Ever seen Jay Mohr’s classic Saturday Night Live skit It’s Christopher Walken for Skittles? Well, this is just as weird. Doyle Brunson told Clonie Gowen that every night before he goes to sleep he eats two packages of Skittles. Nothing like a ton of pure sugar to help you fall asleep at night.
By 2008, no product will exist that isn’t endorsed by some poker player somewhere.
I just talked to Phil “The Unabomber” Laak who has made friends with my new media room buddy from Amsterdam, who was nice enough to fix Laak’s playstation.
Anyway, I asked Phil about how he felt about players like Phil Gordon, who say they would like to see less antics displayed on televised poker. Since Laak is well known for his antics I was pretty sure that he would take the Matusow, Hellmuth side of the dispute and he did but without the bluster or his compadres.
“The trick is to do whatever you need to do at the table to achieve fun, freedom, and fulfillment. About 5% of the time I might be thinking that the camera is on me, but 95% of the time I’m just floating along being myself. I saw these 17-21 year old kids the other day, who have never been in a casino and they were watching nothing but clips of poker players blowing up instead of renting a movie at Blockbuster or something.”
On the Poker after Dark episode featuring Tony G, Mike Matusow, and Phil Hellmuth that incited Gordon to say he’d “like to see a lot less of that in poker”
“You had three guys who showed up for a televised event and were out to make it a good time, and three other guys who knew exactly what to expect and probably really enjoyed what went on.”
On Richard Marcus’ book Dirty Poker where Marcus implies that Jennifer Tilly’s win in the WSOP Ladies event was fixed.
”It didn’t bother us at all. Everybody in the public eye has someone saying something ludicrous about them, but clearly it was such an absurd claim that it didn’t pick up any traction. I read the first ten pages of that book, and it was like a certain
Hollywood star, with a certain Professional Poker playing boyfriend, in a National Championship. I haven’t talked to a single person who has given the claim any credence and it’s clearly not true.”
On the criticized structure of the Limit Events: “I don’t know. I’ve never played limit before. I’m just in the event because I’m a poker drone and that’s what we do.”
On the Phil Ivey vs. Paul Jackson hand at the Monte Carlo Millions: “Best poker clip ever and I’ve seen them all.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEfLXr3eSxs
Phil is clearly as big a fan of televised poker as everyone else. We discussed the best blow up in poker history and I mentioned the Hellmuth tirade after he lost the WSOP TOC to Annie Duke. Hellmuth kept hitting top pair and seemingly every hand Duke had flopped two pair. “And he folded every time, didn’t he? You have to admire that, Hellmuth is incredible. How does he know?”
It didn’t take long. Upon being dealt his first hand, Mike Matusow looked at his cards and screamed “This is Bullshit. I’m not even kidding, I’m serious.” No, the mouth wasn’t dealt rags, he was enraged at the cards being used at this year’s World Series of Poker. The cards are identified in the corners by tiny numbers, and the overall consensus among the participants was that they were impossible to read.
Upon hearing about Matusow’s tirade, Daniel Negreanu commented. “I told him two weeks ago that the cards sucked.”
Matusow: Hey TJ, aren’t you on the Players Advisory Committee?”
TJ Cloutier: We didn’t vote on these cards
Rather than give Matusow a penalty officials soon assured Mike that the cards would likely soon be changed causing Matusow to ponder that huge crates of the new cards would soon be being used “for people to wipe their asses with.”
Matusow: Why do we put up with this? They are raking the crap out of us and making millions and we put up with this bullshit. We should boycott!
“I want to play every one of these internet superstars when they try one of those Facockta moves on me and I look right into their eyes and put the fear of God into them. We’ll see what they do when I pop them 30,000 and they can’t just click a button and run away.”
“I can’t even think about life without gambling. The only time I’m not gambling is when I’m sleeping.”
“Everyone goes on a bad run. Sometimes it takes ten years, but everyone goes on a bad run that they could never have imagined.”
“I don’t care whether you are a genius. If you were playing in my online account you’d be down money, maybe not as much as me but you’d still be down.”
Forrest Lays Down the Matusow Gauntlet
Ted Forrest has put his money where Mike Matusow’s Mouth is. Forrest has given Mike one year to become 56 pounds slimmer. At stake - $100,000. Let’s hope Ted’s not trying to cash in and is just concerned for the jovial Mike’s health. Mike is currently 237 pounds and must be down to 181 on June 3, 2008.
In other rumors, Mike may have some help losing that weight. Word is going around that The Mouth is considering trying to channel Emmitt Smith by going on Dancing with the Stars. It sounds so absurd, it must be true.
Mike isn’t sure if Dancing with the Stars is still interested in him, but he’d definitely love to give it a go. “Are you kidding, I’d do it in a second, it would be the funniest thing ever. I guarantee there would be 20 million poker players watching it every week I was still on.”
In other Mike news, he just called Erick Lindgren “The most degenerate gambler ever” at his Horse table.
