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Interview with Mike Matusow

admin — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 04:36:13 +0000

Interview with Mike Matusow
by Steve Marzolf Mike Matusow, a card-carrying member of team Full Tilt, has been around the pro poker circuit long enough to earn his nickname as “The Mouth” a few times over. Most recently, he took third in the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event, pulling in just under $370k…and talking some serious smack in the process. But when we caught up with him, he had an ironic message for players out there: “Calm down.” You almost took it all at Bay 101 – what was that like? I’ve only played three WPTs in two years – one last year and two this year. I went down there and played really hard. I went down there hungry and wanting to win, and I played really well. But I wish I would have caught some cards against the lunatics, the ones who were raising and re-raising every hand. Tell us about that three-bet that took you out. I mean, he was just raising at every button, and I thought I had a pretty good read on him. I’d been re-raising and shoving on him left and right. I shoved on him with 2-9. He didn’t have to call me with K-Q. It was still 25 percent of his stack, even if he’s ahead. Most of the time, I’m going to have a pair or an ace there. I didn’t really mind the call, cause once it got down to three-handed, they were playing really carefully against me. They knew that if they opened too much, I’d just keep shipping on them. So they started folding a little bit and limping, and it looked like there was going to be no way I could get chips – especially as card-dead as I was. So I didn’t mind just shipping on him every time he opened the button. I was looking at his face and how he reacted to his cards. I shipped on him six times before, and he insta-folded all six. So I thought I had a tell on him. Maybe that time I just rushed it. You’ve consistently had good showings at WPT games. Yeah. I don’t play many. I don’t chase the tournament circuit anymore. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a losing proposition. It’s $750,000 a year to play on the tournament circuit, and you’ve gotta finish at least second in one tournament to make any money. You’ve been in the game a long time – what are the biggest changes you’ve seen? I mean, these kids play pretty good, but when it’s a deep-stack tournament, they’ve gotta know when to slow down. We were playing 100 big blinds deep, and they’re going raise, re-raise, re-raise, trying to outplay each other, playing four-handed. I was just hoping to pick up 8-8 or anything, but I didn’t even see a playable hand. I think the best hand I saw was K-10 offsuit. If I’d picked up any hand behind them, I’d have gotten all the chips. It was the greatest spot in the world – I was like in heaven – but then I was looking at 2-7 offsuit for like eight hours. What spurs that aggressive play? They’re all used to playing online where you have to 3-bet and 4-bet all the time to stay alive when the blinds get up there. When you’re playing deep-stacked, you’re supposed to just play solid and pick your spots. But these guys were ridiculous. They were so hyper-aggressive it was a joke. It fit perfect into my style. I had two playable hands in 154 hands, and I finished 3rd. If I’d won the hand I went out on, then I’d have 30 percent of the chips and who knows what happens? Where do you think the game is going long-term? I don’t know – there’s just so many good players. I think if they just want to keep running $100,000 buy-in tournaments, they’ll have everybody broke within a year. I’m not a big fan of those tournaments. Then, I was saying the same thing four years ago about the $10,000 buy-in tournaments. Everybody would have gone broke on those too, if they hadn’t been satelliting so many people in. You’ve been at this a long time – what are the biggest lessons you’ve learned? Everybody glorifies these people who play heads-up and win millions of dollars, but they’re going to lose it, too. Ain’t nobody who’s better than anybody else playing heads-up poker. Poker’s about playing and beating bad players. There’s definitely less bad players now – and there’s a lot of good players. It’s tough to win now; it’s a lot harder to make a living. Lucky for me, I don’t have to depend on it anymore. I wouldn’t be happy if I had to grind and make a living online or even live nowadays. It sure wouldn’t be easy. Have cash games in Vegas gotten tougher, too? The mixed games are still good, but the no-limit games are all dried up, unless you get invited to a house game. Poker has become a showdown contest. That’s all it is. It’s just because everybody tries to outplay each other. When I came up, it wasn’t like that. It was about making correct decisions, playing solid, attacking blinds and weakness…just playing good and solid. Now it’s all about three-betting, four-betting, five…Come on man. Tell me about your nickname – how often do you hit your opponents with the trash talk? Not much anymore. Though I did it down in Bay 101. Because I just got hot and started making hands. When people play bad against me, I talk a lot of shit. I catch some cards, I’ll rub it in their face. At the WPT, I had a hand where the guy raises under the gun, and three people call so I call in the big blind with Qd-4d. Flop comes 2-4-Q. I lead out the pot, and the guy who raised under the gun calls. The two who came in behind fold. The turn card is 7d, and I have queens and fours on the flush draw. I bet $4800, he makes it $11,000 so I move all in. He calls and shows me three sevens. And I said, “You gotta be kidding me.” Then it’s a 3d on the river, and I start screaming: “That’ll teach you to play bad against me, motherfucker. You get what you deserve. You’re an idiot.” Then I start berating him something fierce. I lead out into four people with a Q-4-2 rainbow. What do you think I’m leading out with, complete air? Like two sevens are any good there. What have you been playing lately? I don’t play. I went to Australia and won about a quarter million. Then I went to L.A. and played the cash games there for a couple weeks and won another $250,000 there. Then I went down to Bay 101 and cashed $370k there. So it’s been a good year.

