be called again by Full Tilt and told to get off of the show.

In the aftermath of the Matusow incident, the QuadJacks hosts appear angry, and have lashed out at the world’s second largest poker site. Here is some of what was said between the show’s hosts from an episode last week:

I don’t think everything is all right, it is not all right.  Nobody from the top of management has let anyone know.  Where is the money Full Tilt?  At least PokerStars has sent checks.  They are paying their shills to say that everything is okay.  Everything is NOT okay.  They are forbidden to speak.

“Cause for concern?”

“I don’t think we are going to see our money.  I don’t think they have money to pay their players.”

“We will schedule Full Tilt Poker players to appear on the program and as soon as this announcement is made public, someone contacts these players and tells them they have to go.  Morbid this kind of surveillance is kinda weird.”

“Let it slide the first few times….had interview all lined up…all of a sudden the player can’t come on.  Everyone is in a cloud of secrecy right now.  If they can’t pay these players accounts and pay these pros, this is a major problem.”

Towards the end of the show, the Quadjacks hosts speculated that they think the Full Tilt Poker pros will be fired soon just like the UB/Absolute pros were. And while this is all very interesting, we’ll just have to see how accurate the predictions are.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Online Poker | Comments Off

Poker Prop Bets Abound in 2010

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

Prop bets have always been big in poker, with professional players making all sorts of ridiculous personal bets. Vegetarians have gone carnivore, players have golfed for a whopping $18,000 per hole, moved to Israel, gotten tattoos and more. The most recent prop bet in the world of professional poker is between players Phil Ivey and Howard Lederer.

Lederer has bet $5 million against Ivey winning WSOP bracelets in the 2010 and 2011 tournaments. Ivey has won a total of seven bracelets since the 2000 World Series of Poker, two of which he won last year. He also managed to make it to the Main Event final table in last year’s tournament. However, will he win two bracelets this year and the next? Apparently he’s willing to bet $5 million that he will!

On a crazier note, player Ted Forrest has a $2 million prop bet going with Mike Matusow. Matusow has bet Forrest that he can’t get his weight down to 139 pounds by July 15. He currently weights 188. If he manages to take of the 49 pounds, Forrest will get $2 million. If he doesn’t, he’ll pay Matusow $150,000. On a previous prop bet, Forrest ran a full marathon in Las Vegas summer heat for $7000 and went immediately to the hospital for severe foot injuries when he finished. Hopefully this new prop bet won’t land him in the hospital again! Matusow has also agreed to run through the Vegas Strip totally naked if three women take home bracelets in the WSOP.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Poker News | Comments Off

WSOP Tournament of Champions is Back

Friday, March 19th, 2010

The Tournament of Champions, one of the most exciting all-star events hosted by the WSOP, is coming back this summer. The tournament was shelved in 2006, but is back due to popular demand. The tournament is a $1 million freeroll for the top 20 bracelet holders of WSOP tournaments past. It should be one of the most exciting tournaments of the summer!

Who determines which players will take part in the Tournament of Champions? Poker fans like you and me! The polls opened on March 15 and will remain open until June 15 at the WSOP website. Any previous WSOP bracelet winner is eligible. Additionally, five players have already been automatically selected to take part in the tournament. These players are Joe Cada (the reigning WSOP Main Event champion), Barry Shulman (winner of the Main Event in WSOP Europe this year), and Annie Duke, Mike Sexton and Mike Matusow (previous winners of the WSOP Tournament of Champions).

The tournament is scheduled to begin on June 27 and will take place at the Rio. Players will compete until they are narrowed down to a final table of 9 players and the final table will be played on July 4. Players are playing for their share of the $1 million prize as well as the prestigious title of Tournament of Champions winner. First place will receive $500,000; second place takes home $100,000; and the rest of the players at the final table will take home $25,000.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Poker News, Poker Tournaments | Comments Off