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MIKE THE MOUTH SHOOK OFF HIS TROUBLES
TO SET THE WORLD SERIES ALIGHT THIS YEAR, PLAYING THE
BEST POKER OF HIS LIFE. ALWAYS CANDID, ALWAYS FUNNY,
ALWAYS…ER… SWEARING… HERE’S
POKER’S MR. MISUNDERSTOOD ON PARTYING, PRISON,
WINNING A MILLION AND JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE THAT
COMES INTO HIS MOUTH. LONG LIVE MIKE MATUSOW!
Bluff:
What did you do before poker, Mike?
 Mike:
I was a poker dealer first. I learned how to play poker
in 1991 and was a dealer at Sam’s Town from 1993-96.
I ran by parents’ business from the age of 18
to 23, which was a furniture and carpet business.
Bluff:
(Taking a look around Mike’s
house) You’ve got to be kidding. You’ve
got no furniture and no carpets!
Mike: I do have carpets; there’s
just a lot of marble. I’ve been playing poker
professionally since 1996. I got into it through video
poker, which I used to play a lot when I was, like,
21. This guy who used to sit next to me and play said
to me one day, “Do you want me to teach you something
so you’ll never have to work again?” And
I thought he was joking, but he taught me how to play
Texas Hold’em. That was in 1991.
Bluff: So you’ve
been around a while…
Mike: Yeah, I remember in 1993 I played
the same table as Johnny Moss – $20/$40 at the
Horseshoe – with Minh Ly. Minh and I both started
off at the same time, playing against Johnny Moss. He
was nice to me, but jeez, was he was a mean bastard
to the dealers, and Minh is just nuts.
Bluff: Who’s
this guy who was your mentor? Does he still play now?
Mike: His name is Phil Samaroff. He
plays $20/$40 in town. I haven’t seen him for
a couple of years, but I assume he’s still playing.
Bluff: Were you
making any money playing video poker?
Mike: Nah, I was losing money. It’s
tough to win at video poker.
Bluff: What’s
your best game?
Mike: I’m considered the best
Omaha Hi-Lo player in the world. And I believe I am!
But as good as I am at Omaha, most people say that’s
not my best game; they say I’m better at No Limit
Hold’em. So I’ve got real good at a couple
of games and, when I’m on my game, there’s
not many better than me. My biggest problem is –
what makes Ivey so good is that his concentration is
so good – whereas I mentally slip a lot. I get
in a groove when I look like the best player in the
world, and then there’s a day when I bust out
on a hand that nobody would go broke on and I look like
an idiot. A lot of that has to do with the period where
I partied a lot, so I struggle to concentrate a lot
of times. But I’ve been drug free for two and
a half years now.
Bluff: So it
affected your game…
Mike: Yeah. It affected my poker game
once I started partying a lot. I partied like a rock
star; I mean, I was the hardest partier on the planet.
I had parties at this house that you wouldn’t
believe…
Bluff: Well that
explains the lack of furniture…
Mike: (Laughs) I had DJs, a dance floor,
strobe lights and dancing girls. They were wild. I was
gonna get the house done after the World Series, but
I’ve blown $700,000 in the last two weeks.
Bluff: So any
hobbies apart poker?
Mike: No hobbies really – just
getting my life together. I don’t really miss
it at all. I don’t miss the going out. I hate
drinking. I’m a person who believes that the two
biggest downfalls of society are money and alcohol.
Money, because if people don’t have it, they steal
for it, and because the people who have lots of it think
they’re better than everyone else. They look down
on people, and that’s why I hate the way people
treat money. I hate alcohol because it’s the only
legal drug that completely destroys people’s lives.
Where there’s drink, there’s domestic violence,
drunk-driving accidents – people get killed. People
who drink, their lives are a mess – and that’s
why I never drank heavily.
Bluff: Do you
drink at all now?