Game Tweaks For Online Poker.

admin — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 08:36:09 +0000

Game Tweaks For Online Poker.
You might be to annoyed and too exhausted to read tips for winning poker. For all you know, they may not even be true. But these hints are just some of the tips that you certainly should follow as these are not just any kind of poker tip, but they are hints specifically tailored for online poker. You can go here for online poker reviews, if you are thinking about playing online poker. Be social As you play online poker from cyberspace you can be friendly. You can not do this in live poker as youll have to have your game face on. Since your opposers have no way of examining your face, you will be able to be chummy with them by chatting with them while playing poker. This might appear as though an insignificant act, but it can actually assist you deliver the goods in online poker. Whether or not you lose in a specified game, you acquire a friend. Your new friend may aid you with tips or what not as you play more poker. Poker Players you are nice to often become easier opponents and youll be able to beat them more often. Never mind how come you want to befriend them being kind is always helpful. Use free rolls. In Live poker you wont see many freerolls You can find many poker sites to play freerolls at. There are many great benefits to freerolls The first advantage is you get to practice playing poker for free. The second reason is the many poker players of many abilitys you will meet. Because free roll tournaments are practically free, many players good or bad commonly join free roll tournaments. You are able to measure your level of competence through these. Lastly, free roll tournaments will give you the chance to win a ample amount of money. In live poker you will usually have to risk money to gain money. Freeroll tournaments dont require an up front money investment. It is a win-win situation. Do not bet too much. You must be careful with how much you wager at online poker. Before even thinking about it, arrange some sort of limit for yourself. Before playing online poker, make sure that you know just how much you are willing to wager. Online poker has a lot of advantages for tracking your money. If you lose your money and you have used your predefined bankroll amount, you should stop playing. You are not likely to have success by just buying in for more money Take some time to read some about poker, and learn more about strategy before you play more.

Black Friday Saves One Player’s Money & Relationship

admin — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 20:55:46 +0000

Black Friday Saves One Players Money & Relationship
published on 04/23/11 at 8:54 am One person who will be saving money after Black Friday, is Steve Street3 Carse. Known to have wasted thousands of dollars on online poker sites, the recent federal take over of Full Tilt Poker will have a positive effect on Mr. Carses financial statements. Angel Valdez, of the Online Poker Team, fires some questions at Oklahomas number one degenerate. How much money have you saved since Online poker got shut down?I transferred my last $80 on FTP to Angel to bet on black at the casino. He informed me that I lost. So, I would have naturally deposited another $50 and in turn, ran that up to around $55, then lost it all. Then I would have reloaded again. I would guess since Friday, I have saved around $450. But, since I dont have online poker anymore, i am extremely bored and have since spent over $1500 on various illegal endeavors. Those intruders in their homes have names? Some call them Kids, and others call them Mom/Dad/HoneyHonestly I am scared to death about what this question means and wonder how much meth the interviewer has inhaled to come up with such a psycho question. I live with my girlfriend Kelly and I have not seen any intruders in my home. When they stepped outside did the sun melt off their skin? Did they get the vampire effect?Again, another scary question that makes about as much sense as a gaggle of coked up geese selling cookies to gimps. Is their ability to make money playing online poker myopia equal to lets say Charlie Sheen thinking hes normal?I dont know what myopia means and Im too fucking lazy to google it. Charlie Sheen has Goddesses, cocaine, no teeth and millions of dollars. I have Kelly, teeth and tens of dollars. You tell me. Why is chicke nmeth so addictive, especially among online poker players?A bit of history, Chicken meth was introduced in Arkansas by Jeremy Allen. Its a combination of meth, chicken shit and feathers. It gives one the ability to 5bet shove 73o into AA and see a 773 flop. Or at least thats what chicken meth benders will trick your mind into seeing. On the evolutionary poker scale, where would you place IBGPN?I would place him at the bottom of the scale. Somewhere between a single celled organism and tadpole. While he can swim with the sharks, hes often overlooked as his bank roll rarely goes above the $1 mark. His most frequent sightings have the word (OBSERVER) after his name. I just had a cup of tea and a grilled cheese sandwich. Comments?You must be gay or British. Related posts: Best Kept Poker Tip: Rakeback Saving You A Lot Of Money Rakeback Saves the Day GI Joe Assaults Online Poker, Refrigerated Beer, Noobs

