Poker News

Michael Matts, Card Room Manager for Caesar’s Palace

Michael Matts was born (April 19, 1966) and raised in West Orange, New Jersey. Michael graduated from West Orange High School in 1984 and went on to Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

In 1988 Michael graduated from Rutgers with a BS in Mathematics and in September of 1988 he accepted the position of publicist for Rutgers athletic department.

In June of 1993 he left Rutgers to pursue a career as a math teacher for the West Orange public school system.

Michael’s fiance lived in Las Vegas and on Memorial Day of 1998 he moved to Las Vegas to get married. With no job and no job prospects he enrolled in dealer’s school. In July of 1998 he was hired as a blackjack dealer at the Gold Coast.

Michael left the Gold Coast in October of the same year for a pit supervisor’s position at Boulder Station.

In July of 2002 Michael left Station’s to supervise the high-limit section at the Rio. Michael was approached by the table games staff at the Rio to run a poker tournament for their high rollers. At the time the Rio had no poker room, nor did any of Harrah’s other properties so Michael ran the tournament for 800 of their high rollers on the main floor, near the pit. The tournament was so successful Michael was asked to run four more between 2003 and 2004.

Thepopularity of those tournaments led to the Rio opening a poker room on December 19, 2004. Within six months of the opening the Rio hosted the World Series of Poker with Michael as the Director of the live section, overseeing 50 poker tables.

Everyone was extremely pleased with the success of the WSOP which led to the decision to open a poker room at Caesars Palace. In August of 2004 Michael was appointed Poker Room Manager of the new room.

During the construction period of the new room, Michael was Tournament Director for two WSOP Circuit events, one at Harrah’s and the other at Bally’s/Paris. He was also the Tournament Director of the 2005 Tournament of Champions which was the first poker event held at Caesars in 15 years. DB: When will the new room open and with how many tables?

MM: We plan to open at 10 a.m. on December 21. The seven-table high-limit area will be railed off from the main room of 23 live tables, along with an adjoining room with 33 tournament tables.

DB: What prompted Caesars to reopen a poker room after 15 years? MM: A couple of things, first the popularity in poker and second, Harrah’s wanting to get involved in poker again.

DB: Where is the new room located?

MM: Next to the Race and Sportsbook. The room is convenient to self parking and front valet. It’s fairly convenient to the forum valet as well.

DB: What special features does the poker room offer?

MM: The poker room has it’s own restrooms. We will have tableside food service from the Augustus Cafe where players may order off of a special poker menu. The live room has 14 plasma screens and the tournament room has 10 plasma screens for viewing sporting events. We have the Queue OS computer system that electronically displays the wait list on two LCD screens in the live section and displays the tournament clock on three LCD screens in the tournament room. The system includes the entire tournament program and is the same system that was used at the WSOP.

DB: What other features does the room offer poker players?

MM: Players may reserve safe deposit boxes on a first come first served basis. Twenty of our thirty tables have Shuffle Masters, the top section tables and three of the stud tables do not have shufflers.

We considered the comfort of our players in the planning of the new room and spent $460 per chair so our players would be comfortable. Each chair has up and down adjustments, tilts back and chairs are on wheels with locks.

DB: How does Caesars comp policy work?

MM: Live players earn $1.00 per hour of play. We will also be offering a room rate of $119 weekdays and $199 on weekends with eight hours of live play.

DB: What live games will be offered?

MM: We will be spreading $3-$6, $6-$12. $10-$20 and up, limit hold’em. As for no-limit, we intend to spread a $2-$5 blind game with a $100 to $500 buy-in and a $5-$10 blind game with an unlimited buy-in.

For the Omaha players it’s $4-$8, $8-$16, $15-$30 and up. We will also cater to the stud players with a $2-$10 anytime, as well as $15-$30, $30-$60 and up.

DB: What daily tournaments will you be running?

MM: Monday and Tuesday at noon it’s nolimit with an $80 buy-in, a $50 rebuy and a $50 add-on, and on Wednesday and Thursday the buyin is $150 with a $100 rebuy. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday the buy-in is $150 with a $100 rebuy. We will be running limit hold’em events at 9 a.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday with a $60 buy-in and a $50 rebuy. Monday

Filed under: Poker News