Hand Reviews — Matt Staples Ontario’s Poker Player

The Other Staples

When Matt got started into poker, his brother Jaime had been a staple in the streaming game for several years. 

Matt was a university student when his brother began his Twitch career, and one of Matt’s first jobs was working for Jaime doing a lot of the administrative tasks, social media posts, moderating the Twitch streams, and content creation so Jaime could focus on streaming poker and growing his community. As a result, when Matt started playing poker, he came up with alias PokerStaplesPA – meaning the personal assistant to PokerStaples – Jaime’s alias at the time.

His big break into the game came when Jaime moved out of Lethbridge, Alberta – where the Staples family was rooted – and up to Calgary, Alberta to room with Kevin Martin, and Matt decided that university wasn’t for him, and joined Jaime on the move to the big city. Although Matt was born in Alberta, he later moved to Ontario, where he continued to build his poker career and streaming presence.

$8 to Hundreds of Thousands

In one of the original stream houses, Kevin and Jaime started streaming poker full time with Matt working behind the scenes on Jaime’s streams.  Occasionally Matt would jump onto Twitch himself and stream micro sit n go’s – sometimes 10 cents, sometimes 25 cents, and began his streaming career in front of roughly 30 viewers.  As he went, and won, the buy-ins would get progressively higher and higher, eventually allowing him to go full time as a poker player and streamer.

Bill Perkins & the Ultimate Sweat

We talked about Jaime and Matt’s prop bet with Bill Perkins when we profiled Jaime but let’s dive back into one of the biggest prop bets won.

In 2017, on a Twitch stream Jaime was broadcasting as part of Streamboat 1 – the luxury yacht Bill Perkins had in the Virgin Islands where a bunch of poker streamers were doing their thing – someone asked in chat “Imagine Jaime and Matt were the same weight”. 

Bill heard Jaime say this & immediately said “Ill give you 50 to 1”.  The bet was born – and Jaime and Matt were staring at the potential win fall of $150k.  The challenge – be within one pound of each other one year from that point.  The problem – Jaime weighed 305 pounds, and Matt was only 134 pounds – to get to the same weight was going to take a lot of effort on both fronts.

While Jaime lost weight, Matt had to bulk up and over a year, the two worked hard to bridge the gap.  At Run It Up Reno, they both stepped on the scales, and celebrated weighing the same.  The win fall changed both of their lives for the better!

Throwing a Party from Sunday Million Glory

Matt put pen to paper in February of 2019 when he became a member of Team PartyPoker Online, joining a few months before his brother came over.  While a member of Team PartyPoker, he achieved the biggest score of his career up to that point – even bigger than the Ultimate Sweat. 

Matt found himself on his Twitch stream, playing the $1 Million Sunday Million Special Edition as part of the 2019 SCOOP Series in May, where Matt navigated a field of 6,632 players paying $215 each to finish 3^rd and take down a $92,812 score.  He would continue his amazing play in May a year later, again finishing 3^rd in the PartyPoker Million for another $93k.  Clearly if you are at the table with Matt in May – look out! 

With almost his entire lifetime winnings coming from playing online, let’s dive into some hands from some of Matt’s recent streams to show you why he’s always a force at the poker table!

Hand #1 – Multi-Way and All-In

We find Matt at the final table of a $215 Big Sunday tournament, having already locked up $1,350 – they sit 5 handed with the button sitting with over 80 BB and Matt has the second shortest stack of 12.5 BB. UTG, Matt finds K J and essentially puts himself all-in, betting 12 BB into the pot. 

The CO (28 BB stack) and the SB (9.5 BB) both call.  The flop is an absolute dream for Matt, and this allows Matt to send his last half blind into the middle which is called – and the dream turns precarious quickly.

With so much of the chips sitting in two stacks, Matt needs to find a way to ladder up and build enough chips while keeping in mind that he has a shorter stack two seats to his right. At a final table with the money available, finding the right spot is as much of an art as it is a science, with a dash of lady luck. 

Pre-flop Matt couldn’t have found a worse spot to get it all in – he’s absolutely dominated by the K A and pocket aces, but somehow, someway he finds the dream flop and hits the nuts, and manages to hold on through to the river to not only earn a substantial pot – but eliminate the short stack and ladder up several hundred dollars!

Hand #2 – It’s Always Coming Seven

We switch to a $125 Sunday Special on GGPoker where we are three handed and all players massively short on chips. 

Matt sites with only 4.8 BB and a $743 bounty, while his opponents have a $2k bounty and 18.5 BB in the small blind, and 6.4 BB and a $1,187 bounty in the big blind. Waking up to sixes, Matt shoves and gets called by the small blind with the bigger stack.  Not wanting to get involved and potentially ladder up, the big blind very quickly folds.  Matt is delighted to see he’s flipping but turns the showers on when the river card sends him to the rails.

Some may question calling here with Q 7 with so much money on the line, but the reality is that you are calling from the small blind regardless of what the big blind ends up doing. The money at the final table of PKO’s tends to be so big that unless a player knocks no one out getting to the final table, the bounty sizes will always dictate calling.  Matt was certainly unlucky here that the river got the better of him, but you could not ask for a better spot for Matt. 

One might be able to make the argument to fold and hope that the big blind makes an error by getting into a hand that they shouldn’t, but ultimately Matt had no time to wait for a better spot and took a chance. 

The big blind could have made an argument to call and take a shot at Matt’s bounty – and given the board, unless they have a very weak hand, would have won it plus the bounty. However, in severe short stack situations, ICM or not, you have to shove and pray.

Hand #3 – The Church of Ace-Queen, or There’s No Good Way to Play Jacks

In our final hand, we see Matt is under the gun in a $55 Daily Legends Masters MTT at the final table – he’s locked up $138 but he’s short with roughly 12.9 BB. 

This is not a bounty tournament, and Matt is the shortest stack at the table.  He min-raises pre to 2 BB, getting called by the tournament chip leader in MP but the big blind three-bet shoves 30.8 BB on top. Matt now has to decide if he’s going to pick A Q to go to war with, and after taking for a moment, does make the call. The chip leader folds, and Matt’s off to the races against pocket jacks. 

Talk about a roller coaster of emotions.  You’re flipping pre-flop which is a way better scenario than being dominated; you hit top pair on the flop and take a massive lead in the hand, only to see them spike a set on the turn, giving you only a gutshot to broadway to save yourself, and a lowly four ends your run for $138. 

It is a tough situation to be in – you are at the final table, but you are the smallest stack at approximately 13 BB.  You are under the gun and get a solid hand pre-flop, only to have the bully in the big blind put you to the test. 

Depending on how important laddering is, one can make the argument to call or fold here, especially knowing that the middle position player is yet to act. Do you risk calling it, and giving the odds to the middle position player to try and take you both out, or fold and hope that you get another chance to shove in the next orbit?

Matt Staples might be Jaime’s younger brother and into the online poker game later, but he might be one of the most formidable opponents you’ll meet on the virtual felt. The list of his accomplishments to date may not be as extensive as his brothers, but he is quickly building a resume that rivals some of the best players online today!  Just don’t call him Jaime!