Mike Matusow Interview

Here is a piece of an interview with Mike "The Mouth" Matusow. This interview is from Rounders: The Poker Show with Adam Schwartz and Mike Johnson (M.J. to prevent confusion here). Mike has had several deep finishes at the World Series of Poker, and he has also become a staple in the internet poker world. You can sit and play with Matusow exclusively at Full Tilt Poker.

M.J: Have you come across anyone yet who you know you can't get under their skin?

Matusow: The truth of the matter is, it's a big misconception about me. I don't mess with people I don't know, or that are not messing with me. In other words (at the WSOP), Raymer kept re-raising me and re-raising me, coming after me and calling me, really playing great poker against me. It was really starting to aggravate me, so I started talking back to him...I'm gonna bust you, I'm gonna bust you, I'm gonna bust you...because I knew he kept coming at me.

Then I bluffed him in the big pot and told him that I had bigger you know what than he did, and I said don't mess with me. That was more of a stop messing with me type of thing. Sure enough, then came the big hand where I picked him off where I knew he didn't have a pair and I lost it and that was that.

Other than that, if I don't know the person or it's a stranger at the game, I would never say anything to them. The people I like to mess with are people that I've been playing with for 10 years.

The thing is that nobody understood is that this poker world was 200 people deep 2 years ago. So you knew everybody and you knew how everybody played, so you knew who you can mess with and who you can't. So the perception of me is a lot different than how I am in reality. When I'm at a table with some people I don't know, unless they are raising and coming after me, I don't say a word to them. I'm not like Phil Hellmuth...

M.J: So are you able to not play with emotion? Is this something that you turn on and turn off or are you always the same way? I guess it sounds like you're not always that same way.

Matusow: I just went on this new medicine that's really really helped me control my emotion and control the way that I am at the table. Since I've done it it's really been quite rewarding to me in poker. Hopefully this will continue to be the answer for me. My problem was that before I was just such an emotional person that when something bad happened I would go nuts and that would be the end. Now I take things with a stride and it doesn't affect me nearly as much.

Adam: You mentioned a name that kind of leads me into my next question. Television has really created kind of media superstars that don't deserve the title. Who do you think is over-rated these days?

Matusow: There is a lot of really over rated players you know. There is a lot of people that have gotten extremely lucky and uhh, you'll know in 10 years who the great players are, you now what I'm sayin? It's not no down to a science thing, I mean I watched this guy Tuan Lee win 2 WPTs. I mean if this guy can win 2 WPTs then what is poker? Here is a guy who just shoves in his money and this guy has hit about 12 gutterballs for 6 million dollars. So I'm not a big Tuan Lee fan.

I'm not really gonna talk negative about other people. I think there is some very big name players that are very very over-rated that I don't think can play very much at all, but it's just not my spot to say anything.

M.J: For the fans who watch poker on TV, there are some people that the general public thinks are a lot better than they are. There's others that maybe you fear at a table that the general public doesn't even know about.

Matusow: I don't think Anne is nearly as good as the public thinks she is, I don't think Howard is nearly as good as the public thinks he is, I don't think Gus is nearly as good as the public thinks he is, I don't think Phil Hellmuth is as good as the public thinks he is.

I think Daniel is as good as the public thinks he is. I think Ivey is as good. I think John Juanda is the best, but he doesn't get that much credit, but I'm tellin' you now, that this guy is probably the best overall poker player in the world. I think Doyle is phenomenal, Chau Giang, Barry Greenstein is a great player.

You want to talk about differences, there is also a lot of differences between tournament poker and live poker. I look at people that can play the live games, who can play the tournament games, who can play short-handed. You know there is only a handful of them and that is what I always rate my players on.

Adam: And some people just become good at selling themselves in the media really.

Matusow: Right, and that's one of the things now with the World Series that I'm gonna work real hard on you know; selling myself. I've never been a good PR type of person. I'm not the type of person to go out there and knock on doors. I'd rather sit and play poker, but now this is something I'm gonna work on.

I'll be honest with you, Phil Hellmuth is the greatest PR man that ever walked the face of the earth. I mean this guy here is the greatest ever when it comes to that, and Phil is a great no limit hold 'em player, don't get me wrong. But he's so full of himself now that he can't win. How's he gonna win if he walks in thinking he's the best and doesn't play like he's the best. You can't win if you walk in thinking you're the best. You have to walk in and play great. I used to be the same way, I used to have this crazy ego like nobody can beat me, and that's not the right way to be. The right way to be is to go in there and play every hand one hand at a time and see where it takes you.

M.J: Our guest is Mike Matusow, he is a former poker dealer who has become a poker superstar, the reason that I bring that up Mike is because there aren't many who can make that transition. We had Scott Fishman on this program who did a similar transition as yourself, and I guess the question is why don't more dealers make great poker players, and how were you able to pull that off?

Matusow: Well me as a poker dealer, every time when I was dealing I was always watching the game and looking to learn. In other words I was looking to see how people played hands. I was a very good dealer so I didn't have to worry about running the game, I could run it almost in my sleep. So during hands, instead of concentrating on the game I was trying to concentrate on what this person was gonna have. I would always look and say ok this guy has this hand or this hand, and when the cards got turned up, I'd be pushing the cards forward before they got turned over, and that's how I learned to read people really well. I learned a lot reading when I was a dealer.

If you want to hear the rest of this interview you can head over to bigpoker.ca and listen to all of the archived episodes.