Pro-Files: Mike Matusow

I'll bet you'd all thought I'd given up on this idea.Nope.
My first and last attempt at something like this was the Ben Roberts Profile which I think attracted some attention, but not much commentary; probably due to lack of name recognition. Also, being my first attempt, it was somewhat experimental and a little akward looking.

So, with my next installment I'm trying something new. First off, I'm posting it in the general section for all members. With Ben, I was a little worried that I might be opening myself up for some trouble. Some sites frown on data mining, but apparently, Full Tilt, the site where all this data was collected doesn't seem to have a problem with it. Secondly, those of you who did tune in before will notice that my technique is greatly improved resulting in a much cleaner look. And finally, I've collected enough hands from a houshold name to hopefully generate some more responses from our members. After all, this is a chat room, not a magazine.

Other than Phil Helmuth, in the world of professional poker, few people ispire more interest than my next featured player, Mike Matusow. He's loud, obnoxious and ugly as a mud fence. Sorry Mike, but I'm sure I'm not the first to notice. He's also thouroughly entertaining and a darn good player.

What's great about the hands I've collected from Mike is that their very consistent. All of them are from either $50/$100 or $25/$50 No Limit Hold'em tables with a maximum of 6 players. Also, Mike seems to have an aversion to Heads-Up and short tables. Only 184 of the 1164 hands are from of this sort. All for the best as you'll see. Mike is just getting clobbered at the short table. What this means is that we have a very large sample of hands of the sort that most Hold'em players are likely to face. That doesn't mean that we won't look into the short table situations. In fact, the losses from these few hands which make up only 10% of the total are equal to his entire winnings from the other 90%. This is a huge leak.

Please don't think of this as my thread, and feel free to ad any information or commentary you think might enhance it. Some of the stats and information I post may be a little confusing for those of you unfamiliar with Poker Tracker, the software I used to gather it. Fortunately there are alot of members here who can help, and as I am unable to patrol this thread 24/7 I welcome the assistance.

Here we go.

To start, here is the main report for all 1164 hands. While it may be interesting, it's much to broad to glean much valuable information. Yuo'll see that after so many hands, Mike is only up $169.80, and without breaking it down it's hard to see how he got there. But still, general aggression patterns and betting tendencies are discernable. We'll let this stand for awhile before we apply some filters.
Enjoy.


Player Ring Game Summary: Mike Matusow: $100 $50 NLH
Date: 11/18/2006
Game Level: All Levels
Total Hands: 1,164

Vol. Put $ In Pot: 33.85 % (394 times out of 1,164)
Vol. Put $ In From SB: 34.94 % (87 times out of 249)

Saw Flop All Hands: 26.63 % (310 times out of 1,164)
Saw Flop Not A Blind: 25.04 % (167 times out of 667)

Folded SB To Steal: 77.33 % (58 times out of 75)
Folded BB To Steal: 59.84 % (73 times out of 122)
Fold BB To Steal HU: 56.12 % (55 times out of 98)

Blind Defense: Times Fold% Ww/oSD% WSD% W$SD%
Small Blind 17 58.82 29.41 11.76 50.00
Big Blind 49 30.61 36.73 32.65 68.75

Att. To Steal Blinds: 27.33 % (94 times out of 344)

Steal Success: No Flop% Fold% Ww/oSD% WSD% W$SD%
58.51 9.57 72.34 18.09 29.41

Won $ When Saw Flop: 48.39 % (150 times out of 310)
Amount Won: $169.80

Win Rate Per 100 Hands: $14.59
Big Bets Won Per 100 Hands: 2.29

Went To Showdown: 30.32 % (94 times out of 310)
Won $ At SD: 42.55 % (40 times out of 94)

Raised Pre-flop: 14.09 % (164 times out of 1,164)
Limp/Call Reraise PF: 0.69 % (8 times out of 1,164)

First Action on Flop After A Pre-flop Raise:
Raise: 3.03 % (2 times out of 66)
Bet: 59.09 % (39 times out of 66)
Call: 1.52 % (1 times out of 66)
Check: 25.76 % (17 times out of 66)
Check/Raise: 1.52 % (1 times out of 66)
Fold: 9.09 % (6 times out of 66)
No Flop/No Action: 59.76 % (98 times out of 164)

Aggression
Player Actions: Poss.Actions Raise % Bet % Call % Check % Fold % Factor*
Pre-flop: ..........1,188 ...........13.89 .....0.00 ...23.57 ..2.19 ......60.35
Flop: ...............381 ..............7.87 ......23.10 .12.07... 41.21 ....15.75... 2.57
Turn: ...............196.............. 3.06...... 27.55. 10.20... 44.39.... 14.80 ...3.00
River: ..............122.............. 0.82...... 27.87... 9.84... 47.54.... 13.93... 2.92
Total: ..............1,887.......... 10.70...... 9.33... 18.97... 17.38.... 43.61... 2.73
* Aggression Factor is calculated as: (Raise % + Bet %) / Call %
General rule of thumb...less than 0.70 = passive - more than 1.5 = aggressive (if you are including PF #‘s in the calculation)

