Calistri's Corner

At the 2007 WSOP, Mike Matusow told me that he thought he was playing some of the best poker of his life.  He predicted that 2007 was going to be one of his best tournament years.  During the series he made it deep in three events with 11th, 15th, and 16th place money finishes.  While it was a stellar performance, it was the first year since 1999 that Mike didn’t make a WSOP final table.  The end of his streak only fueled his hunger for more final tables.   

Like a lot of pros did this year, Matusow headed over to the WPT’s Bellagio Cup when he busted out of the WSOP Main Event.  The WPT had made some structure changes that the pros were very positive about; allowing them to play deep stack poker and a game with a little bit more finesse.  An hour before the end of Mike’s first day, he pushed his last remaining chips to get himself back to where he started the day; and one of the shortest stacks going into Day Two.  He went from about 20K to 332K on Day Two.  Not a bad day’s work.  Long story short, he made the final table and finished second behind Kevin Saul, when his straight flush draw didn’t come in.  But I think the second place only made Matusow hungrier.  In his speech at the end of the WPT taping, Matusow congratulated Saul for his wire-to-wire victory, but candidly (like Mike would be guarded?) confessed how much he wanted a WPT win.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that Mike is at the Borgata this week on his mission for a WPT win.  I spoke to him yesterday at the start of the dinner break.  There were still seven players left - one more to lose before the final televised table.  Mike was one of the shorter stacks and was also one of the players who pushed for a dinner break instead of playing through.  He confessed that he had a monster headache, but still thought he was playing “above the rim.”  I suspect he thought he might be able to lose the headache over dinner.  Today he’s heading for another WPT final table.  He’s third in chips, but practically tied with second place.

You can say what you want about players like Matusow and Hellmuth (and people do).  But I’ve never met two players who absolutely hate to lose as much as they do and who are always hungry for the win. 

Good luck in there today Mikey.                 

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 8:35 am and is filed under Uncategorized.