Strategy with Kristy: Andrew Seidman Discusses His Book, Easy Game

admin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 14:36:20 +0000

Strategy with Kristy: Andrew Seidman Discusses His Book, Easy Game
November 03 2011, Kristy Arnett Related Articles Strategy with Kristy: Andrew Robl Discusses Televised Cash Game Hands Strategy with Kristy Podcast Part 2 with Tommy Angelo Strategy with Kristy Podcast Part 1 with Tommy Angelo Share It Tags Poker Strategy, PokerNews Strategy, PokerNews Podcast, Poker Strategy Print Andrew “Balugawhale” Seidman was the premiere guest on the Strategy with Kristy podcast and has come back to discuss topics in his updated, re-released book Easy Game. Here is a snippet from the interview: The first thing that we have to realize at any given time is that our hand is always going to fit in one of these three categories: low value, medium value, or premium value. Premium just means that its good enough to raise for value. We dont need to raise, but its good enough to. So, obviously aces are always good enough to raise for value preflop. A hand like jacks, whether or not its a good hand to reraise for value preflop would depend on a lot of things. Against a really tight player who only opens the nuts preflop, then we probably dont want to reraise jacks, but against a crazy maniac person we do. We can actually see the beginning of how these value categories might change depending on a whole bunch of different circumstances like our stack sizes, our opponents, everything. What we find is that, if were not in premium value, and we cant raise for value, then do we have enough value to play our hand? That would put us in the medium value. So lets say were up against a huge nit, we have jacks, and he opens. We think, OK, were not in premium because I cant raise for value, but do I have value to play my hand? Yes, I can flop a set, so Im in medium value. Now, if we go one step further, we might say, My hand is not quite good enough to be in medium value because I dont think it has enough value to call. Lets say I have a hand like eight-five suited and a regular raises. Its sort of on the borderline between medium value and low value. If we decide its low value then we cant continue by calling because we dont have enough value to capitalize on and we cant raise for value ourselves. So, we have to either fold our hand, or we could bluff with it. We dont lose any value if we have to fold our hand at some point in the hand because we were planning on folding it anyway. Im going to tie this back now to polarized and strong ranges (depolarized ranges). When we want to create a strong range, we dont raise any of our low value hands, we just fold all of them, and the premium range becomes very wide. So now, jacks is clearly premium, king-queen is premium, ace-nine is premium half the time. The medium-strength hand ranges become a little bit more narrow and a little bit weaker because most of the higher end of the medium-value range is now considered premium value because were choosing to adopt a strong range. On the other hand, if we want to create a polarized range, our medium-value range gets very big. Now, our premium range is very small and there are only a few hands were going to raise for value, and we have as many low value hands as we do want to raise. Want more? Listen to the Strategy with Kristy podcast below. Podcast Powered By Podbean Tune in every Thursday for new episodes of Strategy with Kristy and feel free to send in questions, ideas or suggestions for the podcast to kristy@pokernews.com. Also remember, follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news. Follow Kristy Arnett on Twitter @KristyArnett Comments

