Win the shirt off Mike's back!

You may have read this before but make sure to register at MikeMatusow.com to win the Full Tilt Basketball jersey that Mike wears during the WSOP! You can see pics on our blog if you read below or click on the link to main site and see what it looks like. This is assuming of course, that you didn't see it while he was featured on ESPN wearing it ;)

It's a cool jersey and the only other way to get one would be to play about 50,000 raked hands on Full Tilt Poker!

So enter, no purchase is required and you may just walk away with a very unique piece of WSOP history.

Mike Matusow wins the WSOP Tournament of Champions

He did it folks, suriving a field of over 100 of the best poker players in the world, Mike Matusow is the winner! This will be an absolute gem of a TV broadcast when this show airs on Christmas Eve. The final three wound up being Hoyt Corkins, Phil Hellmuth, and Mike Matusow. There was plenty of verbal jabs fom Mike, plenty of whining by Phil, and plenty of agressive all-in's from Hoyt.

The final hand played out like this (from CardPlayer.com):

Hand 209 - Hoyt Corkins has the button, he limps, Matusow raises to $60,000, and Corkins calls. The flop comes Ks-Js-4d, Matusow bets $60,000, Corkins moves all in, and Matusow immediately calls with Kd-9d (pair of kings). Corkins shows Qc-10c for an open-ended straight draw. Corkins needs a nine or an ace, or something runner-runner to stay alive.
The turn card is the 2h, and Matusow is one card away from winning. The river card is the 3h, and Hoyt Corkins is eliminated in second place, earning $325,000.

Mike Matusow wins the 2005 WSOP Tournament of Champions, taking home $1 million, a very cool trophy, a TV victory that will air on Christmas Eve, and a crapload of bragging rights.

Take a stab at relieving Mike of some of his winnings at Full Tilt Poker. Mike plays there weekly along with pros like Phil Ivey, Jesus Ferguson, and Jennifer Harman.

Matusow already gets a warning at the TOC final table!

It didn't take long for Mike to get an "official" warning from Jimmy Somerfield, he's been taking verbal jabs at Phil since the tourney started. Matusow has been taunting Phil with quips such as "You've only played five hands since we started", "Stop dumping off chips to Hoyt (Corkins) 'cause it's going to make it harder for me to win this thing". He's been in Phils face from the get go so it's only going to get worse!

In other news, the field is now down to 6 players.

The following chip counts are announced to the crowd:
1. Hoyt Corkins - $350,000 (seat 5)
2. Mike Matusow - $272,500 (seat 9)
3. Phil Hellmuth - $200,000 (seat 4)
T-4. Tony Bloom - $115,000 (seat 8)
T-4. Steve Dannenmann - $115,000 (seat 1)
6. Grant Lang - $80,000 (seat 2)

More quotes and updates to follow!

In other news, you'll see that my prediction about the big confrontation being shown on ESPN's WSOP cover WAS televised tonight! However, this was just a hint of things to come. It's now 8:17PM EST and only the scuttle was televised so far. It gets worse people, keep watching ESPN!

You can play poker online with Mike at Full Tilt Poker. Mike plays there weekly along with pros like Phil Ivey, Jesus Ferguson, and Jennifer Harman.

Win a Full Tilt Poker "Matusow" jersey

Mike Matusow.com is giving away a free Full Tilt Poker basketball jersey with Matusow's name on it.

Here is a shot of Mike wearing the basketball jersey from this years WSOP-















The back says "Matusow" and this jersey looks really good. Imagine walking into your local game at the bar or your friends house wearing this Full Tilt Poker jersey with Matusow's name on the back! The only other way to get this jersey is to earn 25,000 Full Tilt Poker Points. You'd have to play in a MINIMUM of 25,000 raked hands on their site to get that many points. That's assuming you play big stakes poker and max out the rake on EVERY HAND!

No deposit is required, just check out www.mike-matusow.com to register for it.

10 players remain, Mike is still around and now he's wearing a mic!

It's finally here, Mike Matusow and Phil Hellmuth are now both seated at the final table! It didn't take long for Mike to start taking verbal jabs at Phil. He's giving Phil a hard time about the fact that Phil was invited to play as opposed to the other players that qualified their way in. There were just a few players invited based on their popularity and prior WSOP wins, besides Phil, only Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan were invited to play.

Mike took a hit to his chips when he called an all in by Yosh Nakano. Yosh had pocket Queens and Mike had pocket fives. His smaller pair never improved and Yosh doubles up.

We're now down to the final 10 players and everyone is at the final table mic'd up and ready for face time on TV. The action got hot and heavy on the first hand with two players raising, reraising, and an all in! The short stack folded quietly.