Maybe Mike’s luck really does stink. Having complained recently about how he never hits a set. Mike’s pocket 3’s hit when Q38 flopped. Unfortunately another player had flopped a set of 8’s. Unfortunately for that player, yet another player had pocket Queens. Of course, Phil Hellmuth would have folded his 3’s and yelled, “I can dodge nuclear bombs, baby!”
Mike Matusow: Ladies and Gentleman, the funniest man in America, Phil Hellmuth.
One of the surprising things that I have learned at this years World Series is that ESPN and other networks don’t have to edit very much to find entertaining content from Phil and Mike, they are literally talking constantly and railing them is by far the best seat at this series you can get without actually competing.
Here’s what you can expect.
Hellmuth: Expect to hear numerous times about his ten bracelets (he then won his 11th). He will tell also tell you many many times that he has been playing as tight as a rock all day. If you catch him bluffing, he will claim that it was his first bluff of the entire tournament and that you are a stone cold idiot for taking him on. If he has a strong hand and you call him with anything less than Aces, you will be severely chastised for your poker incompetance. Thus, Hellmuth’s tirade in event one when someone had the gall to call his raise with Jacks holding only Queens. Basically, as Phil says if luck weren’t involved he’d win every time.
Matusow: Matusow gives you much more variety for your time. He’ll tell you constantly how unlucky he’s been. He hasn’t won a coin flip since the first World War. He never hits a set. He loses millions betting football. God would be down money if he’d been dealt cards on Mike’s Full Tilt account.
Sometimes you’ll get something as random as an unpaid endorsement of VitaminWater. Mike says it keeps you fresh all day.
Poker phenom Jeff Madsen’s mother has been making waves as perhaps the third funniest wit at the series after mssrs Hellmuth and Matusow.
Apparently agreeing with Daniel Negreanu on the slow structure of the Horse event, Jeff’s mom described the action as “like watching paint dry.”
Needing something to do, she wandered over and started heckling Huck Seed. “I want to know about your family. Who names their son Huckleberry?”
No word on what mom thinks of the name “Trishelle.”
During the final table of the $5,000 Pot Limit Hold’em event Keith Lehr had a response to the jovial Humbero Brenes, his everpresent toy shark, and his penchant for musically moving all in. Moving over the top of Brenes for all his chips, Lehr took out his FAKE EYE and set it down next to Brenes’ shark. Brenes folded and so would have every sane man on the planet.
Early in day one of this year’s World Series of Poker, I found myself discussing Phil Hellmuth, with the equally tall, but infinitely less abrasive Phil Gordon. I mentioned an episode of NBC’s Poker after Dark, which featured an epic smack-down session of trash talking poker between Hellmuth, Mike Matusow, and Tony G. Gordon was quick to point out that as a member of the WSOP Player’s Advisory Committee, similar antics were something he preferred to see a lot less of in the game.
The divergence between how the two Phil’s choose to conduct themselves during a poker tournament came to a head later in the day, when Hellmuth reacted to Jon Turner’s decision to call his Jacks with pocket Queens, as if the internet player had just said something horrible about his wife and kids. In fact, it was Gordon, who stepped in to settle Hellmuth down by threatening to call a floor official, which spurred Hellmuth to leave his table in order to plead his case to an infinitely more sympathetic ear, Matusow. Hellmuth told Matasow that his antics were the reason that poker players were suddenly making millions of dollars in televised tournaments, even going so far as to referencing Vince McMahon’s zoo-like World Wrestling franchise.
Clearly, one can see Gordon’s point. Imagine trying to run a tourney filled with nothing but Hellmuths and Matusows. It would be chaos on a grand scale, but as a viewer and fan I’m left to ponder the following. That episode of Poker after Dark was easily ten times as entertaining as any poker movie ever made. It may not have been art from a poker standpoint, but it was riveting to watch. Matusow and Tony G seemed to revel like little schoolgirls as they sat back, folded, and did their best to set off the next Hellmuth explosion. It was perhaps the only episode of televised poker that one could re-watch over and over again. The fact that Phil Ivey sailed away with the $120,000 prize was perhaps the least significant aspect of that week’s worth of episodes.
One only had to compare this episode of the show to the previous week’s series of episodes featuring former WSOP champions Chris Moneymaker, Jamie Gold, Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, and Carlos Mortensen. Despite the players’ pedigrees the television episodes could have been used to lull rabid dogs to sleep. After Gold busted out, nobody said a word aside from an occasional “nice hand” here and there. The show was so uneventful that for perhaps the first time ever Brunson looked as though he had indeed been playing poker every day for forty plus years. Given certain tables and events, the game is unable to sell itself as a television show.