Titan Poker signup bonus

admin — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:54:08 +0000

Titan Poker signup bonus
The signup windfall money Titan offers is not the most plenty ever, but its not half bad all the same: they will give new players a 100% spousehood on their outset deposit up to $500, and imminence to a annual Depositors Freeroll, with $1000 stated cash prizes.A sure sign that Titan sure values duck-loyalty, is the fact that they serve a reload palm oil as well, up to $200. Players who redeposit, will and so gain epilepsia nutans to the upper mentioned $1000 freeroll. First-time players also get the meet to earn $10 wholly free and with no reservation attached. All they have to do is lode at few $50, and on top of the $50 wrinkle(which has to be unlocked of inclination, by way of staking raked gripe) they will have $10 transferred to their facts almost on the run. Sure, its not much in boundary condition of poker filthy lucre, but go to the front, ask issue on the mews to give you $10 for free, see how expedient you get. As far as game-preoption goes, Titan Poker has the true to type stuff: Texas Holdem (NL, PL FL versions), Omaha Hi, Omaha Hi-Lo, and 7-Card Stud. If youre looking for Razz or Pineapple, or some divergent more gay poker inaccordant, this is before long not the room to come to. Despite the fact that theyre not sure a huge poker room yet, Titan Poker does not want to oversight its customers. They have a live chat quality, where customers can talk to a conservation-staff spray. My seasoning as an online poker straight man shows, this is by far the most fitted support-contrivance.

New Free Bankroll at FullTilt Poker

admin — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 09:18:14 +0000

New Free Bankroll at FullTilt Poker
There is a new free bankroll site called FreePoker.info that is offering a $50 free bankroll at FullTilt Poker. The sign-up procedure seems fairly straight-forward. There is no quiz to take or other requirement, other than you must not already have an account at Full Tilt Poker. The bonus is available to most countries, including [...] Related posts:Free $50 at Absolute Poker Doyles Room Free Poker Bankroll New rooms at PokerStrategy

Off the Felt with Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin

admin — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 21:18:14 +0000

Off the Felt with Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin
We sat down with Eric Baldwin to talk a little poker, the art to carving out a creepy mustache, and assembling the dream team of poker players in softball.

Tobey Maguire poker game

admin — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 11:36:37 +0000

Tobey Maguire poker game
Bradley Ruderman photo Radar-online reports Tobey Maguire is one of more than 10 Hollywood A-list celebrities involved in a underground high stakes poker game. Brad Ruderman, who was being investigated by the FBI for embezzling investors money, lost more than 300k to Tobey Maguire. Now a trustee for the fund that he was embezzling [...]

PokerTime adds Razz to its menu

admin — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 04:18:12 +0000

PokerTime adds Razz to its menu
With the eye on broadening poker enthusiasts’ horizons, PokerTime has included a new Poker variant to their arsenal Read the full story at http://www.classicasinos.com/PokerNews/ns_02102008_48.html

Charity Poker Tournament Gives Away WSOP Seat
A charity poker tournament in honour of Mindy Trinidad will give the winner a free seat in the 2009 WSOP Main Event. Read the full story at http://www.classicasinos.com/PokerNews/ns_09122008_102.html

Team Titan and Sorel Mizzi on a Roll
Sorel Mizzi, who made his name as a monster online poker player and signed with Team Titan at Titan Poker one month ago, has been burning up the poker tables in Europe. Mizzi finished in the money twice recently. read more

Greece Draws Up New Gambling Bill to Regulate Poker Market

admin — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 09:00:10 +0000

Greece Draws Up New Gambling Bill to Regulate Poker Market
Authorities in Greece are now looking to regulating gambling in the region and have created a draft bill that will appear before parliament this year. The purpose of the bill is to monitor and control the Greek poker gaming market by instituting a strong legal system to protect minors, gamblers and society. It is hoped [...]

PartyPoker Launches New Poker Game Called Double Holdem
There is a new poker game in town and its called Double Holdem. This game was recently launched by the reputed online poker gaming site, PartyPoker which added the new poker game to its online offerings for players. Double Holdem from PartyPoker is quite similar to Texas Holdem poker but with comes incorporated with a few [...]

South Carolina Supreme Court Now Deciding Whether Poker is a Game of Skill or Chance
The Supreme Court of the state of South Carolina is currently in a tizzy over whether poker is game of skill or luck. The reason for this debate is because of the vote in favour of poker being game of skill issued by a Charleston judge in the year 2009. The Charlestons court decision is [...]