The next hand, Mike Matusow raises to $9,000 preflop, and Tony Bloom calls. The flop comes Ks-Qd-2d, Bloom checks, Matusow bets $9,000, and Bloom calls. The turn card pairs the board with the 2h, Bloom checks, Matusow bets, and Bloom thinks for a short while before folding. Matusow collects the pot.

The final 10 chip count looks like this:

1. Phil Hellmuth - $281,500 (Seat 4)
2. Mike Matusow - $179,000 (Seat 9)
3. Brandon Adams - $135,500 (Seat 7)
4. Tony Bloom - $130,000 (Seat 8)
5. Steve Dannenmann - $122,000 (Seat 1)
6. Keith Sexton - $95,500 (Seat 6)
7. Hoyt Corkins - $95,000 (Seat 5)
8. Grant Lang - $61,500 (Seat 2)
9. David Levi - $41,000 (Seat 3)

Play resumes tommorow at 2Pm Vegas time. Mike is in a great spot so I expect to see and hear great things about his play tomorrow. Don't forget, Mike was spotted playing online last night so if you happen to be on Full Tilt tonight, look for a red table (meaning there is a pro seated there) and peek in to see if it's Mike! If you see him make sure to wish him luck.

Stay tuned tomorrow for updates as soon as I can get them.

Tony Bloom doubles through Mike

Tony Bloom is all in for his last 14K in chips and Mike calls with a pocket pair of deuces. Tony has Ace Jack off suit so it's a race.

The flop comes King, Six, Four. The turn is a blank but the river brings an ugly Jack of hearts giving Tony the win. It's a small blow to Mike who is still left with roughly 130K chips.

Stay tuned.

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Day Two WSOP TOC updates. No meltdown yet!

Well, Phil and Mike haven't been at the same table yet but it's coming. With only 23 players left in the field we will be down to only two tables before too long. While they STILL may not tangle immediately (due to Tournament Director Jimmy Sommerfeld's seating assignments) you can be sure they will meet soon as they are chip leaders by a wide margin. The top 5 players by chip count are as follows:

1. Phil Hellmuth $170,100
2. Mike Matusow $143,300
3. Keith Sexton $83,000
4. Hoyt Corkins $72,000
5. Aaron Bartley $70,700

The average stack is around 45K so these players are the ones to watch. With their huge lead and playing experience, I don't expect Phil nor Mike to screw this up. I can't wait to see these two battle!

No real fireworks to report yet, if you've ever wondered how many camera men and women it takes to film a final table the magic number is apparently 12. That's right, the featured table is surrounded by 12 ESPN camera crew members. Not 12 cameras but 12 people, there are 5 cameras being used at the moment and there are several technicians needed to man the hole card cams, etc. Everytime a player misses showing his cards to the hole card camera, play is interrupted and that player has to flash his cards to the camera. It's a big distraction and some players are starting to grumble about it already.

Other players to note that are still in the field are Doyle Brunson with 32K and Johnny Chan with 33K. Blinds are currently at 1K and 2K with a 300 ante so they still have a little wiggle room.

Stay tuned.

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World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions to air on Christmas Eve

I just confirmed with my source that the WSOP TOC that goes into day 2 today will air on Christmas Eve. I keep getting more good stories about Mike and some key confrontations. Stay tuned for more updates and maybe, just maybe, the infamous Matusow Meltdown.

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A few interesting hands and observations from the TOC yesterday

A few things of note from the WSOP TOC yesterday:

1. Phil Hellmuth was fashionably late (as always)to take his seat in the tourney. Actually he was 3 and a half hours late and was blinded off for 20% of his stack! As you can see from the results posted below, phil had plenty of fight left in him and rebounded well from his starting position.

2. Think the internet players play bad hands? How about this one from yesterday? From middle position Mike Matusow raises to $600, and an unknown (internet) player in the small blind reraises to $2,500. Mike comes over the top and pushes all in, and the unknown player calls all in for about $8,000 more. Matusow showed Q-7, and the unknown showed A-8. The flop came K-8-x, giving the unknown player a solid lead. But Matusow caught a runner-runner nine-high straight, and busted his opponent. Was there a speech from Mike after this hand about kiddie tables or donkeys? You'll have to wait till the ESPN broadcast to find out :)

3. Mike has been singing alot lately, most notably "The whole world in his hands". Has Mike found religion and turned over a new leaf? Not at all, upon closer review he's actually singing "He's got the whole world, on his CARDS" referring to the globe that Steve Dannenmann is using for his card protector.

More stories and updates to follow. Play resumes at 12:00PM Vegas time.

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Mike Matusow 2nd in chips at the WSOP TOC

We are through with day one in the 2005 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions and our man, Mike Matusow is sitting in 2nd place with 107,600 chips! The day started with 108 players that were invited to play in this 2 million dollar freeroll. First place is a whopping 1 million dollars (although that amount pales in comparison to the 7.5 million from this years main event).