Mike: I might have the odd social drink
now and again. Alcohol and I were never friends; we
were always enemies, because it took two drinks for
me to walk around like a fucking idiot.
Bluff: Regarding
your ‘party’ phase, when did you realize
that your life was out of control?
Mike:Well, on July 16th of 2003, I
just got back from Paris and realized that I’d
been up for seven of the nine days that I was there,
and when I got home, I was partying with some stripper
and I was up for another two days. I figured out that
I’d only slept twice in 11 days. At that point
I knew I had to fix something real fast because I didn’t
want to do that anymore.
Bluff: So how
did you go about fixing the problem?
Mike: I went to a psychologist and
said, “Listen, whenever I party heavily I’m
depressed and I’m sick of being depressed.”
And that was it. I just quit cold turkey, and he told
me the reason I’m always depressed is because
I have a chemical imbalance. So he put me on the right
medication and I haven’t been depressed since.
Bluff: We talked
about focus earlier and how there are other players
out there who have more focus than you. But you bring
a lot of personality to the table, whereas some players
have none. Do you think that’s an advantage?
Mike: Yeah, it is, and with the medicine
I’m on now to help me focus, I’m able to
talk a little bit – but not as much as I used
to – and concentrate better. But to me it’s
all about wanting to win. When I want to win, I play
great. Whenever I need to win I play at an exceptional
level, but whenever I have a lot of money I just don’t
give a fuck, cos I don’t give a fuck about money.
So then I don’t try. It’s crazy when you
hear me talk this way, but it’s the sad truth.
It’d be nice to keep winning and winning, but
I just don’t have that hunger to win.
 Bluff:
You’re like Rocky. Every Rocky movie, he gets
fat and then comes back again.
Mike: That’s what makes Ivey
so good, he’s always hungry. No matter how much
money he has, he always wants to be at the poker table
and be the best. Whereas when I’m doing well,
I just wanna play poker. I don’t give a fuck if
I do well or not. And that’s the difference between
great players and Mike Matusow. I have as much talent
as anybody in the world, but I don’t always bring
my A-game. I don’t believe there are five people
who play No Limit Hold’em better than I do…
I’m good, but I haven’t been able to win
a big tournament because, when it comes down to it,
I either get cold-decked or fucked. You know, kings
versus aces like at the WSOP final table – try
getting away from them when you’re under the TV
cameras late in a tournament you’re looking to
win.
Bluff: Do you
think the TV people show a fair representation of your
personality? Or do they build you into a person that
your not?
Mike: Hopefully they’ll build
me into something that I am, which is a funny guy who
likes to have fun at the poker table. Anybody in the
poker world who knows me will tell you that I’m
just there to have fun. I don’t berate anybody;
they make it look like I have the worst poker etiquette.
I have the best etiquette. I only fuck with people I
know. If there’s an idiot at the table and I don’t
know him, I don’t make fun of him because he plays
like an idiot. I don’t say a word. Raymer, I didn’t
know, but he started fucking with me – they don’t
show that part. He consistently fucked with me and he
persistently came after me, so finally I said, “You
better quit fucking with me ’else I’m gonna
fucking bust you.” Then he did it again and I
showed him the 5-high bluff and I said, “You got
no fucking balls motherfucker. I got big balls, you
got little balls.” Now that was basically a statement
to say ‘stop fucking with me,’ but he kept
doing it. I told him I was going to break him and I
got him to put all his chips in on a flush draw. Of
course, he hit the flush.
Bluff: You caught
another bad beat at this year’s WSOP Main Event,
but you said that you played your best poker over those
six days…
Mike: Yeah, I played great this year.
I played some amazing poker – it was a great feeling.
I’d never played that good before. I mean, I’ve
played great before, but this was just ridiculous.
Bluff: Did you
need this one then? You say you play better when broke.
Mike: Yeah. I didn’t have a quarter
going into this tournament. I’d just lost $400,000
playing online – I was depressed. I didn’t
even want to play the last tournament. I was playing
so badly I figured I’d get sucked out on anyway.
