Matusow Berates Hamilton; UltimateBet Cheating Scandal
In a radio appearance last Wednesday on the Hardcore Poker Show, Mike ‘the Mouth” Matusow did what he does best, verbally berated another poker player. However, this time it wasn’t just a bad beat that enraged Matusow – he was rebuking Russ Hamilton, the key component in the UltimateBet Super-User Cheating Scandal, for essentially stealing massive amounts of cash from him at the online poker room.
On Hardcore Sports Radios’ ‘Hardcore Poker Show’, Mike Matusow declared his outrage at 1994 WSOP Main Event Champion Russ Hamilton. “I know this – the man is 100% guilty. There’s not even 99%, there’s no two ways about it. I know people, I’ve talked to the CEOs of UltimateBet, I’ve seen the evidence and there’s no way I will let this man walk. I don’t care what it takes for him to go to jail.”
Mike Matusow, two-time WSOP Bracelet holder and the 2005 WSOP Tournament of Champions winner continued his invective explanation. “I want him in jail because of what he’s done to me. This man would call me to play him head-up. I would ship $50,000, $50,000, $50,000. All the money I won when I won the ‘05 World Series Main Event, when I got to the final table and when I won the Tournament of Champions, I gave all to Russ to put on UB while he was playing me head-up and stealing it from me.”
Having pocketed around $2,000,000 for his 2005 WSOP Maina Event 9th place finish and Tournament of Champions title combined, Matusow was not about to let the allegedly ill-gained profits of Russ Hamilton go without a fight.
“The thing about it is I’ve got a couple of issues, of ways around that I think legally, that I can get him put in jail and I’m going to be pursuing it as soon, probably towards the end of the year after my book comes out and after the World Series.”
Matusow admits that it wasn’t the cash losses at Ultimate Bet Poker that hurt him the most, but the loss of confidence and resulting adjustment in his game play that left the most scars. “It’s not so much what he stole from me, okay – UB gave me a very, very good share back. It’s probably half of what was taken from me. It’s what it did to me mentally. The fact that I was the most feared No Limit poker player in the world up until 2005. I was able to read cards better than any human alive. I could make any move in the world and pick people off at every bluff. And now I have no heart at all.
“Now I play so tight and solid and I’m afraid to pull the trigger because I’m always afraid of getting called because of the fact that every time I made those moves I got called by bottom pair or no pair and all that stuff while I was getting cheated out of all that money,” Matusow’s trademark humility was shining through. “With the mental aspect … it’s basically a lot of what my lawsuit is possibly going to be about.”
Matusow mentioned another high stakes online poker player, Prahlad “Spirit Rock” Friedman, who also got duped during the UltimateBet cheating scandal. Before moving to Full Tilt, Matusow says he and Friedman were on UltimateBet 24/7. “What they did to him was just brutal.”
Finally, Matusow carried on by calling out a few other prominent online poker players who suffered from the UltimateBet cheating scandal. Mike felt they were not nearly vocal enough about their losses, and should make more of an effort to ensure Russ Hamilton is put behind bars for his alleged participatiin in the UltimateBet super-user cheating debacle.
“The thing is most poker players are a bunch of pussies and they’re scared and they don’t want to be involved. See, I’m a big name player that got screwed over. All these other players are no name players and they don’t really care. See you put somebody who’s one of the top three names in poker out there and that changes a lot.”
