Check-Raising the Devil

So I bit the bullet recently and purchased a copy of "Check-Raising the Devil", Mike Matusow's autobiography. I'm going to go out on a limb and say something I wouldn't normally say here, but to be perfectly honest I had stalled on picking up a copy of this book primarily because it was co-written by a couple of bloggers, and I figured if that's the case then it's probably not something I'm going to miss. And I guess I've read a few reviews of the book, and they seem ok but to be honest I don't recall reading a single review saying this book was really great or anything. I wasn't thinking about who the writers are specifically -- Mike Matusow himself, along with Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli. Amy's is a blog I don't read often enough, but in a word it really kicks ass and is absolutely always a fantastic read, as Amy really tells a great story in everything she does. Yet I never put two and two together on the fact that Amy was involved in writing this book, and I'm still not sure it even would have mattered if I had as I just don't tend to give most bloggers' actual writing much respect (myself very much included).

Anyways, I was really out of books -- I wrote about this here maybe a month ago or so -- and eventually I bit the bullet and bought "Check-Raising the Devil" along with a stack of other books from trusty Amazon. I read a couple of the other things I had bought first (a couple of Vince Flynn novels so far (decent), and the latest Michael Lewis book on fatherhood (semi-decent)), and eventually I sat down to read about Matusow. I knew I wasn't going to love it but I was just hoping for a decent story about a guy I know is all kinds of fucked up, with hopefully good enough writing to keep me semi-interested for a while, and if I'm really lucky maybe some decent poker stories or tidbits along the way as well from one of the more successful big-tournament guys and cash guys out there today.

What I got was very unexpected. "Check-Raising the Devil" was to me a truly fascinating read. I give this book easily the best review I have seen of it anywhere else. I really liked it. I liked it so much that I even passed it on to my highly discerning brother in law, a claim that could be made only by a small handful of books ever. The authors do an excellent job of starting off with Matusow's roots, born in a trailer park in Vegas, working in the family business, gambling away all his earnings at video poker and slots in the casino across the street. They weave in Matusow's introduction to real live poker by another pro in the casino, and then to his beginnings trying to get a roll together and learn to play the game. Amy Calistri's influence in particular I think can be felt throughout the pages, as the story is told in a very easy-to-read way, almost like it is the "natural" way to tell Matusow's pretty incredible story, if that makes sense. It's a delicate balance and it's hard to describe, but it's there just like it is if you read Amy's blog with any regularity. She is good at telling a story.

Then the book took another surprising turn. Matusow recalls with amazing clarity the details of all of his big cash and tournament wins, and he gives a lot more of those details -- including the way he played particular hands, how he won and lost the biggest pots in the biggest tournaments of his life, everything. In particular is Matusow's details on the tournaments he has won, which are really interesting reads just for the poker in addition to the way the stories are told. It's kind of like reading "Positively Fifth Street" in that sense, if you enjoyed that book like I did. Matusow's and the author's descriptions of not just his winning of multiple WSOP bracelets, other 7-figure tournament wins and others, but the how of winning those tournaments, is really enjoyable for anyone who likes a good poker story with a little more detail about cards and specific hands than you would find in your random best-selling novel or James Bond movie.

Then of course there is the whole drug use and drug bust thing, which I have to admit is a friggin goldmine when it comes to writing a book like this. To your average guy on the street like me, I love reading the details of how a guy slips under the pallor of drug use and then eventually gets set up and busted for scoring some coke for a friend who was looking to buy. Throw in some Amy and Tim Lavalli with that kind of material, and you are once again left with a superbly interesting and well-told version of events. One of the things that I originally thought of as a criticism as I read the book was that it is pretty clear to me that Matusow isn't being totally honest with us in certain parts of this book, including telling 100% his side of the drug story, when I am quite sure the real truth was somewhere measurably worse than the way Mike spins the facts. But I'm not even sure that's a criticism anymore to tell the truth -- being able to see how human Mike is through this book, and how much to this day he is still deluding himself to some extent, it's all part of the whole experience of the book, and frankly if you read it through I think you will feel like me that it's actually perfectly a part of the Mike Matusow the book portrays. In any event, getting to read all about Matusow's drug use tournament poker tournaments, how it affected his game, and his drug regimen generally from back in the day and even today makes for a great read to someone like me and I bet to you out there as well.