But I got through the first day; then I got to the second
day and I thought I was playing pretty good and I got
a little confidence going, and I really got into a great
zone in days three to six. Day six in particular was
amazing. I played so great. I never got dealt a playable
hand and I moved my chip position from $3.8 million
to $7.9 million. I hope ESPN show a lot of that because
I never had a playable hand.
Bluff: How disappointed
were you to not win?
Mike: I mean, you get to the final
table two times in five years; of course it was disappointing.
In this day and age, with my personality, me winning
that tournament was worth a lot more than $7.5 million.
It’d probably be worth $50-100 million.
Bluff: What do
you think the biggest misconception about Mike Matusow
is?
Mike: That Mike Matusow isn’t
a nice person, because I am. I joke around, but I’m
there to have fun. The Grinder said to me once, “I
only play these $1,000 dollar tournaments to ruin people’s
dreams!” I’m like, “Your sick!”
Bluff: Whose
fault do you think it is for positioning you as the
bad guy of poker?
Mike: That asshole Norman Chad! He
doesn’t know anything. Don’t get me wrong,
if the guy were to sit down and get to know me, that’d
be one thing; but to label me as a person who berates
people at the felt – er, wrong answer; as a person
who has bad table etiquette – er, wrong answer.
I just have fun with people and tell them how bad they
are, but I only do that to my friends. For instance,
I love to fuck with Phil Ivey, because he never says
a word. I’m like, “Phil, you’re such
a overrated piece-of-shit poker player. You’re
nobody. They’ve just made you into a superstar.
If you played me everyday I’d kill you…”
and I’d get a smile out of him. And when you get
a smile out of Phil Ivey, you know you’ve done
something. But I’d never berate Eric Lindgren,
for example, because he gets annoyed with me, so I don’t
do it.
I love going at it with Phil Hellmuth. It gets to
the point where he has to pull me to one side and say,
“You better knock it off, you’ve gone too
far!” In the future, I want pay-per-view poker.
I want heads up matches with Phil Hellmuth. I mean,
poker’s a bit like All-Star Wrestling –
they’d probably cast me as the bad guy. Can you
imagine me versus Phil? I would absolutely destroy him.
Not only will I beat him because he can’t play
a lick to me, but after I beat him, I will mentally,
physically and emotionally just fucking destroy him.
I said to him I thought we could make a couple of
million in pay-perview and you know what his answer
to me was? “Well, I’d have to get a 70/30
cut.” And I replied, “Are you fucking crazy?”
I mean who the fuck does he think he is? 70/30 cut!
He hasn’t won a tournament in so fucking long.
So I said to him, “The only reason you won the
National Heads Up Championship is because I was in jail!”
Bluff: What exactly
happened when you got busted?
Mike: I became friends with this undercover
cop. Basically, he had me pick up drugs for him twice
over a year and a half. I didn’t really want to
do it, but I felt like he was my friend and I had to
do it. It was a total set up – entrapment, if
you like. It was all because of someone I knew, and
the police said: “We know you’re not a drug
dealer Mike, we just want you to wear a wire to get
this guy and we’ll drop all the charges. So I
said: “Fuck you.” So you know, it was really
sick what they did. It’s like a Hollywood movie
and it made me totally change my outlook on the police.
I used to think they were all good and out there to
protect us, but the police don’t care about anything.
Bluff: What about
the guy you protected, was he thankful?
Mike: Yeah, but I could have ruined
the guy’s life. He could’ve done more for
me. I didn’t ask, but I wouldn’t have turned
it down. He could have said, “Thanks for doing
the time. Can I give you something?” You know,
that never happened. I’m still in touch with this
person though. The cops were looking for something big.
