A Poker Life: Matt Stout

It’s hard not to like Matt Stout. The gregarious New Jersey native has a big personality which he just can’t help but show off. If it wasn’t for the incredible poker skills he flashes at the table, most of his opponents would welcome him with open arms. The 28-year-old pro has been in action since 2006 and has amassed over $1.6 million in live tournament earnings, with another $3 million to his name in online winnings.

Stout enjoyed poker from an early age, playing five-card draw with his siblings by the age of four. By 19, he was competing online. However, if it weren’t for a simple mix up with some academic paper work, he might not have ever considered the possibility of playing poker for a living.

Poker Beginnings

As the youngest of four, Stout enjoyed a relatively quiet upbringing in his hometown of Bayonne, New Jersey.

Stout kept his interests diverse. He played hockey and was also captain of his high school chess and academic team. However, his after school activities didn’t immediately translate into in-class success.

“I was kind of a slacker during my early high school years. I was focused on chasing girls and other things, but after my brother was accepted into Johns Hopkins University, I realized I needed to step it up a little bit. I turned it around and was able to do enough to get accepted into the College of New Jersey.”

Stout sought a degree in business administration. He never finished school, though it wasn’t by choice. A clerical error forced him into taking a semester off.

“On the surface, it would appear that I dropped out of college to play poker, but that’s not the whole story,” Stout explained. “I turned 21 during my senior year and spent almost my entire winter break playing cards in Atlantic City. Long story short, a missing signature on some financial paperwork meant that the college didn’t get my tuition money and they decided to unregister me for all of my spring semester classes. Since I wasn’t anywhere near my mailbox to be aware of a problem, I couldn’t correct it.”

While in Atlantic City, Stout turned a $500 loan from a poker buddy into $8,000. Upon returning and discovering the problem with his registration, he immediately gave half of his winnings to the college for part of his tuition. Unfortunately, he couldn’t connect with his dean fast enough to get in for the spring semester, which ultimately resulted in some unscheduled time off. With no classes to attend, Stout headed back to Atlantic City.

“With my last $4,000, I started playing mostly $1-$2 cash games and some of the daily tournaments at the Tropicana and Taj Mahal, with a little bit of the Borgata thrown in there,” he recalled. “I wound up finishing second in a WSOP Circuit event for $32,000. Before long, my bankroll was up to $70,000. Given my results, even my parents encouraged me to extend my hiatus from school if I chose. It’s been nearly seven years and I’m still on the same hiatus from school.”

Becoming A Bankroll Nit

Stout started playing online poker at the age of 19, losing $1,000 of his student loan money before turning it around. He studied poker books and learned from other players, all the while increasing his level of comfort with the game. His bankroll management, however, left something to be desired.

“I had no idea how much money I needed for the swings,” Stout admitted. “The hardest lesson I learned came on the day I decided to play two tables of $5-$10 no-limit hold’em with just a $6,000 bankroll. When the session was over and I had blown through half my roll, I just went right to bed. I didn’t know how to handle it.”

That painful experience was the last lesson in bankroll management that Stout ever needed. In fact, the first $10,000 buy-in tournament he played in remains as the only $10,000 event he’s ever had 100 percent of himself in, and even that only happened because he managed to win two seats.

“I was just like any other aspiring poker player out there, drooling over these huge main event prize pools. I wanted all of the reward and none of the risk, which of course, isn’t possible. For awhile, I sold shares of myself to get into the bigger tournaments and after awhile, I was able to find a backing arrangement.”

Stout’s reputation as a tournament beast got him a pretty sweet stake for his bigger live tournaments on the circuit. Meanwhile, he was using his own money to fund other players in smaller events online.

“It’s a business just like any other,” he said. “There’s a lot of money to be made. Certain players have a high expected value, so if you know what you are doing, you can take advantage of that. It’s really easy to blow through hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in tournament buy-ins. When you know just how high the variance is in tournament poker and the guidelines or bankroll requirements needed to play in some of these bigger buy-in events, it becomes hard not to do some kind of business.”

Playing on someone else’s dime allowed Stout to play his game without allowing the money at risk to affect his decision making. Along the way, he managed to earn a WSOP Circuit ring, making several more final tables with some deep runs in major events. In 2009, he final tabled the WPT World Poker Finals at Foxwoods, finishing third for $265,710. Last summer, he took third in a WSOP event for an additional $192,813.

“A lot of people out there who talk about playing on their own money are guys who were very fortunate when they happened to take a shot. If they weren’t, and there are thousands who weren’t, you wouldn’t be hearing about them. That isn’t a knock on their skill level. I’m just pointing out that sometimes good players aren’t smart with their money.”

A Marketable Personality

American poker players are currently getting the short end of the online sponsorship stick thanks to Black Friday, but Stout has remained one of the more desirable players thanks to his reputation in the online poker community and outgoing personality. In addition to a deal with Bustout Poker, a clothing company catering to poker players, Stout has also secured a deal to represent online poker site Lock Poker.

Lock Poker, which started out as a small skin on the Cake Network, has since grown into one of the top online poker sites in the world and the highest trafficked site available to U.S. players. Lock Poker has sponsored the Card Player Player of the Year for the past two years.

“It’s been really cool to see the company grow into what it is today,” said Stout. “I’m really happy that the company has positioned itself to be a major contender for the long run and I’m proud to say that I was a part of that.”

Moving Forward

Though Black Friday certainly didn’t hurt Stout as much as others, it did put a wrench in his plans to settle down. Stout had just purchased a house in Las Vegas four months prior, with the hopes of splitting his time between online play and the bigger live tournament stops on the circuit. Instead, he has spent the better part of the last year bouncing between tournament stops, trying to get his online play in while he’s out of the country.

Stout spent the duration of last year’s World Championship of Online Poker in Costa Rica before a 7.6 earthquake hit while living on the 14th-floor of a high rise condo. Needless to say, he didn’t head back to Costa Rica the next time he felt the urge to grind online.

“If my living situation had a Facebook status update, it would read, ‘it’s complicated.’ Right now, I call Amsterdam, Jacksonville and Las Vegas home, depending on the time of the year.”

Stout’s time in Florida centers on his girlfriend Shannon, whom he has been seeing for the last year and a half. He’s kicked around the idea of finishing his degree and starting his own business, but he knows that poker will remain his focus for the foreseeable future, no matter how inconvenient it may get.

“There’s no turning back,” he said. “When I turned that small student loan into $70,000, I knew I had what it takes to play poker professionally. I was probably a little overconfident, but I think that’s what you need to be in order to be successful in this industry. Right now, I’m still confident I can still make a living playing this game, so that’s what I’ll continue to do.” ♠