In the spotlight: Mike Matusow
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Michael Matusow (born April 30, 1968 in Los Angeles, California) is an American professional poker player, residing in Henderson, Nevada. Matusow’s nickname of “The Mouth” reflects his reputation for trash-talking at the poker table. He is also known for sometimes ruining hours or days of good play with a single spectacular misjudgment, (known as a “Mike Matusow Blow-up” or “Mike Matusow Meltdown”).
Matusow began playing poker seriously in the early 1990s, first while working as a poker dealer, then as a professional player.His successes include being a three-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, and the winner of the 2005 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions. He has played in many tournaments around the world and his winnings (as of 2008) total over $6,800,000.
Matusow suffered from bullying when going through school and did not attend college. He attempted to get work as an auto mechanic, but did not complete the required studying for the job. He later worked at his family’s furniture store.
Matusow’s first experience of poker was playing video poker in the Maxim Casino at the age of 18, which he played regularly, to the extent he suffered from repetitive strain injury in his shoulders and arms. He occasionally stole money from his mother’s purse and at one point attended Gamblers Anonymous meetings. Matusow was taught Texas hold ‘em in 1989 by a rounder named Steve Samaroff. Early in his career, he won 51 out of 53 sessions and $250,000. (It was first believed that he had won 81 out of 82, but he corrected that statement on the Rounders Poker Show.
At the 1998 World Series of Poker (WSOP), Matusow paid one-third of Scotty Nguyen’s entrance fee into a satellite event for the $10,000 no limit Texas hold ‘em main event. Nguyen went on to win, and gave $333,333 to Matusow in return for his partial stake. In 2001, he finished 6th place in the WSOP $10,000 no limit Hold ‘em main event. Matusow says that the decisive hand was when he was bluffed by eventual champion Juan Carlos Mortensen, but did not trust his instincts to call. At the 2004 WSOP main event, Matusow was a focal point of ESPN’s coverage, as he verbally attacked eventual champion Greg Raymer.
In the 2005 WSOP, Matusow finished 9th out of 5,619 players in the main event, winning $1,000,000. Several months later, he won the WSOP Tournament of Champions in a heads-up battle against Hoyt Corkins, earning another $1,000,000 in the process. He also placed third in the Tournament of Champions the following year, winning $250,000. At the 2008 WSOP, Matusow won a third bracelet in the $5000 No Limit 2-7 Draw with rebuys event defeating Jeff Lisandro heads up for the $537,862 first prize. Later in the same year he finished 30th out of 6,844 players in the Main Event, making yet another deep run in the Main Event.
In October 2004, Matusow made his first World Poker Tour (WPT) final table at the UltimateBet Aruba Classic, earning $250,000 for 3rd place. In 2006, he finished runner-up to Tony G in the WPT Bad Boys of Poker II in heads-up play.Matusow also appeared in Poker Superstars III, where he made it to the Elite Eight. In the winner-take-all championship match, Matusow beat seven other players to win $500,000. He also appeared in the second, third and fourth season of High Stakes Poker.
In September 2006, Mike made his debut on the European Poker Tour (EPT) in Barcelona; however, he was eliminated on the first day. In early 2007, Matusow appeared on two episodes of Poker After Dark where he finished 3rd and 2nd respectively. He plays online poker under the following aliases: “dill pickle” (UltimateBet); “mrpokejoke” (PokerStars); and “Mike Matusow” (Full Tilt Poker, where he is also a member of “Team Full Tilt”).
In July 2007, Matusow won $671,320 after coming in second place at the World Poker Tour Bellagio Cup III Championship after online pro Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul defeated him during heads-up play.
As of 2008, his total live tournament winnings exceed $7,000,000.
Everythingaboutpoker.com · Filed Under Professional Players
In the spotlight: Patrik Antonius
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Patrik Antonius (born December 13, 1980 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish professional poker player, former tennis player and coach, and model from Vantaa, Finland. He currently resides in Monte Carlo. He was mentored by Marcel Lüske as a member of Luske’s “Circle of Outlaws” and later advised by Jennifer Harman.
Antonius began making a name for himself on the poker tournament circuit with two finishes near the final table of World Poker Tour (WPT) event, 12th at the WPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, then 15th at the Bay 101 Shooting Stars event two months later, in early 2005. He went on to finish in the money in three events of the 2005 World Series of Poker (WSOP).
In September 2005 he made the European Poker Tour (EPT) Main Event final table, finishing 3rd in Barcelona. The next month, Antonius won the EPT event in Baden bei Wien, taking home the €288,180 first prize when in the final hand beat Gunnar Østebrød.
In December 2005 he finished the year 2nd in the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic in Las Vegas, Nevada, winning $1,046,470.
In July 2006 he placed 9th in World Series of Poker $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event, taking home $205,920, his biggest cash that year.
In 2007 World Series of Poker, Antonius entered numerous tournaments but he only cashed in the World Championship of Pot Limit Omaha event, placing third and winning $311,394, making that his ninth WSOP cash and increasing his WSOP earnings to a total of $569,964.
Antonius has been featured three times on NBC’s Poker After Dark. In his first appearance he finished as runner up, losing out to fellow poker professional Jennifer Harman, but his next attempt saw him defeat Brad Booth in heads-up play to take the victory. In his third appearance he was runner up again, this time to Johnny Chan.
As of 2008, Antonius’ total live tournament winnings exceed $2,800,000.He also plays in some of the highest profile online tournaments, and in September 2008 he finished 2nd in the Full Tilt Poker $25,000 buy-in Heads-Up Pot Limit Omaha Championship, winning $320,000.