Suffice it to say, "Check-Raising the Devil" has great material to work with in telling a truly interesting, enjoyable and nearly-all-true tale of a really interesting life, as told right from the horse's mouth itself. Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli weave a great story that starts with what most of us would consider pretty humble-ass beginnings and details a rise through the big cash games and eventually to the top of the largest poker tournaments in the world. Like many quick rises to fame and fortune, Matusow falls off the cliff and deep into drug use, eventually hitting rock bottom and doing some pretty hard time in jail, which he also describes in very interesting detail for sure. Throughout all this is the theme of chemical imbalance in Mike's body and the need for drugs to keep him emotionally stable, which again flitters in and out of the text at just the right moments to keep the thread strong. What can I say, I really liked this book, and as most of you know by now I have generally pretty strict tastes on these things. "Check-Raising the Devil" gets an 8 out of 10 for me, and is easily worth picking up a copy of for anyone who likes a great story about one of the most truly interesting people in the poker world today.

ESPN and the WSOP

Some other people have written about this with respect to Scotty Nguyen's embarrassing performance in I think the HORSE tournament at the WSOP this year, but there is no doubt that the WSOP coverage on ESPN in 2008 is showing the extreme dickery of some of the game's biggest personalities like never before. Given what we've seen in the past, you would want to assume that this is because the players are being bigger a-holes than ever before, but our blogger brethren who have actually been out there covering the WSOP events for the past several years all seem to agree that Scotty's always been like this, just that ESPN is just finally showing the truth for the first time. If so, that is an abomination on ESPN's part, but not a surprising one. Remember when they hired Pauly to do WSOP coverage for the world's biggest sports network, I guess that was about 20 months ago at this point, and then suddenly dropped him out of the blue a few days later? All because some suit at the network realized that Pauly's brand of WSOP coverage, while totally true, was not likely to paint the game in the overly positive light that ESPN was hoping to portray? Disgusting. Well now it seems things have come full circle. Now that the popularity of televised poker is clearly on the wane, now that the WSOP telecasts are nowhere near the cash cow that ESPN once thought (and hoped) they would be, only now are they willing to show the true side of the game and the players we love in it.

What a bunch of dogs.

Anyone who's been keeping up with the WSOP broadcasts this year knows exactly what I'm talking about. In that HORSE telecast a couple of months back, Scotty Nguyen got hammered after sucking down beer after beer after beer at the WSOP, and then he started taking on another guy at the final table heads-on, getting far out of line with his dick chat early and often during the final table broadcast. I mean, you've almost never seen someone be such a dick and go so overboard about one perceived misplay by another guy at the table (I say "almost" because, well, see below). Of course, what do you expect when a guy who is apparently known for being a drunk and going overboard is allowed to -- and chooses to -- drink heavily while on live television. Scotty -- previously always cast as the smiling face, the good guy of poker with his "I love you baby" and similar commentary -- completely lost it on that show and with it, he lost my respect as a player. Not just as a person, where I know now beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's a cock of a man, but as a poker player as well, because anyone who acts like that -- especially knowing that he is on tv -- has very little respect for the game and is at his core a selfish and little man.

But speaking of guys who act like asshats at the poker tables even knowing they're on tv, of course I have to mention Phil Hellmuth. Now with Phil, I can't exactly say that I hadn't known what a baby the Poker Brat could be at the tables, as even ESPN has recognized over the past few years the television appeal of capturing Phil's many whiney rants for the viewing audience. But this year, at least to me, I've never been more disgusted about the guy. And while I haven't read many poker blogs lately, I haven't really seen Phil's behavior at the WSOP this year mentioned a whole lot, which surprises me because I can't believe what a fucking loser he is being. For the past three weeks I have had to sit and watch Phil whine like a fucking baby loser idiot at least three or four times per episode. I mean, I can't wait until this guy is busted this year. In the past, I will admit that I have generally enjoyed watching Hellmuth's ridickulous antics, but not this year. I think the difference more than anything else is that, instead of just whining about bad beats in general, he is repeatedly launching personal insults at the other players at the table. You couldn't count how many times he has called other players at the table "idiots" in the past few weeks. He verbally assaulted at least one dealer -- as if the dealer has a dam thing to do with the cards that come off -- never mind the fact that that particular dealer had just sat down at the table to begin with.