They thought I knew somebody big and I was “Poker
Mike”, who knew everybody and spent $10,000 a
weekend partying. I knew everybody in the club scene,
and if you know everybody in the club scene, you can
get anything you want. They were looking to nail somebody
big through me, so they used me as a guinea pig. They
knew because I’m such a nice guy that I’d
help anybody out. They just took advantage of me. And
it’s pretty sad what they did to me. I’ll
say it again: if I’d never partied and never been
around those kinds of people, it would never have happened,
so that’s why I’m so anti-drugs now. That’s
why I don’t go out to clubs much, because when
you’re well known, you don’t know who’s
watching you and what they’ll do to get to you.
I’m afraid to be put in that spot again.
Bluff: How well
known are you?
Mike: Well, a lot of people know me
now they’re showing the World Series. They stop
me for autographs and stuff like that. It’s gonna
be fun when I go to the gym because there are so many
hot chicks in there. I’ll be honest, I go to the
gym, but right now, I’m a fat ass. But I just
made $50,000 of weight-loss bets with a bunch of guys,
so…
Bluff: How much
do you have to lose?
Mike: I gotta get down to 180lbs by
the 1st January and I’m, like, 220lbs now. I win
the $50,000 if they don’t reach their goal and
I do, and vice versa.
Bluff: Who would
you say are the top poker players right now?
Mike: Juanda’s the best, even
though he didn’t have a great World Series. But
if you wanna talk about the best overall poker players,
you gotta take into account tournaments, cash games,
live games – everything. So you got Doyle. He’s
a living legend; he’s the best of all time. The
guy’s won ten bracelets, he’s a phenomenal
cash game and tournament player… and then you
got Ivey. Chip (Reese) might be an amazing cash game
player, but he’ll never win a tournament in his
life because he doesn’t understand tournament
poker. Daniel’s a great player too. If you’re
talking allaround – that means short handed, ring
game, tournament, cash game, live – everything
– I’d have to go with Doyle, Johnny Chan
and John Juanda as the top three. If you don’t
play cash games you ain’t shit as a poker player,
I don’t care who you are.
It’s also about changing gears and it’s
the people who have the most gears who do the best.
You can play fast or pick your spots and chop away.
I played two big hands in the WSOP and lost them both.
In big tournaments, it’s about chopping away to
pick up chips because you’re never more than 4:1
– and who wants to gamble their tournament on
a 4:1 shot? But in a cash game, it’s like the
first two levels in a tournament. You can just sit there
and wait for the cards to come
your way.
Bluff: Who came
up with the name “The Mouth”?
Mike: Well, they originally called
me “Loudmouth”, which I didn’t like,
so I said, “You can call me ‘The Mouth’.”
I think it was Todd Brunson who came up with it.
Bluff: What do
you think is the biggest mistake people make in No Limit
Hold’em?
Mike: It’s about picking up on
people’s mistakes. That’s what poker is.
The biggest misconception in poker is due to the TV
age. TV shows all these bluffs because that attracts
people to TV, so everyone thinks that’s how you
play poker. So now everybody and their mother is trying
to outplay you in every hand, which is greatest thing
in the world. But poker has nothing to do with outplaying
people; poker is about playing fundamentally solidly
and taking advantage of other people’s mistakes.
So the biggest mistake people make is playing big pots
with A-K or coming over the top with two nines or two
tens. They think a pair is the biggest thing in the
world.
Bluff: What’s
the most important thing to you in life?
Mike: Family and respect. Caring about
other people. That’s probably one of the biggest
misconceptions about me. I’m probably the most
caring person you’ll ever meet. Whenever I have
money, I just give it away. After I won the million,
there was this one guy who was in jail – he was
just stuck in there and needed to get out – and
I put up his bail and he’s out right now. I’m
supposed to get the money back, but this was some guy
I barely knew and the fact that he hated being in there
so much really bothered me. So I wanted to get him out.
So I care about people and I help them out. I help a
lot of people out who have nothing. That’s why
I ended up in jail in the first place, because it was
about me wanting to help someone out.
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