Mike Matusow | Team Full Tilt Player

MIKE "THE MOUTH" MATUSOW

No other professional poker player in the circuit can match the fun and brilliance that Mike Matusow brings to the poker table, even in the most serious of million-dollar tournaments worldwide. His life has been a roller coaster ride of poker winnings and successes, addiction and arrest yet through all these years, you will find his name right at the list of top poker players in the country, if not the world.

Growing up as a child, Mike Matusow always had a competitive streak and opinions he very rarely kept to himself. He worked on building race cars and shooting pool. He also rolled games of 290 and even scored a perfect 300 in bowling.

This 40-year old poker pro who plays online for Full Tilt was born in Los Angeles, California in 1968. His family never moved to Las Vegas until he was around ten years old, where he first learned the rudiments of the game, discovering a love for video poker while he was working as a dealer at a local casino. The time he spent as a card dealer was time spent studying various game strategies and techniques. Although he rarely won at first, his inherent determination to win fueled his passion until he joined and eventually won a small local poker tournament in the early 1990s.

This Team Full Tilt Player quickly became a regular in these small local tournaments, which gave his poker confidence and more importantly, his cash earnings a boost. He then began playing for bigger cash in bigger tournaments all around town, focusing on the Omaha 8/Better. To date, Mike Matusow remains one of the best, if not the best Omaha 8/Better players in the world.

It was in 1999 when Mike Matusow won his first World Series of Poker bracelet playing the $3,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold 'em tournament. This was barely two years after he entered his first World Series of Poker tournament where he finished second to fellow respected poker pro Scotty Nguyern in the Omaha 8/Better.

In 2001, this Team Full Tilt Player found himself at the World Series of Poker Main Event final table for the first time, finishing the tournament in sixth place. The following year, he brought home his second World Series of Poker bracelet in the $5,000 buy-in Omaha 8/Better tournament.

Unfortunately, in 2004, brought on by the hard partying good times that came with his successes in the Sin City's high life, he was sentenced to six months in the Clark County jail on a drug charge. Moreover, he suffered from consistent mood swings and was diagnosed with manic depression and attention deficit disorder.

But this didn't stop In July 2005, just three months after his release, Mike Matusow was back with a vengeance. He won $1 Million for his ninth-place finish in the 2005 main event of the World Series of Poker. To date. His winning streak continues and this out-spoken poker genius plays online as a Team Full Tilt Player .

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