Happy Holidays!

I'd like to send all of the loyal readers of this blog and all of the new visitors my very best wishes for this holiday season. With Christmas now behind us and the year wrapping up, I'm working a best and worst of 2006 entry. Look for a detailed recap of Mikes highs and lows from this past year and some things to expect in 2007!

I have a very big announcement coming in January regarding a secret project that Mike has been working on. It's very unique to the poker world and I guarantee that this blog will be the first place you read about it ;)

If you get too bored during this holiday break, try your game at Full Tilt Poker. You're likely to see Mike and many other pro players playing high limits. Just look for any table highlighted in red, that means a pro is seated there playing!

The MIT Poker Point System

Regular readers of this blog know that I rarely go off-topic and talk about things outside of Mikes live and online antics. Well, here's one of those rare times when I'm going to run out of bounds for a minute. With the end of the year approaching and Christmas right around the bend, I want to give something back to my blog readers.

I recently discovered and tried a new system to improve my poker game. Like most I've read books, watched plenty of live poker on TV, particpate in forums, and play the game online almost daily. While I consider myself a decent player, I'm not a big winner and never have been. I can honestly say that in the years that I've been playing I've never seen anything truly revolutionary as it relates to poker.

Enter the Game Changer: The MIT Poker Point Count System

If you've read the book "Breaking Vegas" or any of the countless stories about the infamous MIT Blackjack card counting team, you may have thought "I wish poker had such a system". Now it's here and I'm not kidding, it made a difference in my game. In fact, it's even easier than card counting and can make you a lot more money with the number of fish out there playing the game.

Written by Ray Seakan, who holds a Masters from MIT, this book is easy to read and damnit, it just works. I don't know what else to say about it as I'm not the best salesman in the world. If you've seen other "systems" don't mistake this for a "Roy Rounder" type deal. Ray is his REAL NAME and his telephone number is on the book. He lives and plays live poker for a living in Vegas and has lived there for the last 18 years.

It made a difference for me, maybe it can make a difference for you too. You can read up on it more at Ray's website. Leave a comment here if you try it and let me know what you think!

Ever seen a man drink his own piss?

It's a Mike Matusow interview with PokerWire but Dutch steals the show with his bizarre (drug fueled?) comment-



Ever seen a guy totally dominate a poker table? There's now an MIT system to beat poker just like they did with Blackjack.

Matusowned

I'm not 100% up to speed on the latest Internet Geekisms (aka leet speek) but I know that the term "owned" has spawned many mutated versions of the word. Pwned, ()wn4g3, etc. Hell, the word even has its own Wiki page!

Tonight I saw the newest version and I must admit, it does seem to roll off the tongue.

MATUSOWNED (matis-owned) v. Trying to outplay "The Mouth" with those rags? Your ass just got Matusowned.

Some random railbird said it after Mike took down a big pot with a King high bluff on a raggedy board. I would give you credit but so many railbirds flock to the rail whenever Mike plays, the chat scrolled by too quickly for me to see your screen name. I wonder how long before this word makes its way into the Urban Dictionary.

So yeah, Mike did bust out of the WPT event yesterday. It didn't take him long to hit Full Tilt either, just as I wondered outloud in my last post it seems he hit the virtual felt to let off some steam. I've had a few reports stream in and for the most part, Mike has played some pretty solid poker today. No update on where he is bankroll wise but it does appear that he's up today.

I've got several items to verify and follow up on that I plan on talking about later this week. Give me a few days and look for another update.

Don't get Matusowned, improve your game before you donk off another paycheck.

Damn

Here I am almost ready to go to bed and I get a text message on my cell-

"Mike's out dude".

I call my buddy back on the rail and he tells me that Mike instacalled an all in from an unknown player preflop. Mike held pocket tens and the unknown had pocket ACES.

Damn.

I'm out, time to get some sleep.

I wonder how long before Mike hits Full Tilt.

Matusow is deep in the WPT Doyle Brunson North American Poker Classic

For once, Mike's not sitting down in front his computer taking wicked beats on Full Tilt Poker. As I write this entry, Mike's sitting as one of the chip leaders at the World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic (though this event is called the Doyle Brunson North American Poker Classic) hosted at the Bellagio Casino (man, that's a friggin mouthful).

Folks, let's all follow the progress at Card Player and pull for Mike from the virtual rail. He's in 8th place at the moment with 490K in chips, separated from the leader by less than 200K in chips. It's worth noting that Joe Hachem and Daniel Negreanu are also in the mix in 2nd and 3rd place respectively.

Of the 583 that ponied up the cash to play in this tourney, Mike sits with a mighty stack of almost 500K. As the blinds approach 4000/8000 it's a safe bet that most of the remaining 63 players have a case of chip envy. One of the key pots that helped vault Mike to his chip position was against Chau Giang earlier today. With four limpers including Mike, Chau raised to 24K from the button. It's folded to Mike who is the only caller and on a flop of Q T 9 with two diamonds "The Mouth" fires out a 40K bet. Chau didn't think long before pushing all in and is called by Mike. Chau turns up bottom pair with a King kicker and Mike shows the Q T with two diamonds for top two pair with a flush draw. The diamond on the turn has Chau already stacking up chips to slide over to Mike. This single pot was worth around 250K according to my railbirds reporting in.

The last man (or woman as Krity Gazes and Evelyn Ng are still in it) standing among these final 63 players will walk away with almost 2.2 million dollars. Mike, let's buckle down and do this! I know you've got a fire inside just burning for a win. I'm not posting again 'till you're the chip leader so let's get it done!