Going back to day one of this year’s World Series. Undoubtedly, there was some fascinating poker being played, but to the spectators viewing the action from the rails the two clear highlights of the day were Matusow’s loud opening second explosion of disgust at the playing cards chosen for the event and Hellmuth’s tirade later in the day that had to be dissipated by Gordon’s sense of propriety. One never knows what will show up on ESPN in the coming months, but if the $5000 Mixed Hold’em event is featured I’m guessing it won’t be lots of chip leaders Greg Mueller and Sabyl Cohen calmly accumulating chips.
The enjoyment of televised poker is almost entirely dependant on the personalities of the players be it Daniel Negreanu’s impish humor, Phil Ivey’s steely stare, or Humberto Brenes doing a full fledged Mambo every time he pushes all of his chips into the center of the table. Last year’s winner Jamie Gold made the three previous winner’s of the event Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, and Joseph Hachem look like three monks after taking a vow of silence. It might not have been everyone’s cup of tea, but I, for one, sure preferred it to another segment of Chris Ferguson throwing playing cards at tropical fruit.
Gordon obviously sees the possibility that things could totally get out of hand. Hellmuth, as the most marketable name in the game, the youngest main event champion ever, and a holder of ten WSOP bracelets gets a pass, and everyone loves Matusow, but what happens when half of the players who waited in line yesterday for hours decides that they too want to be the next Matusow or Laak. Hellmuth has won a ton of poker tournaments, but he’s made it pretty clear that he sees the big money as being outside of the game. Can one really blame upcoming players for trying to cash in on the growing Poker Brat market?
Presently, the players themselves seem to police things pretty well, but we’ve already started to see the second generation of trash talkers in the face of Shawn Sheikhan, who seems to have neither Hellmuth’s pedigree nor Matusow’s likeability. Sheikhan seems to grate at his opponents like a broken clutch, yet one would be hard pressed to deny that the Sheiky-Hellmuth confrontation on the debut week of Poker after Dark was again one of the most entertaining moments in televised poker history.
Naysayers, who bemoan the new wave of poker brattiness, might also want to look back at clips of a young Stu Ungar, becoming the poker world’s first star, as he sat back and taunted the immaculately mannered, erudite Godfather of Poker, Doyle Brunson. The conflict between the two styles was riveting and proves there’s room for both temperaments in the game.
For now, from a viewing standpoint the antics of the bad boys are a definite boon to the game. One just wonders if it will all reach a natural climax, before all hell breaks loose and every final table has to be held in an octagon cage.
This has nothing to do with the WSOP. I’m playing 2-5 NL at the Rio. The guy to my left is a solid player. The guy to his left is a drunk with a ton of chips. The Drunk raises to 30 or so and the solid player calls with Q8 suited, ok maybe he isn’t that solid.
The flop is Q J 8 with two clubs. Sober guy checks. Drunk guys bets 100. Sober guy check raises another 170. Drunk guy acts like he has Aces and insta-calls. Turn is a red 4. Sober guy bets 200 more. Drunk guy obviously isn’t going to fold and calls.
The river is a nightmare for the sober guy. It’s the jack of hearts and his two pair have been counterfeited. He has about 150 left, and it’s pretty apparent the drunk guy isn’t going to fold so he checks. Drunk guy goes all in. Sober guy turns into angry guy and hurls his cards at the dealer in disgust.
Here’s where it gets uglier. Drunk guy shows AK of clubs. He had a huge draw and bluffed the river. Drunk guy immediately goes into a Humberto Brenes type dance, as angry guy becomes insane guy. Drunk guy leaves to brag without stacking his chips. Now Furious guy pushes them all over to Drunk guy’s spot like a true jerk.
This is when I find myself on the button with Queens. I raise to thirty and both drunk guy and furious guy call. The flop is Q99 and I can see all the money I’m going to take in from the drunk maniac and the guy on super tilt. Tilt checks. Drunk bets 5. I call looking disgusted. Tilt raises 50. Wonderful! Drunk calls and I move all in for 300 more. Tilt calls immediately for his last 200. Drunk actually folds 10 J showing some rare restraint, and I’m left wishing that tilt had won the last pot.
Tilt has J9. The turn is a Jack and of course the river is a 9. I’m flabbergasted. Tilt hasn’t turned over his cards, but I have to be beat. I show my Queens. Tilt shows his J9.
This is where it gets interesting. The dealer pushes the pot to me. That 9 on the river clearly has shown me that if there is a God he doesn’t give a flying … er care about my benefit. Immediately, as I see the dealer scooping up the cards into the muck, I realize that if I scoop the pot into my chips that the Rio is going to have a pretty hard time taking that $600 away from me, and sadly I can actually use the money.
Tilt guy starts going berserk as I’m faced with the decision whether my soul, which has taken a lot of hits of late, is worth $600. I couldn’t do it, I pushed the money back to him along with the extra $200 I needed to match his stack.
I then lose all faith in Karma as I go on to lose even more of my hard earned cash. Do evil soulless people have more fun? Probably, but I don’t have it in me. Maybe I should take up competitive hopscotch instead.
