Lies, rumors, and cotton candy

Ok, I've actually got some good news regarding Mike and his online game. Last night on Full Tilt he seemed to have settled into a groove playing 200/400 LIMIT Omaha. I have screen shots and some interesting chat that took place but I'll have to post that later tonight as it was recorded on another machine that I don't have access to at the moment. I think Mike has finally realized that there are only so many markers he can call in. Sooner or later the well runs dry and people stop loaning you money. Since Mike was spotted playing a limit game with what appeared to be an appropriate sized stack (12K), hopefully he's working on building his roll back to where it needs to be (to play higher limit PLO8). More on this tomorrow...

TLK - TexasLimitKing, banned or not?

It appears that the rumor about TLK, aka Alexandros Dalaklis being banned from Full Tilt Poker was just that. A faithful reader of the blog, RebelB, sent me this chat transcript which proves without a shadow of a doubt that the man is still around!

devmo: whats up partner?
TexasLimitKing: good, u ?
devmo: someone told me you werent on here anymore i c thats not true
TexasLimitKing: just havent been playing lately
devmo: i c
UltimateKings (Observer): There were quit a lot of rumours u being banned from FTP ...
TexasLimitKing: 6months
devmo: you may as well retire before youre legal
TexasLimitKing: i could lol
devmo: life is good lol
devmo: i was just hoping to retire by 23
devmo: anyways keep up the good work
TexasLimitKing: hehe thx
TexasLimitKing: u2
devmo: ur gona have to support a gang of girls :)
devmo: lata
TexasLimitKing: true
TexasLimitKing: l8r

So hopefully this puts that rumor to bed. I promised to resolve this rumor for the loyal readers of the blog and thanks to RebelB, we delivered. Yet another reason to read this blog :)

Stay tuned for my next entry as I'm going to share some tidbits from an interesting conversation with Scott Matusow, Mike's big brother (who can still kick Mike's ass, btw). Something about having to fire Mike from their old furniture business and empty pizza boxes piling up in Mike's kitchen. Oh yeah, that and someone apparently stole Mike's cat...

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Mike owes who? How much?

You gotta love virtual railbirding, where the chatter from the rail is wrapped up in nice, formatted text and ripe for publication on blogs like mine. Last night on Full Tilt, Mike didn't disappoint as he delivered what the railbirds wanted, kept the players at the table entertained, and was on the receiving end of a loan request for once (one that he never acknowledged interestingly enough).

So we start the evening off with Mike Matusow playing lower than usual limits at the 25/50 PL Omaha Hi/Lo game.

Nothing too eventful for the first 20 minutes or so after I started watching. Along with the rest of the railbirds, we all were waiting for Mike to go broke. About 25 minutes in, he doesn't disappoint.



Dealer: HakAllah shows [Kd Kc 8d 8s]
Dealer: Mike Matusow shows [Jh 4c Qh Ad]
Dealer: HakAllah shows a full house, Eights full of Fours, for high
Dealer: Mike Matusow shows a full house, Fours full of Jacks, for high
Dealer: HakAllah wins the pot ($5,753) with a full house, Eights full of Fours
Mike Matusow: normal
Dealer: Hand #1288884506
chiTown03 (Observer): uh oh
HakAllah: yah lucky
A little more random chatter followed and then Roland de Wolfe (who had been chatting it up for some time) ASKS MIKE FOR A LOAN!
Roland de Wolfe (Observer): mikey send me 5k i wan tin

Interestingly, Mike didn't reply to his direct request for loan. Given the common public knowledge of Mike borrowing from many of the players on Full Tilt, I find it interesting that he chose not to loan Roland any cash. Roland is a known pro player, hell he's playing live right now on the Full Tilt Poker Championship at Red Rock on Fox Sports Network as I write this! Karma Mike, it's a bitch...

The remainder of the entertainment for the evening was gleaned from various chatter between Mike and the other players at the table. In no particular order I'll recap below:

Apparently Texas Limit King has been banned from Full Tilt Poker for collusion! There was a ton of chatter regarding this so take that with a grain of salt. He has been conspicuously absent from the high limit games lately but that doesn't mean that he's done something ominous either. I'm going to contact my inside guy at Full Tilt to confirm/deny this so keep an eye out for another post to follow up on this.

There was also quite a bit of talk regarding Mike owing several players money that was promised to them. The largest amount owed apparently is to 10lbBass to the tune of 50K. Apparently 10lbBass was complaining publicly in the chat window about this. I'll report on this one as it develops as well. The only other tidbit related to loans was Mike going to ProfBackwards AKA Ted Forrest's house to give him 20K in cash so that Ted would shoot 20K into Mike's Full Tilt account.

Perhaps the most telling comment of the evening came straight from "The Mouth", if you'll excuse the pun:

Mike Matusow: wellllets c i never had a losing month inliv epoker in my life and never cashed out online hmm

This was his reply to a short discussion regarding whether high limit players should be allowed to use fake names online. Mike feels strongly that any player above 25/50 NL should be required by the poker room to use their real name. This is a debate for another day but his comment above about never cashing out online is very telling. When you take into account that massive amounts that Mike has been seen with at various times online, think about just how much he's lost! If he's honestly never cashed out, that number runs easily into the millions. What did I say a few days ago about Mike being addicted to online poker?