You may find yourself the chip leader at the next big WPT event, you can qualify for WPT events right here online.

Vegas trips and Mike's agent

Well it looks like my last post did get someones attention. I'm playing phone tag with Mike's agent from CardPlayer Media trying to nail down an interview very soon. Next week is very busy for me but I'm sure we'll have something to announce by New Years.

Keep the questions rolling in, so far I've got some great questions from the readers of the blog and I promise to take the best of them and try my ass off to get Mike to answer them.

Stay tuned...

Calling Mike Matusow

Ok, so here's the deal. I've received a few emails and comments on my recent post about Mike being debt for 3 million, etc. In talking to Scott Matusow, he's indicated that there's no way Mike is in for that much. It's been mentioned that the number is probably closer to 1 million but the reality is that Mike TOLD THE RAIL he was in for 3 million. Let's just cut it down the middle and say 1.5M, sound good?

On the topic of empty pizza boxes and what Scott told me, apparently I got my wires crossed. It's not a case of everytime, just some of the time that the place is a mess. Scott indicated that there's plenty of times when the place is spotless (Mike's new girlfriend have anything to do with that?).

Here's what I'd like to propose. I know you read the blog Mike, so does Scott. Scott, you've been really cool to talk with and you and I share many of the same views. Hell, we talked politics more than Mike and poker! I'll be in Vegas from Jan. 6-12th, Scott and Mike let's hook this up and do the definitive Mike Matusow interview and post it here for all to read. The purpose of this blog was always to ENLIGHTEN people on The Mouth, not drag him through the mud like some try to do.

So to you the reader, please send me your questions that you'd like to see Mike answer and I'll pose those questions to him next month. Come on Mike, I'm making my appeal public. I'll be in your backyard in a few weeks. Wanna meet up? Lunch or Dinner is on me :)You both know how to reach me directly.

Three million reasons why this entry is late

I know, I know, I promised a follow up DAYS ago on a few items. Since there were several things I was going to talk about, let's just go by numbers:

1. My conversation with Scott Matusow. There are so many components to the talk that we had that I'm saving this for a later date. I need to assemble the bits and pieces first before I put it out for public consumption. Yes, I know I keep teasing about this but as I've said before I prefer to present things as accurately as possible. So stay tuned.

2. The whole Mike is addicted to online poker thing. One thing Scott mentioned to me was that everytime he's at Mike's house there's nothing but empty pizza boxes in the kitchen (read: he's not getting out much!). In fact, during our conversation Scott tried to get Mike on the phone, it went like this-

Scott Matusow: let me call him now let me see if hes in some soirt of human range ya im serious
toddmpc: ok
Scott Matusow: nah mail box full
Scott Matusow: one sec ill try home #
Scott Matusow: "hey mike this guy does a nice blog on you online, when you want to talk to him"
Scott Matusow: " im sleeping ill call yu later"
toddmpc: lol
Scott Matusow: which he wont ill call him he will say " cant talk playing online"

3. Just how deep is Mike in the hole and how much does he owe his spotters? By almost every account I've heard, he's in for at least 3 million dollars. You can do some simple math based on the number of times he has busted out publicly and then asked for a loan. Using some rough math, I've seen him drop at least 400-500K in total over the last month or so. This was almost certainly borrowed money. Hell, he's even said in public chat that's in for the 3 million-

Erik Seidel (Observer): Mixed games now Mikey, don't bust the site
SilentSupra (Observer): zomg, a red player on therail?
Mike Matusow: y
Mike Matusow: i only owe three mil
Mike Matusow: think they may cut me off

The comment from Erik Siedel was in response to Full Tilt Poker adding mixed cash games to their site. The "don't bust the site" reference was apparently tied to Full Tilt fronting Mike some cash to keep playing. I've also heard from one my very reliable sources that Mike will have to cash in his private shares of Full Tilt stock to repay some of the money.

4. A few other misc. items regarding a cat, the furniture business, and other stuff I may have forgot. You'll have to wait on those too but I promise they'll be entertaining as well.

Don''t get 3 million in the hole, play within your limits and if you're ever bored, you can watch Mike try to break even.

The new Mike Matusow blog and fan site

The time has come (and loyal readers have already noticed) to overhaul the Mike Matusow blog. I've long wanted to expand the site and offer more to my readers than just the blog so I'm proud to announce the grand opening of Mike-Matusow.net to supplement the blog!

You now have access to Mike Matusow pictures, a view of his lifetime Tournament Wins, and more. The site also will offer an ever-growing Poker Pro database with profiles of traditional pros such as Mike as well as online players such as Texas Limit King. Look for lots of updates to these areas of the website very soon.

Another valued addition to the site is the relationship that I now have with Scott Matusow, who is the older brother to Mike. You may have seen glimpses of Scott during the recent ESPN coverage of the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions. He can be seen talking about how Mike misplayed a key hand with Mike Sexton with their mother Gloria Matusow. Scott cares deeply for his brother Mike and has offered to contribute to the blog from time to time. I'm very excited and honored to have someone like Scott who not only noticed the blog but offered his time to help keep you (the reader) updated. Hopefully this new relationship will lead to some exclusive content and interviews in the near future ;)

Your feedback is welcome, I'd love to hear what you think about the new look and features of the blog. Also, loyal readers like RebelB who send me the occasional chat log or screen shot are welcome to contact me as well. If your submission is published you'll get proper credit and also be entered in a new monthly drawing for free Full Tilt Poker items such as hats and sunglasses.

Stay tuned folks, another entry is coming tomorrow!