Mike Matusow
In poker, Mike 'The Mouth' Matusow is one of the originals. Best known for constantly needling his opponents and for never holding back emotional outbursts, you might think of Matusow as more flash than substance. But you can't fully discount his talent with the cards. Mike Matusow is an American professional poker player. He was born on April 30th, 1968 in Los Angeles, CA.He is a 4-time WSOP bracelet winner. He also made the final table in the Main Event twice, in 2005 and in 2001. He has a total of $9.5 million in live tournament career earnings. Matusow was also a regular feature on the most famous classic poker TV shows, Poker After Dark on NBC and High.
VideoImage gallerySee alsoMike Matusow (born Michael Matusow) was born on April 30, 1968 in Los Angeles, California. He is also known by his nickname 'The Mouth', because he tends to trash-talk a lot around the poker tables. Matusow is also known around the poker tables for playing great poker for hours or even days, but then he always snaps and makes a huge mistake that costs him a lot of his money. This is also known as the 'Mike Matusow Blow-Up' or the 'Mike Matusow Meltdown'.
He holds 3 World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets which he won in 1999, 2002, and 2008. He is also the winner of the 2005 WSOP Tournament of Champions.
Matusow was first a poker dealer before becoming a professional poker player. Even as a dealer he was playing some poker, but not too seriously. It was only in the 1990s that he started playing poker more seriously and then became a professional poker player.
Matusow is very loved by many fans and poker players, but this was not the case earlier in his life. As a kid, Matusow was bullied in the school and did not attend college. He tried to be an auto mechanic, but did not complete all the required tests for the job. Failing to become an auto mechanic, he decided to work at his family's furniture store.
When he was 18 years old, he first discovered the world of poker by playing video poker in the Maxim Casino. He used to play it for so long that he later suffered from repetitive strain injury in his shoulders and arms. Sometimes, Matusow stole some money from his mom's purse to play the video poker and later on even attended Gamblers Anonymous meetings to get some help for his addiction. It was rounder Steve Samaroff who taught Matusow to play Texas Hold'em in 1989. Matusow was doing very well and at one point he won 51 out of 53 sessions to win $250,000.
Matusow even found the time to help professional poker player Scotty Nguyen. In the 1998 WSOP he paid one-third of Nguyen's entrance fee into a satellite for the $10,000 No Limit Texas Hold'em main event. Nguyen went all the way to win the event and awarded Matusow with $333,333 in return for his help. In the 2001 WSOP $10,000 No Limit Texas Hold'em main event, Matusow finished 6th. He was bluffed by Juan Carlos Mortensen who eventually won the event and said that losing this hand was the main reason for his finish and that he did not trust his instincts to call Mortensen's bluff.
Matusow is also known for a hot temper and in the 2004 WSOP main event, he verbally attacked professional poker player Greg Raymer who eventually became the champion of the event. The 2005 WSOP, Matusow finished 9th out of 5,619 players in the main event and took home $1,000,000. It was several months later that he won the WSOP Tournaments of Champions. This win awarded him with another $1,000,000. The following year was also successful for Matusow as he finished 3rd in the Tournament of Champions and won $250,000.
Matusow participated in other poker events during the years. In 2004, Matusow made his first final table at the World Poker Tour (WPT). He finished 3rd and won $250,000. In 2006 he finished 2nd to Tony G in the WPT Bad Boys of Poker II. Matusow had another great poker tournament in the Poker Superstars III where he made it all the way to the Elite Eight where he defeated seven other poker players and won $500,000. In 2007, Matusow came in second at the World Poker Tour Bellagio Cup III Championship and won $671,320. In 2008, Matusow reached another WTP final table, but finished it in 6th place to win $124,048. So far as of 2008, Matusow has won over $7,000,000 in live tournaments only.
He is also a regular when it comes to online poker play and can be spotted on: Ultimate Bet, where he is known as 'dill pickle'; PokerStars, where he is known as 'mrpokejoke'; and Full Tilt Poker, where he is known as 'Mike Matusow'. He is also part of Team Full Tilt in Full Tilt Poker online poker site.
Matusow has also appeared in the second, third and fourth seasons of GSN's High Stakes Poker and two episodes of NBC's Poker After Dark where he finished third and second.
As mentioned before, Matusow is very much loved by poker fans, but some fans dislike him. At the 2007 WSOP Main Event final table, Matusow got mixed reaction from the crowd when he was introduced, as there were fans that cheered him alongside fans that booed him.