Antonius has been referred to as a heads-up specialist.He is a regular high stakes player online. He has played on Full Tilt Poker under several nicknames, including Luigi66369, CryMeRiver9 and Finddagrind, but having become a member of “Team Full Tilt” he now plays under his real name. During his early career he also used screen names e.g. I_knockout_U, try_hrdr_fish and -ANTONIUS- on various other poker networks. Previously Antonius was one of a team of players associated with Martinspoker.com.
He is equally prolific in live cash games, and is a regular in the Big Game, the high-stakes cash game at the Bellagio.
Antonius appeared on the third and fourth seasons of GSN’s High Stakes Poker. Patrik was involved, along with Sammy Farha, in the show’s largest ever pot; it totaled $998,800. After a preflop raise and re-raise the flop came 6? 3? 9?; Antonius held J? 9? for top pair and Farha held K? Q?, giving him two over-cards and a flush draw. Sammy called Patrik’s all-in raise instantly and the two agreed to run the turn and river four times. Though Sammy’s hand was a slight favorite, Patrik won three of the four runs and collected $749,100.
Everythingaboutpoker.com · Filed Under Professional Players
In the spotlight: Phil Ivey
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Phillip D. Ivey (born February 1, 1976) is an American professional poker player who has won five World Series of Poker bracelets and has a World Poker Tour title, making the final table there a record eight times.
Ivey was born in Riverside, California and moved with his family across the country to Roselle, New Jersey as a three-month old. He crafted his game playing skills amongst his co-workers at a New Brunswick, New Jersey telemarketing firm in the late 1990s. One of his nicknames, “No Home Jerome”, stems from the ID card he secured to practice in Atlantic City in his teenage years. His other well-known nickname is ‘the Tiger Woods of Poker’.
Despite now focusing more on cash games than tournaments, his tournament accomplishments include winning three bracelets at the 2002 World Series of Poker, tying Phil Hellmuth Jr, Ted Forrest and Puggy Pearson for the most wins in a single year.
Ivey also has bracelets in Pot Limit Omaha from 2000 and 2005. In 2000, he was the first person to defeat Amarillo Slim heads-up at a WSOP final table.In addition to his five World Series bracelets, Ivey has had great success in the WSOP Main Event. He placed in the top 25 three times from 2002 to 2005, with the fields growing substantially each year. Ivey finished 23rd in 2002, 10th in 2003, and 20th in 2005.
Ivey has also reached a record eight final tables on the World Poker Tour. He has lost several of these WPT events by being eliminated while holding the same starting hand each time, an ace and a queen. Eight out of the nine times Phil Ivey has cashed in a WPT event, he has also made the television final table. During the sixth season of the WPT in February 2008, Ivey made the final table at the LA Poker Classic at Commerce Casino that included Phil Hellmuth and Nam Le, eventually capturing the $1,596,000 first prize and putting an end to his streak of seven WPT final tables without a victory. Ivey has earned close to three million dollars in WPT cashes.
Ivey made his debut on the European Poker Tour in Barcelona, September 2006. He came to the final table of nine as the chipleader, but he eventually came in second to Bjørn-Erik Glenne from Norway.
In 2006, Ivey was enticed to London to participate in The London All Star Challenge of the inaugural European Poker Masters. Not only Europe’s first-ever independent poker tour, the EPM boasted the best lineup of players ever seen in Europe. As one of the favorites, Ivey made it to the final table to finish seventh, and collected £6,700 ($12,534).
On 20 November 2005, Ivey won the $1,000,000 first prize at the Monte Carlo Millions tournament. Just one day after, Ivey took home another $600,000 for finishing first at “The FullTiltPoker.Net Invitational Live from Monte Carlo”. His six opponents were (in reverse finishing order) Mike Matusow, Phil Hellmuth, Gus Hansen, Chris Ferguson, Dave Ulliott, and John Juanda.
As of 2008, his total live tournament winnings exceed $10,000,000.
Ivey is a regular participant in the $4,000-$8,000 mixed cash game at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas (often referred to as the Big Game). In February 2006, he played heads-up Limit Texas Hold’em versus Texas billionaire Andy Beal. With stakes at $25,000/$50,000, Ivey won over $16,000,000 over the course of three days. Ivey was playing for “The Corporation”, a group of poker professionals who pooled their money and took turns playing against Beal. Earlier in the month, Beal had beaten the Corporation out of $10,000,000. After losing to Ivey, Beal claimed (not for the first time) that he was giving up poker.
Ivey is part of the design team for Full Tilt Poker. He can often be found playing online at Full Tilt, playing high-stakes cash games up to $500-$1000 no-limit and $2000-$4000 limit.
On the January 22, 2007 airing of NBC’s Poker After Dark, Ivey won the $120,000 winner-take-all “Earphones Please” tournament by eliminating Mike Matusow, Tony G, Andy Bloch, Phil Hellmuth and Sam Farha.
On the April 15, 2007 airing of NBC’s “National Heads-Up Poker Championship”, Ivey was defeated by actor Don Cheadle. The loss marked the third consecutive year Ivey had been eliminated in the first round from this tournament. His streak ended in 2008, when he advanced to the semifinals, losing to eventual champion Chris Ferguson.
Phil Ivey was one of the players who took part in season three of GSN’s High Stakes Poker.
Everythingaboutpoker.com · Filed Under Professional Players
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