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#668 – What You Can Learn From Watching Mike Matusow Do Nothing – Part I
I understand how some players might construe “learn, chat, and play with the pros” as nothing more than a slick sales pitch. Watching a pro play online is very different from reading a strategy manual or watching an instructional DVD or a commentated televised tournament.
When you watch a Full Tilt pro – say Mike Matusow – play online, you have to deal with the following:
* No one explains things.
* Unless there’s a showdown, you can’t see hole cards of the pro or his opponent.
* The play of hands is extremely fast.
* You have no idea whether the pro is playing his A-game or answering e-mail or paying bills or playing 10 tables at once or just showing up because Uncle Tilty read him the riot act.
Don’t believe any of that. As Yogi Berra famously said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” If you know what to look for – or just keep an open mind about what you see – you can learn plenty.
I tested this by watching Mike Matusow play FTOPS #17, $300 + $22 NLHE-Rebuys (6-handed max). I decided to rail Mike for a number of reasons. First, we haven’t been in touch lately and I just wanted to say hello. Second, Mike doesn’t play a lot of online tournament poker and I was curious how he would adapt his style – or how his style would adapt. Third, because the average buy-in would be at least $1,000, the quality of play would be high and Mike would be encouraged to bring his A-game.
I’ve generally been such a hapless performer in FTOPS, 6-max, and rebuy tournaments that I decided to skip this. Besides, I had earlier entered the $150 + $13 NLHE $65,000 Guarantee and was off to a good start.
The FTOPS event started at 7 PM local time and 1,091 players signed up. (They ended up rebuying 2,100 times plus over 700 add-ons.) Matusow drew an extraordinarily difficult table to start. Clockwise to Mike’s left were three tough players: daisyxoxo, orion-sharp, and Miamihans. The next player was Julian Verse, who won the previous FTOPS Main Event and Event #4 of this FTOPS Series. The seat to Mike’s right was vacant but, after a half hour, was filled by The Universe112. Universe won the FTOPS rebuy event four days earlier and finished fourth in the Second Chance FTOPS two days earlier. (Mike had on his right the #1 and #4 ranked players in the FTOPS tournament universe, according to OfficialPokerRankings.com.)
I took careful notes during the first hour, which I am reproducing here with occasional added commentary. Thereafter, for reasons that will become clear, I took just a few notes. I will include some comments at the end to summarize what I think it all means.
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