Now the most interesting part to this story is not that fact that Mike is in second place but rather, who's in first. None other than the John McEnroe of poker, Phil Hellmuth sits in the throne for now with 110,900 chips. It's not clear if Mike and Phil will start at the same table today but odds are either way, they will wind up at a table at some point today. When that happens, I'm betting the ESPN camera crews will be ALL OVER that table. This event will be broadcast sometime next year and I predict will be the most entertaining ESPN broadcast yet. The fireworks are BOUND to go off when Phil or Mike gets knocked out of this one. I'm rooting for Mike to win and I feel like he's a good shot to take it down but regardless, one of them has to lose for the other to win so....

What I think is interesting is that despite putting in over 12 hours of play yesterday, Mike was still spotted playing big limit poker last night at Full Tilt Poker! Mike has commented in the past about how easy it is to make thousands playing high limit poker online. He continues to prove that point as he sits almost daily at Full Tilt with 20-30K in front of him...

Mike needs to be rested up today as the TOC restarts, with only the top 9 spots paying out it will surely be a long day. The field will tighten their play the closer the bump spot comes and with many amatuers left in the field, who knows how long that will take. While most pros will get agressive as the bump spot nears, some amatuers will tighten up considerably. One amatuer to note is Aaron Bartley from Cary, NC. He's known online as "GambleAB" and recently placed well in a WSOP Circuit event. He's a solid player that started out playing 3-6 at PokerStars years ago and is a threat anytime he makes a final table, he sits in 5th place starting today.

The rest of the field looks like this:

1 Phil Hellmuth 110900
2 Mike Matusow 107600
3 Hoyt Corkins 65700
4 Lonnie Alexander 58600
5 Aaron Bartley 53200
6 Michael Mizrachi 46700
7 Johnny Chan 46500
8 Mark Hanna 44700
9 Neil Gersony 42300
10 Chad Brown 40800

So the names to watch are obviously Mike, Phil, Johnny Chan, Aaron as the darkhorse, and Michael Mizrachi. Hoyt can either go broke quick or come into the final table with a huge lead so he's dangerous as well. Keep an eye out here for updates as the day progresses.

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Mike set to play in the WSOP TOC this Sunday

LAS VEGAS--Harrah's Entertainment, Inc. is hosting the World Series of Poker 2005 Tournament of Champions (TOC), a $2 million, free-roll tournament, featuring a select group of poker's biggest names, will be held November 6-8 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

The final nine players from the World Series of Poker's 2005 main event are eligible to join more than 100 top players who qualified for the TOC at five World Series of Poker Circuit events earlier this year. The event will be taped for telecast by ESPN.

Among those eligible to participate in the TOC are top-ranked professional players, such as: Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Antonio Esfandiari, Jennifer Harman, T.J. Cloutier, Chris Ferguson, Robert Williamson, Russ Hamilton, Yosh Nakano, Michael Mizrachi, Tony Le, Eric Cloutier, and Mimi Tran.

Other qualifiers include reigning WSOP Champion Joseph Hachem, who won $7.5 million at this year's main event, and fellow final-table millionaires Steve Dannenman, Derek Barch, Aaron Kanter, Andrew Black, Scott Lazar, Daniel Bergsdorf, Brad Kondracki, and Mike Matusow, who will be representing Full Tilt Poker.

The TOC is a free-roll event - players aren't required to put up any of their own money to enter - that will award $2 million in prize money. First prize will be $1 million, second $325,000, third $250,000, fourth $150,000, fifth $100,000, sixth $75,000, seventh $50,000, and eighth and ninth $25,000.

"This Tournament of Champions is just one way of saying 'thank you' to the skilled and talented players who have helped make the World Series of Poker the richest sporting event on the planet," said Jeffrey Pollack, vice president of sports and entertainment marketing for Harrah's. "We're especially proud to host it at Caesars Palace, the premier luxury brand in the Harrah's portfolio."

Stay tuned to this blog for updates starting on Sunday. Let's all root for Mike as he takes a shot at redemption in winning a WSOP final table!

Mike Matusow confrontation coming up next week on ESPN

I don't want to post any spoilers but make sure to watch the ESPN WSOP broadcast. For those that don't know, Mike was involved in a heated exchange with another player at the table (I'll let that part be a surprise). The words got so heated in fact, that at one point security was called in!

I'll leave at that as a teaser but this will certainly make the broadcast.

Of course, we're all waiting on the infamous Mike Matusow Meltdown if/when he busts out. If you don't know the outcome of the tourney yet this will be yet another surprise. I'll wait till the time is right to elaborate on this one as well.

Check back in a few days as I get more info on Mike.

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