Matt Salsberg: Ready to turn to the dark side to win WSOP bracelet

Matt Salsberg looking quizzical at the WPT
Craig Tapscott
Posted on: June 27, 2024 17:26 PDT

We're more than halfway through the 2024 WSOP, and it's time to find out who's happy, who's sad, who's up, who's down, and who doesn't care anymore.


How's your summer going?

It's going solid but frustrating so far. 

I have six cashes in eight events, with some super deep runs in a couple that sort of hurt: 38th of almost 8,000 in the seniors and 12th of 1,256 in the Venetian seniors. I’m getting so close to final tables with great money up top, but getting some bad breaks late on when you need things to go your way.  

Luckily, I'm up a bit thus far, so it's not a blood bath of bricks, but I would like to finish strong to keep me from feeling like I let things slide. That said, nothing really matters in this world except making it better for others, so hopefully, some entertaining tweets along the way during the seniors managed to give people some chuckles.

Variance didn't drive Matt to the pits… yet  

I haven't been to the pits, but I’ve eaten at Sbarros. Does that qualify?

Main Event advice

As far as the Main Event is concerned, the only advice is to do whatever you can to decompress so you can sleep, cause if you go deep, that becomes harder by the day. 

Are scummy things +EV?

As far as doing some scummy things to make sure I close, I’ve started berating dealers more, cutting the Diamond line, stealing protein bars from the gift shops, and anyone who brings their dogs to the table, I make sure to feed them some chocolate. 

I’m hoping these are enough to ship a bracelet before the main, but if not, there might be some arson in the pipeline if I go deep in the Main. 

Seen anything crazy happen?

The craziest thing I've seen this summer is my 22-year-old cousin, Michael Sheldon, who's never been to Vegas or played the WSOP before, rolled into town. 

I put him in the $600 bracelet event, and when I asked him how it was going, he said he had 20bbs. A minute later, I was on break from the Seniors $5K and went into his hotel room, and he was in there. He explained that he didn’t want to disappoint me. He'd already busted and didn’t want to mess up my mojo. I said, "You’re gonna fit in well in this community."


Writer of the Emmy-winning Weeds, Matt Salsberg is also a former WPT Paris champion and WPT POY. Follow Matt on X/Twitter

Feature image courtesy of WPT