Bellagio Cup IV Winner Interview: Mike Watson

By Matthew Showell Jul 18, 2008 | 6 months ago

Michael Watson wins the Bellagio Cup 4, WPT Season 7

Hot on the heels of this year's WSOP was the Bellagio Cup IV, effectively the first tournament on Season 7 of the World Poker Tour. As we've seen so many times before, a Canadian came out on top: Mike "SirWatts" Watson grabbed the title and the cash before heading back to the Great White North.

It was a tough final table and things didn't get any easier when Watson was forced to go heads-up with high-stakes madman David Benyamine. When the final nail was in the Frenchman's coffin and Watson had the bracelet on his wrist, PL.com moved in for our trademark winner interview.

That was a pretty crazy final table. There really weren't any weak spots. Tell us a bit about how it went for you.

I feel great. This has been a goal of mine for the longest time and it's great to finally achieve it. At the final table I really just picked up a lot of hands and there were a lot of cooler situations where I ended up coming out on top most of the time.

There was that one big pot I lost to Luke which was kind of unfortunate but I battled back and got lucky later on at the right time.

Degenyamine.

How did you feel about facing Benyamine heads-up? Would you rather have taken on someone else?

He's very tough. He's not a guy I'd like to play a lot of heads-up against. Everyone at the final table was pretty tough though. I didn't expect an easy heads-up match against anyone. It was sort of a "pick your poison" situation I guess.

I've played a bit online with Benyamine before when I've jumped into some bigger games. He pretty much got the better of me every time. We used to joke that he owed me a Sklansky-dollar house or something.

You played a lot already this summer at the WSOP. Do you feel like that helped you here or were you feeling burnt out from the whole thing?

Last year I did the same sort of schedule. I played a lot at the World Series and then came here to play. I ended up tilting off my whole stack on Day 1. This year I had a lot more experience playing live tournaments and I felt good.

I came into this tournament after having another unsuccessful World Series but I still kept my head up and I still felt ready to go. It's tough when you play a lot of tournaments. I always have high expectations and it looked like it wasn't going to turn out again so I'm really happy to have pulled it out at the end.

You had a huge cheering section and they were going pretty crazy there. Almost everyone rooting for you was a big online name. Do you feel support from that or is it distracting to have all those guys screaming at you?

The crew.

It's really great. I love having those guys cheering for me. Every time I won a pot they were going crazy. I have to sit there and keep my composure so it's great that they get to do all that crazy stuff.

Is this win going to change things much for you?

It might but really it's not going to change a whole lot for me in poker. I'm comfortable playing the games I play and I think I'm at the level that I can beat right now. It might give me the freedom to take a few shots if I want to. I've played a lot on the road for the last six months or so and I don't think I want to do too much more than that.

Thanks Mike and congratulations.

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Mike Watson is just one member of a group of young online players from Canada who are running rampant through final tables the world over. It was no easy feat making it through this field and this final table, so our hats are off to SirWatts for the accomplishment.