Friday, July 15, 2005

"The Mouth" Is Out And I Am Sad

If you were waiting for the broadcast on ESPN in October, I'm not sorry for ruining it for you. It's the fucking WSOP main event and no real poker fan or player is going to wait to see the edited version on TV, besides, how can you not be reloading Pauly's site every five minutes for updates.

So, I will admit, I have been rooting for Mike Matusow for most of the tournament and that is after seeing his behavior on TV last year and without knowing the details of his arrest shortly thereafter. I've been reading on blogs all week about how he shouldn't win and how it would be bad for poker and all I have to say is that is a lot of bullshit. Who cares if a few more jackasses start mouthing off at the tables, most of them will still be making donkey moves and will eventually be giving away all their chips to the better, quieter players at the table. The difference between these loud mouths and Mike, is that Mike actually knows how to play the game. The last hand was played perfectly and Mike should have won. He got unlucky but he kept his cool when he had every right to go off on a meltdown. He was very calm on the Cardplayer audio broadcast almost immediately after and said he would be sleeping well tonight because he played his best game ever this past week. Doesn't sound like words that someone who is "bad for poker" would say, at least not to me.

Does he rub people the wrong way? Sure, but he's not the only one, he just happens to get the most press. Speaking of which, if he's so "bad for poker", why was he at the featured table so much and why did he seem to be the most quoted player on every update web-site? Because we need a villain, someone to dislike and I'm sure there will be a few morons who will try to emulate Mike's style but I doubt that behavior will be tolerated to the extent that Mike's is. I think the nickname gets you a bit more leeway.

Personally, I'm sorry he's gone because I like me a good villain and Mike "The Mouth" Matusow plays a great one.

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