November 9, 2008
This was Mike's way of thanking Chuck for his time and investment in the ToC. It was the ToC that Mike founded and created that launched him into the two best jobs in pacificpoker prweb, host of PartyPoker.com and commentator for the World Poker Tour. Ironically, a few weeks after Mike bought back the rights to the ToC, Harrah's announced they were going to start their own WSOP Tournament of Champions. Annie Duke won the first one in 2004; Mike Matusow won the 2nd one in 2005; and Mike Sexton himself won the third one in 2006, which to many people seemed like poetic justice. After Mike created the original ToC, he ended up winning the WSOP's ToC a few years later. Mike won $1,000,000 when he won that 2006 WSOP ToC! The year Mike won, the final table lasted a grueling 17 hours with heads-up play between Mike and Daniel Negreanu lasting seven hours! The marathon ended about 7:00 AM, and it was one of the most satisfying moments in Mike's pacific poker career.
One guy Mike really admires in the pacific poker world is Barry Greenstein, who has been known to donate more money to charity out of his partypoker tournament winnings than almost anyone else in the pacific poker world. Mike decided to give $500,000 of his 2006 WSOP ToC winnings to charity, selecting five different charities to receive $100,000 each: Paralyzed Veterans of America; Special Olympics; The Wounded Warrior Project; The Buoniconti Fund; and Barry Greenstein's favorite charity, Children Incorporated. The WSOP held a beautiful ceremony at the top of the Rio in the Voodoo Lounge, with representatives from each charity there to receive their gigantic $100,000 checks. This was a fine moments for the WSOP.
PartyPoker had to be proud of their host, Mike Sexton, for not only winning such a prestigious event, but as pacific poker's "Ambassador," doing good works by donating half of his winnings to charity. I certainly was proud of Mike that day, as what he did truly made a difference in the lives of many deserving recipients. In December 2000, Mike got the telephone call of his life from someone he had never heard of, a lady named Ruth Parasol. She said she had been searching for the right person to be what she described as a "Poker Domain Expert". Mike understood that his function would be to travel to India to advise an expert software development team that was waiting in the wings, assigned to design an online poker site. Mike, who at the time knew nothing about computers, did know lots about poker. Ruth especially liked the fact that Mike was not only a poker guy, but a man of vision.
Mike called me, excitedly, after that original phone call from Ruth. He told me, "Ruth is flying out to Vegas in a few days with a contract for me, under the condition I can be in India within ten days' time." As you can tell, Ruth is a no-nonsense businesswoman, a real mover and shaker, and within ten days of meeting Ruth, Mike was off on an amazing adventure to India! All of us in life have taken phone calls that we may have been somewhat leery of, and we either hung up or listened. This was one of those times it paid to listen!
