Poker Stories Podcast Matt Waxman: “I Was A Millionaire In My 20s, And I Felt Empty”

Poker Stories is a long-form audio podcast series that features casual interviews with some of the game’s best players and personalities. Each episode highlights a well-known member of the poker world and dives deep into their favorite tales both on and off the felt.

Matt Waxman learned the game in high school, but really got his career going in 2009 when he final tabled a $5,000 no-limit hold’em event at the World Series of Poker. The Parkland, Florida native won a WSOP Circuit ring the next year in Atlantic City, and followed that up with his biggest score to date, taking down the World Poker Tour Grand Prix de Paris for just over $720,000.

Waxman nearly won the Festa al Lago Classic the next year, and in 2013, he won his first WSOP bracelet, banking $305,000 for topping a $1,000 no-limit hold’em event. Waxman had a deep run in the 2014 WSOP main event, and just last year, he picked up his second WPT title, pocketing $463,000 at the WPT Tournament of Champions. In total, the 34-year-old has more than $4.1 million in live tournament earnings to go along with millions more won online.

Highlights from this interview include being a resident of the world, flipping noodles for profit, being on the middle school basketball team with Alex Jacob, poker on the boat, playing among the ashtrays, the benefits of ignorance, being British at the tables, catching cheats, going broke, blinding out of an FTOPS win, having parents unimpressed by six-figure scores, a WPT championship in France, being a millionaire and feeling empty, a seven-hour heads-up match with Eric Baldwin, bad news from home a world away, pushing time shares, hearing ‘water’ in his ear, and dealing with stabbed TVs and the police.

You can check out the entirety of the interview in the audio player at the top of the page or download it directly to your device to play on the go from iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.

Catch up on past episodes featuring notables such as Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Justin Bonomo, Nick Schulman, Barry Greenstein, Michael Mizrachi, Bryn Kenney, Mike Sexton, Brian Rast, Freddy Deeb, Joe Cada, Chris Moneymaker, Maria Ho and many more. If you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe to get the latest episodes automatically when they are released.

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