Bet/Raised/Check-Raised Just Called
Player Actions: Ww/oSD% Fold% WSD% W$SD% Ww/oSD% Fold% WSD% W$SD%
Pre-flop: ..........71.34........ 11.59.. 17.07... 28.57.... 32.17....... 42.17... 25.65... 47.46
Flop:............... 62.61 ........10.43.. 26.96... 51.61... 13.51........ 29.73... 56.76... 33.33
Turn: ...............61.67......... 6.67... 31.67... 42.11.... 5.88........ 17.65.... 76.47... 46.15
River: ..............51.43......... 2.86.... 45.71... 43.75.... 0.00 ........0.00..... 100.00.. 36.36

Folded To River Bet: 59.26 % (16 times out of 27)

When Folds Hand: No Fold % Pr-flon /n Floo 0/( Turn % River %

Player Ring Game Summary: Mike Matusow: $100 $50 NLH
Date: 11/18/2006 Page: 1 of 2
Game Level: All Levels
29.04 61.86 5.15 2.49 1.46
Check Raises: Times % of Possible Actions Flop % Turn % River %
17 .............................2.43................. .........94.12 ....5.88 ....0.00

I guess my presentation isn't as clean as I thought. This was taken from a screen shot and run through an OCR to turn it into a word doc. but I see a few recognition errors. Also, the collumns in some of the schedules are compressed which makes it hard to read. I'll probably go back to the raw screen shot in the future.

Also because you put it in the loyal only section as you were worried about copyright issues.

Well, it's going to take a little to digest all of this data (especially the chart style sections and are nearly impossible to try to space out correctly), but I just wanted to say thanks for putting it up. I'm not as well educated in Poker Tracker as some folks here are, so this also helps me work on that aspect. Really enjoyed the last one you did and looking forward to seeing more here.

One thing I do notice right away is that he really likes seeing flops and showdowns. That would be great if he was winning more.

He does like to see alot of flops, but he's not through the roof. He VP$IP's (voluntarily puts money in the pot) 33.85% of the time and actually sees the flop 26.63% of the time. This is about 10% higher in both cases than Ben Roberts and about the same as David Grey. PT rates Mike as (LAA), Loose Agressive/Agressive(The PT symbol is the Tazmanian Devil). This means that he plays alot of hands preflop and usually raises. The 2nd Aggresive rating is for post flop. If he raises preflop, which he usually does, he's more than twice as likely to bet, raise or check-raise after the flop than he is to check, call or fold.

As you pointed out, it looks like this isn't working out for him (so far), but in fact, he's doing remarkably well with 4 or more players at the table, 90% of his hands. It's only in the short games where you would expect to see a high % of pots that he's falling short.
Here, have a look. The top image is his short table stats, (2 and 3 players) and the bottom is all the rest ( more than 4 players at the table).
Man! He should just sit the short tables out.

Attached Images

MM Ring 2-3P vs4-6P AL.JPG (64.5 KB, 104 views)

I was worried about getting thrown out of FTP too.

Wow, thanks. Guess I was over generalizing a little bit. I'm going to blame this on my lack of PT experience and the way I was looking at the numbers. It's amazing how different his play is from the short 2-3 person table vs 4+ players. Maybe he should use PT as well, LOL. I'm going to go back and re-look some of the numbers keeping in mind what you've pointed out.

As far as his aggressive nature, it was real evident on High Stakes Poker at least regarding his tendency to bet and keep betting aggressively. Granted he went broke really badly there, but how many times did we see him have the marbles to fire three bullets at his opponent while holding nothing but K high or some such mess.

Time for some position stats filtered for tables with 4 to 6 players. Comments later.

Attached Images

MM Position Stats 4-6P.JPG (62.6 KB, 71 views)

MM Graph VP$IP 4-6P by Pos.JPG (62.8 KB, 70 views)

MM RFI 4-6P.JPG (60.4 KB, 70 views)

MM Graph BB Win % 4-6P.JPG (60.7 KB, 72 views)

MM Win % by pos 4-6P.JPG (69.5 KB, 72 views)

i dont know if this is good info... i mean... i dont know about u all... but i heard on TV that his friends took his computer away cuzz he was losing so much money online...

You heard on TV? Um... I guess he bought a new one.

all i meant was if this was during the period leading up to his computer being taken... its non-typical play/losses on his part.

