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		<title>Interview with Mike Matusow</title>
		<link>http://THEPOKERGOSPEL.COM/poker-school/interview-with-mike-matusow</link>
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		<pubDate>Sun, 15 Jan 2012 04:36:13 +0000</pubDate>
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		<description><![CDATA[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 &#8220;The Mouth&#8221; a few times over. Most recently, he took third in the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event, pulling in just [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Interview with Mike Matusow <br />  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 &#8220;The Mouth&#8221; a few times over. Most recently, he took third in the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event, pulling in just under $370k&#8230;and talking some serious smack in the process. But when we caught up with him, he had an ironic message for players out there: &#8220;Calm down.&#8221; You almost took it all at Bay 101 &#8211; what was that like? I&#8217;ve only played three WPTs in two years &#8211; 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&#8217;d been re-raising and shoving on him left and right. I shoved on him with 2-9. He didn&#8217;t have to call me with K-Q. It was still 25 percent of his stack, even if he&#8217;s ahead. Most of the time, I&#8217;m going to have a pair or an ace there. I didn&#8217;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&#8217;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 &#8211; especially as card-dead as I was. So I didn&#8217;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&#8217;ve consistently had good showings at WPT games. Yeah. I don&#8217;t play many. I don&#8217;t chase the tournament circuit anymore. As far as I&#8217;m concerned, it&#8217;s a losing proposition. It&#8217;s $750,000 a year to play on the tournament circuit, and you&#8217;ve gotta finish at least second in one tournament to make any money. You&#8217;ve been in the game a long time &#8211; what are the biggest changes you&#8217;ve seen? I mean, these kids play pretty good, but when it&#8217;s a deep-stack tournament, they&#8217;ve gotta know when to slow down. We were playing 100 big blinds deep, and they&#8217;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&#8217;t even see a playable hand. I think the best hand I saw was K-10 offsuit. If I&#8217;d picked up any hand behind them, I&#8217;d have gotten all the chips. It was the greatest spot in the world &#8211; I was like in heaven &#8211; but then I was looking at 2-7 offsuit for like eight hours. What spurs that aggressive play? They&#8217;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&#8217;re playing deep-stacked, you&#8217;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&#8217;d won the hand I went out on, then I&#8217;d have 30 percent of the chips and who knows what happens? Where do you think the game is going long-term? I don&#8217;t know &#8211; there&#8217;s just so many good players. I think if they just want to keep running $100,000 buy-in tournaments, they&#8217;ll have everybody broke within a year. I&#8217;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&#8217;t been satelliting so many people in. You&#8217;ve been at this a long time &#8211; what are the biggest lessons you&#8217;ve learned? Everybody glorifies these people who play heads-up and win millions of dollars, but they&#8217;re going to lose it, too. Ain&#8217;t nobody who&#8217;s better than anybody else playing heads-up poker. Poker&#8217;s about playing and beating bad players. There&#8217;s definitely less bad players now &#8211; and there&#8217;s a lot of good players. It&#8217;s tough to win now; it&#8217;s a lot harder to make a living. Lucky for me, I don&#8217;t have to depend on it anymore. I wouldn&#8217;t be happy if I had to grind and make a living online or even live nowadays. It sure wouldn&#8217;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&#8217;s all it is. It&#8217;s just because everybody tries to outplay each other. When I came up, it wasn&#8217;t like that. It was about making correct decisions, playing solid, attacking blinds and weakness&#8230;just playing good and solid. Now it&#8217;s all about three-betting, four-betting, five&#8230;Come on man. Tell me about your nickname &#8211; 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&#8217;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, &#8220;You gotta be kidding me.&#8221; Then it&#8217;s a 3d on the river, and I start screaming: &#8220;That&#8217;ll teach you to play bad against me, motherfucker. You get what you deserve. You&#8217;re an idiot.&#8221; Then I start berating him something fierce. I lead out into four people with a Q-4-2 rainbow. What do you think I&#8217;m leading out with, complete air? Like two sevens are any good there. What have you been playing lately? I don&#8217;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&#8217;s been a good year.  </p>
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		<title>How To Play Omaha Poker</title>
		<link>http://THEPOKERGOSPEL.COM/how-to-play-omaha-poker</link>
