Things you might not know:
- Matusow's childhood hobbies included building race cars, shooting pool and bowling.
- During his youth, the competitive Matusow often bowled 290 games and once a 300 game.
- Matusow's had early experiences with video poker and then dealing at a local casino.
- Matusow occasionally stole money from his mother's purse and at one point attended Gamblers Anonymous meetings.
- Matusow is considered one of the best Omaha 8/better players in the world.
- In 1997, Mike entered his first WSOP event playing Omaha8/better and finished second to Scotty Nguyen.
- The Matusow Blow-up or Matusow Meltdown are nicknamed in recognition of Mike's reputation for playing hours or days of great poker only to ruin it with a single spectacular misjudgment.
- With success came temptation and in 2004 Matusow was sentenced to six months in the Clark County jail on a drug charge.
- Fueled by that low experience, Matusow vowed to recover making the WSOP Main Event final table and scoring two $1 million wins that year.
- Matusow is a Dean of Deepstacks University, an interactive poker training site.
- Matusow once lost $2 million in a drastic weight loss prop bet with Ted Forrest, although some negotiated settlement was made.
Mike "The Mouth" Matusow has always had the gift of gab and speaking his mind. He enjoys trash-talking at the poker table but when focused plays some of the best poker around.
Some of Matusow's famous quotes:
- "Kiddie poker is down the street."
- "There's over 2000 donkeys in this tournament and I had to be at the table with none of them."
- "I believe in my heart I'm one of the top five No Limit Holdem players in the World. It's the only thing I do good. I'm an idiot when it comes to anything else."
- "There's no skill in poker. Poker is a joke. Tournament poker is a joke. Whoever gets most lucky is the next superstar."
- "I got no fear. I'm fearless. I'm not afraid to go broke. I'm not afraid to put my whole tournament on the line, I'm a great poker player, and they're all gonna see that."
- "Right now there is probably not a human being in the world with less regard for money than me. I make bets for thousands of dollars that I know I can't win. I was at the poker table once and made a $5,000 bet with Howard Lederer that Shawshank Redemption won best picture. Doyle Brunson told me not to make that bet because he made it once and lost. Of course, I didn't listen, and had to give Howard $5,000."
- “You realize how many times lightning has to strike in order for you to be sitting here?”
- "No one is as unlucky as me, why does this keep happening to ME?"
- "I believe I read better than Phil Ivey. I believe that I read better than anybody in the world, and I believe that I have better gears than anybody in the world. My problem is the ability to focus for longer periods of time."
- "Vindication baby! One time!"
- "I think I'm probably the most well-liked person on the tour, I think most people love me, I mean I have a lot of fun with people. I needle them, but I needle them in a nice way."
One video of Matusow trapping Phil Hellmuth and one verbal battle with Shawn Sheikhan:
Other famous poker player profiles:
Phil Ivey
Gus Hansen
Daniel Negreanu
Doyle Brunson
Phil Hellmuth
Scotty Nguyen
Johnny Chan
Barry Greenstein
Jennifer Harman-Traniello
Eric Seidel
Patrik Antonius
Viktor Blom
Chris Ferguson
Chris Moneymaker
Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier
Tom Dwan
Greg Raymer
Ashton "theASHMAN103" Griffin
John Juanda
Chau Giang
Kathy Liebert
Dan Harrington
Dario Minieri
Allen Cunningham
Phil Galfond
Carlos Mortensen
Annie Duke
Erick Lindgren
Mike Matusow
Michael Mizrachi
Howard Lederer
Antonio Esfandiari
J.C. Tran
David Pham
Annette Obrestad
Vanessa Selbst
Huck Seed
Men Nguyen
David Benyamine
Jason Mercier
Phil Laak
Layne Flack
Lex Veldhuis
Ted Forrest
Joe Hachem
Dan “jungleman12” Cates