These are all from the last few weeks. He is a self confessed online poker addict, but if anyone should have his computer taken away it's Phil Ivey. He's down $161,000 since I've been watching him.

I was watching Matusow on the $25/$50 table the other day. He put like $7,000 on a q high flush draw. I'm sure he had a better read but I could tell the other guy had something. I was actually a little shocked to see a pro like that. He quickly left the table after that.

I'm not a matusow fan at all... Almost everytime I see him playing he is almost always going broke.... and asking other people at the table to loan him money (no joke... Saw it happen once...)

Altho he does seem to do alright at the omaha tables...

Similar story i heard was he threw the pc out the window after losing $1 million online

Well there may be a grain of truth to this, but it sounds more like one of those WSOP talking points. I found a reference to some friends taking away his mouse and keyboard, but it was probably more of a message than an honest attempt to keep him away from the table. I mentioned that in the same amount of time Mike had lost like $170 bucks, Phil Ivey had lost over $160,000. Of course the difference is that while Phil is emotionaly restrained, Mike is a train wreck. I'm sure all his friends are worried about him, and surprisingly he has alot of them.

Mike has a severely addictive personality. From coke, speed, meth, ecstasy and alchohol, he has abused every drug he's ever taken. He even spent 6 month in prison for trafficing. He is addicted to strippers, partying and gambling of all kinds. But for all that, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't like the guy. To know him is to love him. By all accounts he's generous to a fault and though it may be true that he's often railbirding for stakes, he's more often than not on the other side of the deal.

I think his flawed personality brings out the maternal instinct in all his friends. He may whine, cry, brag and insult, but for all that, he's good hearted. It's always been a mystery to me how anyone so ruled by his emotions can be a good poker player, but I've seen him make some amazing laydowns. He's a moron, but he's not stupid. He is fantastic at reading his opponents and although it may tear him to pieces inside, he knows when he's beat.

That being said, there are certain situations where he's a babe in the woods. His success is based mostly on his table reading skills and if he doesn't know you he is often bewildered. He's very suspicious and assuming the bluff is his default demeanor. I'm pretty certain that this is his problem at the short tables. He assumes that anyone will push with any 2 cards and therefore has a tendency to push back with weak hands.
The secret to beating him HU is to play LA/P. Play alot of hands, but don't bluff. More so than full table play, short table play and especially heads-up are games of emotion rather than solid decision making. A suspicious man who his unable to control his emotions is at a disadvatage.

PS- Here's a really good article on him.

Just wondering if you had hands on TexasLimitKing, Dogs. There's lots of talk about him all over the web and although I think he plays strictly LHE, I'd love to see the numbers behind his play.

Actually yes. 4 sessions, mostly HU $1000/$2000 LH with Phil Ivey. Wow. he's good He hasn't walked away a loser. Up about $163,000 in 336 hands.

I've played against Matusow a few times on Full Tilt and he is the ideal opponent. Show him a bluff or give him a badbeat and then tighten up and you will take him for thousands. Whenever I see him on a NL table more than 4 handed I always sit down to play with him. He is a poor players chasing big losses in poker.

He is a few million in debt and playing with borrowed money. I do feel sorry for him but at the same time his kind sickens me, he has the world at his feet from all that money he won from the WSOP and he wastes it all...

He deserves to lose.

Does anyone know anything about "SuperMazak" - he plays on paradise, pacific and our network, and appears in the top 10 players in the last 24hours (on my site) about every 3 days.

Just counting his tournament winnings on our network for the last three months I reckon he's up over $300,000 - google his name to see what I mean.

Also - re. matusow (with whom I have some limited personal experience playing on ftp) I heard on a documentry on "the poker channel" (UK Sky TV channel 843) that he was down $5,000,000 in online play for 2004 - and only broke even after a good run at various wsop events...

Lets not forget that he's had a bad time personally as well struggling with cocaine addiction and spending the best part of a year in jail after being busted scoring dope....

And he's probably up X Millions in the Big Game at the Bellagio. $161K is probably like $161 to him.

Four Dogs, nice insight into the Matusow personality above in post 16 (http://www.cardschat.com/showpost.php?p=456013&postcount=16).

So, I know the thread got a little off topic, and for once it wasn't my doing . Any more analysis you planning to do/post on Matusow?

great thread man

Thanks JD and Joose. I'll keep it going if I think there's interest. And yes, I have been intending to add to both the MM profile and the Ben Roberts one. Since my last post I've picked up another 1000 or so hands from both of them. Mike keeps going down and Ben keeps going up. I'd like to post some comparisons. I'm a little busy as of late, but look for something this weekend.

Sorry skip. No, I've never played with him. He's usually up there in the nose bleed section. $1/$2 is my max. I'm a cheap bastard.