Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, who was on hand at the Isle Casino at Pompano Park in Florida for a DeepStacks University poker seminar, stuck around for the $1K main event and ended up taking the title.
“Earlier I said, ‘Florida poker players were horrible,’ but I was obviously joking about that statement,” Matusow told Ante Up. “I think overall there are a lot of very good players and then there are a lot that are really, really bad. But the same goes for any place you play. Variance obviously exists when you are talking about players and their level of skill/experience, in general. That’s why I brought my DeepStacks Live poker camps to Florida, to help educate and train players to get better."
Two hands came to mind when Ante Up asked Matusow what was the key to victory.
“The key hand that really propelled me was the hand where I won a flip preflop when I had queens to my opponent’s 
. We were seven-handed at the time, I think, and he got it all-in and I won that flip for about a 1.6 million chip pot.
"The key hand I lost but felt really really good about was when I flopped top-two (pair) against an opponent’s bottom set and I laid it down. I just knew she had me beat and at the time, I was playing really well. (Day 2) I only lost about 12K where most players would have either went broke or lost a large percentage of their stack. That hand I think really gave me the confidence that I was playing well and I had a real shot to win. I was locked in the whole time.”
Matusow, 42, won a little more than $100K, besting a field of more than 400 players. During his play Matusow was seen texting and updating his fans on Twitter. He is a three-time World Series of Poker champion with nearly $8 million in tournament winnings.
Be sure to pick up your FREE copy of the September issue of Ante Up Magazine in your local poker room to read more about The Mouth’s victory and for full results from the Florida State Poker Championships.