If you ever get tired of railbirding at Full Tilt, check out this site for a change of scenery. Three out of the last four WSOP champs started here!

Matusow Trivia

How about a little Mike Matusow Trivia? This may come in handy if there's ever a "Poker Player" category on Jeopardy:

1. Did you know that Mike The Mouth is the ONLY player to ever cash for 1 million or more in TWO major poker tournaments in the same year?

2. Did you know that Mike was a poker dealer before he was a player? He dealt at the Orleans and Sams Town.

3. How many WSOP bracelets does Mike own? The answer: two. The 1999 $3,500 No Limit Holdem event and the 2002 $5,000 Omaha Hi-Lo Split event.

4. Mike once worked at his family's furniture store before becoming a high stakes poker player.

5. Did you know that Mike paid 1/3 of Scotty Nguyen's entry fee to the $10,000 WSOP Main Event in 1998? Scotty won that event and Mike earned a hefty $333,333.33 return for his, $3,333.33 investment.

Come back next week for part two of this series we will explore the top 5 facts Mike Doesn't want you to know.

Play poker with Mike at FTP, you can watch Mike play for insane pots that routinely top 50K with lots of high stakes action!

Is Mike Matusow addicted to online poker?

You be the judge-

At this moment, he's in Foxwoods at the World Poker Finals and the word is that he busted out of todays (smaller) event already. So look at things from this perspective: You're a world class pro player and you're surrounded by world class poker players and many more that WISH they were world class poker players. You're all assembled in one place to play a big poker tourney. What happens as players bust out of big poker events? They play in the CASH SIDE GAMES! It's no secret that many players go to these events JUST to play in the side games. So where do you suppose Mike has been tonight? (Hint, it's not the spa)

So here we have Mike playing some Omaha, nothing unusual about that other than the fact that I'm sure he had a great selection of cash games to choose from at Foxwoods, in fact I'm certain of it. Instead, he chose to play poker of the online variety. You be the judge.

Oh yeah, did I mention he went broke again after dropping 20K to eazypeazy? Yup, and then he asked Gus Hansen for a 20K loan:

Mike Matusow: gus
Mike Matusow: SO SICK
Gus Hansen: abe leave mike alone
Mike Matusow: GUS SEN DM E20
Mike Matusow: SEN DBACK TONIGHT
Gus Hansen: abe is too good
Mike Matusow: LOL
Gus Hansen: he is the best
Mike Matusow: Y HES GREAT
Gus Hansen: nobody can beat him
Mike Matusow: GREAT SEND ME 20
Mike Matusow: BEFORE I JUMP OUT TH E WINDOW OF THIS HOTEL
Gus Hansen: have to send the whole world first mike
Mike Matusow: ILLSEND BACK IN 2HRS
Mike Matusow: PROMISDE
EazyPeazy: i tihnk you should go the hellmuth root mike work on your endosments
Mike Matusow: I JUST CHECKED MY TRANFERS DOESNT SAY ANYTHING PROSSESSING

So it appears that the "abe" Gus is referring to is EazyPeazy, AKA Abe Mosseri who is a local poker pro who has made several final tables in his career. A great player in his own right. Whether Gus's comment was in jest or he was actually serious that he thought Mike couldn't beat Abe heads up is unknown. What is known is that Gus didn't send the money as Mike wasn't seen playing again afterwards. Now I'm sure Mike is good for the money, that's not the issue here. This also isn't a "Mike went broke and begged for money" article. It's common for people to take loans of 20K or more at the level they play, it's not begging, it's part of the game.

I imagine Mike is walking the floor of Foxwoods right about now, looking for a stake or perhaps playing with his own roll. I do find it odd that he went straight to the laptop though vs. the floor. Your comments on this are welcome.

You can play poker with Mike or just watch the fun at Full Tilt Poker.

The Mouth vs. The Shiek

A classic Matusow moment from the 2005 WSOP has Mike Matusow squaring off against Sean "Shieky" Sheikhan.



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You win some and you lose some

Mike was spotted this morning playing some heads up 1000/2000 Limit Omaha Hi/Lo with profbackwards (Ted Forrest). After sitting with 40K, Mike has worked his roll up to around 60K.



After playing for another 20 minutes or so, profbackwards sat out and none other than Luigi66369 AKA Patrik Antonius sat with 30K. Mike was very happy to see him sit down as evidenced by his chat reply of "tytyty", "tygod".


At one point Mike had swoll his roll to a tad over 80K. After settling back in and taking a few swings, Mike had about 48K when EazyPeazy (unknown player) sat down with around 80K.



After taking a beating (as you can see above), Mike's stack was devastated and got as low as 6K. While most players would tilt off the rest of the their stack at this point, Mike sucked it up and chipped away till his stack was back around 50K. Folks, there aren't many players in the world capable of making a move like this in Omaha Hi/Lo, much less at this world class level. Way to play Mike!

Unfortunately for Mike, he would later move his game to the heads up 200/400 NL game and drop around 40K after taking some wicked beats at the hands of Spiked (unknown player but rumored to be Sean Sheikhan).

You can railbird the games at Full Tilt as well and see action like this everyday. Anytime a pro is seated at a table, the table will turn red in the lobby. More pros play at Full Tilt than any other site in the world!