We've all been there before, haven't we? It's bad enough when people are F-heads in the chatbox in online poker, but at least you don't have to deal with them directly, you don't have to read it or hear them, and in fact if you so choose you can just mute the chat entirely. But at a live table, having some tiltmonkey asshole there, complaining about every card, every hand, every fold? It sucks. When that guy is personally insulting you and/or others at the table though? Attacking the dealer for the cards he is -- I guess, purposefully -- dealing to a particular player? It's horrible. You want more than anything else for that guy to just get busted or some other way just to get the hell off the table. At least for me, it more or less totally ruins my experience playing the game. And down to under a few hundy players left in the biggest poker tournament of most of these players' lives, to have their experience forever tarnished by the memory of a raging asshole like Hellmuth is a terrible thing.

It's time for Harrah's to put a stop to Hellmuth's stupidity at the tables. I don't mind a good tilter -- heck I can tilt as hard as the rest of 'em -- and I'm not such a Stalin that I think anyone complaining about a bad beat should be penalized, but personally I don't see why they don't have a rule about personally and directly insulting the other players at the table, at least to an excessive degree. I'm not worried about there not being a bright line rule on this one -- just having some discretion on the part of the dealer or the floor with a rule like this is enough for me, because lord knows we all can agree that Hellmuth has easily crossed it in this WSOP Main Event. For the last several hours at least. The guy is such a fucking baby, and a whiner, and a dick for the things he is saying to the other players, he deserves to be forcibly kicked out of the Amazon room at the Rio, and forced to sit outside and cool off while his not-so-big chip stack dwindles through the blinds and antes. I think just the threat of that would shut his ass up real quick, given his never-large stack size in this thing, so every single other player (and dealer) in that room would win, as would every single viewer on ESPN who might have enjoyed his antics at some point but who are all just tired and disgusted by it here and now. And if Phil doesn't calm down with this rule in effect? Then we really win, because we get to watch him get removed by security from the room and we get to watch his chips slip away, all the while knowing that Phil knows his chips are being eaten up while he sits on his annoying baby ass and cries like a little girl.

Of course, the best part about all of Hellmuth's rants this year in the WSOP ME are that I think in every single case, Hellmuth got straight-up outplayed. I mean, he's probably blown up on 6 or 7 occasions on tv just the past few weeks, and in every single hand without exception, his opponent maybe made a questionable raise or call before or on the flop -- the same "questionable" preflop or flop moves made with regularity by most of the top pros in the world today -- but then outplayed him the rest of the way through the hand. Of course I've seen Phil raise or call with total garbage hands several times during this World Series, but naturally all of those were great plays. In his mind. But otherwise, there is just one reason why Phil has never been able to get out of the hole all the way through the second half or so of this Main Event -- he isn't playing well. At all. And deep down he knows it, which I'm sure is why he is acting like such a whiney bitch all the way through this year's coverage, even down into the final 100 players out of the 6000 or so entrants.

FWIW, Hellmuth's rants are I think far worse than Scotty's in that drunken tirade he went on on his way to winning the HORSE bracelet this year. Scotty was being a total and utter asshole, but it didn't seem at least to me to consist of the kind of repeated, personal insults directed at the intelligence of his opponents. With Scotty it was more that one misstep made by his opponent at the final table that made him angry, and he just could not let that anger go. Phil, on the other hand, is constantly calling his opponents idiots, loudly, publicly and to the millions of viewers on the cameras as much as anything else. And of course Phil is doing it to basically all of his opponents, basically just because they are beating him out of hands with superior play, not just to one of them over a specific incident like Scotty was. That's not in any way to excuse Scotty for his behavior, which I would describe as objectively deplorable, but rather to point out that Hellmuth's is just much, much whinier and worse. I mean, is there any doubt in a single viewer's mind out there that Phil Hellmuth has a small penis at this point? I mean, teeny tiny eensy weensy. To me it's obvious. Nobody whines and insults others like that without a physical shortcoming like this to back it up. I can spot the littledicks from a mile away, and Hellmuth is lucky if he has two inches to back up all of his recockulous behavior.

This week's outbusts were so bad that even Mike Matusow had to tell Phil at the end of the episode from a couple of seats away, down to some 80 players remaining, to back off and that Phil was "way, way out of line". Now you know it's bad when Matusow is calling you out for being out of line. Matusow, of the "You have teeny, tiny cojones, but I have huge brass cojones" line to eventual Main Event champion Greg Raymer a few years ago. Who knew back then that Matusow was right, only he was talking to the wrong poker pro?