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		<pubDate>Sun, 13 Dec 2009 15:29:07 +0000</pubDate>
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		<description><![CDATA[Ohama Poker plays the second best in attracting a large amount of people in card games next to Texas Holdem. Ohama Poker is very similar to Texas Holdem, with the main difference being that a player can choose his or her hand out of nine cards instead of seven. This is the reason for the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span id="articlebody">Ohama Poker plays the second best in attracting a large amount of people in card games next to Texas Holdem. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_poker">Ohama Poker</a> is very similar to Texas Holdem, with the main difference being that a player can choose his or her hand out of nine cards instead of seven. This is the reason for the growing popularity of the game.</p>
<p>Omaha, which has the same structure as Texas Holdem, is played very similar to Texas Hold&#8217;em; the only difference being that each player is dealt four hole cards instead of two. The players post the blinds and then receive their hole cards. After receiving the hole cards, a betting round takes place and then comes the flop, the turn and the river with a betting round between each of them.</p>
<p>The main difference between Omaha and Texas Hold&#8217;em is that each of the players has to form his hand out of precisely two hole cards and three board cards. This is different from Texas Hold&#8217;em where a player could use either one or both (or even none) of his hole cards. If a player is trying to win the low hand, he must use two unpaired hole cards that are ranked lower than eight, and three board cards, also unpaired, that are also ranked lower than eight.</p>
<p>In Omaha, the starting hands should be coordinated, which means that they should fit together. What you really want are cards that are more likely to form into straights, flushes or a full house. It&#8217;s very rare that a pair would hold up on an Omaha table. Look for double-suited hands, giving you two chances of a flush and cards that are close together or considered in a run.</p>
<p>In playing the game, this is an example where many new Omaha players falter. The players, for instance, see four spades on the board, which are the community cards, and they have the Ace of Spades in their hand. They think they have the nut flush, forgetting that a player must use two hole cards, therefore needing two spades in his hand to make a flush.</p>
<p>Omaha is played either Pot Limit or Limit. The game is not played No Limit, as having four hole cards gives so many extra possibilities, chances, and permutations. If playing No Limit, the game would be too wild and without direction.</p>
<p><a href="http://THEPOKERGOSPEL.COM/how-to-play-omaha-poker"><em>Click here to view the embedded video.</em></a></p>
<h1>Tips For Learning To Play The Game</h1>
<p><span id="articlebody">One of the many reasons people love to play poker is the many variations and styles that that has evolved from the game. In any poker room, be it an online poker room or in a brick and mortar casino, youll find a myriad of poker games to join.</p>
<p>Omaha Poker is a variant on the popular Holdem poker series. Each player is dealt four cards face down, which are referred to as hole cards. Five cards are also dealt face up on the poker table, which are called community cards. The players try to build their best hands using two of their hole cards combined with three of the community cards. The player holding the best five card hand is the winner.</p>
<p>An Overview of Omaha Play</p>
<p>Players who are familiar with Texas Holdem will feel right at home playing Omaha Poker, as the betting is structured in quite the same fashion. The poker game begins with each player placing their pre deal mandatory blind bets.</p>
<p>The dealer deals out four cards face down on the poker table to each player. These are the players pocket cards. These are cards number 1, 2, 3 and 4.</p>
<p>The first betting round begins, and is usually set at a lower limit.</p>
<p>The dealer then turns over three community board cards face up on the table. This part of the game is known as the flop. These are cards number 5, 6 and 7.</p>
<p>The second betting round begins now. This second round of betting is also usually set at a lower limit.</p>
<p>The dealer now turns over one more community board card face up on the table. This part of the poker game is known as the turn. The turn accounts for card number 8.</p>
<p>Its now time for the third betting round, which is now set at a higher limit. The dealer turns over the final community board card face up on the table. The placing of this card in the game is known as the river. The river accounts for card number 9.</p>
<p>Now its time for the final round of betting. This betting round has a higher set limit.</p>
<p>With all bets now in, its time for the showdown.</p>
<p>In an Omaha Poker showdown, the players must use two of their pocket cards and three community board cards to make their best five card hand. The player holding the best five card hand is the winner.</p>
<p></span></span></p>
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