Winnings and success were not the only things in Matusow's life. During the years he had also suffered from some personal problems. He had drug issues and even spent some time in jail in the years 2004 and 2005 after he was caught with cocaine. He was arrested by an undercover police officer, who pretended to be Matusow's friend and gained his trust. The police officer asked Matusow for cocaine and after Matusow got it for him, he was arrested. Matusow also battled his overweight problem and during the 2007 WSOP event he even made a $100,000 bet with professional poker player Ted Forrest that he will drop to 181 pounds by June 3, 2008. Matusow won the bet after weighing in at 179 pounds.
Matusow resides in Henderson where his home has a cathedral ceiling. He also owns a $90,000 BMW 645 CI Cabriolet. He bought the car after winning a $750,000 online poker session. He is also often seen around the poker tables with a gold chain around his neck with the Hebrew symbol 'chai'.
WSOP Winnings
1999 - $3,500 No Limit Hold'em - $265,475
2002 - $5,000 Omaha Hi-Low Split 8 or Better - $148,520
2008 - $5,000 No Limit 2-7 Draw w/Rebuys - $537,862
by Nitya JainPosted on 07 Jul, 2020
The poker legend with $9.75 million in live earnings hit the headlines last week when he literally compared wearing face masks to abortion. Mike Matusow regularly lives up to his ‘The Mouth’ nickname by voicing his opinions. If you think that last week he seemed to have pushed things too far, you are absolutely wrong!
With the commencement of the much-awaited, richest poker festival, the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Online 2020, several poker pros like Daniel Negreanu and Matt Stout have taken the opportunity to livestream the competition for their fans. And who could stop Matusow to join the party?! Seeking to grab this fifth gold bracelet, the poker pro entered Event #5: $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em Freezeout on Sunday.
Unfortunately being eliminated after playing two hands, Matusow began berating the player who won a key-hand against him leading to his eventual elimination. “This motherf*****,” he said. “I’m gonna f*** him right in his f****** ass, man. Mark that name down, wolverine17. What the f*** is wrong with these f****** people?” And that actually continued for several minutes. “I am going to find out who this motherf***** is, and I swear to you, I am going to throw him up against the f****** wall, and tell him if you ever slowroll me again, I’m going to beat your f****** ass.”
The four-time WSOP bracelet winner was dealt Ace Queen and he 3-bet “wolverine17”. The latter called and checked a ten-high flop. Little did he know that his opponent had laid a trap with pocket rockets and Matusow shoved for an overbet which eventually saw him busting in the next hand. After ranting in his YouTube live stream, the pro offered $50 bonus if “If anybody in here can find out the name of this guy…If somebody can get me the name of wolverine17, and it’s verified, they will get $300 for $200.”
after watching ~10 mins of matusow's disgusting reaction to being 'nit' rolled by a rec…
with the large volume of recs participating in this online series i now understand why wsop elected to deactivated the chat box
— Greg Jennings (@ZGregJennings) July 6, 2020
Hey @themouthmatusow strong people apologize when they have been out of line and you owe her an apology. Be strong- admit you were in the wrong and let’s move on.
— Ari Engel (@AriEngelPoker) July 6, 2020
Turns out, the wolverine behind the mask was Megan Milburn an East Coast player with about $64K in total live earnings who finished 38th for $3,164. In a now deleted tweet, Matusow used a derogatory term when tweeting at Milburn, writing, “do you enjoy acting like a fucking c**t by slowrolling people online where nobody can see you? Learn poker etiquette or your poker career won’t last long! Sincerely Mike”.
And later on declared, “I won’t hit no woman, I’ll just call her a c*** that she is when I see her.” However, Matusow had to eventually apologize to his Twitter fam for his misconduct.
Here’s what you tweeted to @PokerHippie. It’s not ok, it’s not been taken down everywhere, and people need to see it. I’ve dedicated the last 10 years of my life to this game and I am offended that we allow this comedic space in our community, just because of your last name pic.twitter.com/M84yTgFxAl
— Katie Stone (@KatieStonePoker) July 6, 2020
Mike Matusow Twitter
Yep sent a very nice dm! I’m an idiot you all know that ! Best of luck and happiness! https://t.co/8Bkx7kcYzG
— Mike Matusow (@themouthmatusow) July 6, 2020
PocketFives reached out to the Executive Director of WSOP, Ty Stewart who said, “We take prevention of abusive behavior at WSOP tournaments or on the WSOP.COM platform extremely seriously. We have a number of preventive measures online including recently disabling our chat entirely. But the regulation of content on our customer’s personal streams and social media accounts is a slippery slope, particularly as each of these third-party platforms have their own escalation procedures. We reserve the right to suspend the account of any individual going forward, but in this case, it appears the player had the perfect response to resolve the situation herself.”
Keep reading GutshotMagazine.com for more updates on online poker tournaments in the country.
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