Matt Savage's travels always bring him back to San Jose & Bay 101
By Barbara Engler

Matt Savage has become such a familiar face at big poker tournaments around the world and on television it’s easy to forget that not long ago he was just a young man walking into a local cardroom to try his hand at poker. Since that time the San Jose native has gone on to become the world’s foremost poker tournament director (traveling the world as a TD and speaker), founder of the Tournament Director’s Association, and Hollywood movie star. (Okay, that last one’s a stretch, but he did have a big part in the movie Lucky You as—that’s right—the tournament director.)

With all this on his plate you might think he’s forgotten where he came from, but such is not the case. He is still a full-time employee at San Jose’s Bay 101 Casino despite his travels and other commitments, and looks forward every year to running the Shooting Star tournament (a World Poker Tour event held in March at the Bay 101).

His poker playing career never amounted to much as he soon determined he was, “a bad poker player.” Since he still enjoyed the game and the atmosphere, he moved to the other side of the felt, getting a job as a chip runner at Garden City Casino in San Jose. When the Bay 101 opened in 1994 he got a job there as a dealer, but before long developed carpal tunnel syndrome so he went to work on the floor.

“When the guy that was running the tournaments there took a vacation, I filled in,” he told The Cardroom. “Well I liked it a lot. What happened was, when he came back I stayed on as his assistant tournament director.”

His natural abilities in this area were soon apparent, so much so that he was soon approached about another job. “When Lucky Chances opened in Colma I was asked if I’d like to be their tournament director. So I left Bay 101 for a few years. When I went up there I would play a few tournaments locally, in the Bay Area and around, and found out the rules were different everywhere. It was definitely a problem for me as a player. So I went to the World Series in 2001 and talked to the tournament director at the time—my goal was to get standardized rules—and he kind of blew me off saying it had been tried before and no one had ever been successful at it.

“So I asked my friend—whom I had met at Lucky Chances—Linda Johnson if she knew of a way or could help me out to try to standardize the rules. Well she provided a forum for us to actually invite tournament directors down there and that’s how the TDA was formed.

“We had about 20 of the TDs around the country come in for that first meeting and out of that I was invited to work as the tournament director for the World Series of Poker in 2002.”

It was during Savage’s tenure as director of the World Series that the poker boom exploded. The Main Event’s cash prize payouts went from $6,000,000 to more than $25,000,000. Whether it was talent and perseverance or just being in the right place at the right time, Savage had quickly become the world’s top tournament director. In 2003 he was awarded the inaugural Benny Binion Award for outstanding service in the poker industry.

“My career really kind of took off from that,” Savage said in a mild understatement. “In 2004 I expanded my role in the industry by doing a lot of the televised events. To date I’ve done about 400 television shows. So I made contacts with ESPN, the World Poker Tour and Fox Sports Net.”

In 2003 he was invited back to work at the Bay 101. He says that while the management at Lucky Chances was happy that his career was getting bigger, they weren’t ready to have their tournament director gone for large chunks of time to do things like direct the WSOP. “So Mark at the Bay 101 said ‘we’d be happy to have you back and we understand that you have to be gone for a month or two at a time.’ So after the 2003 World Series I went back to work at the Bay 101.”

The first season of the WPT featured a tournament at Lucky Chances, so Savage got to know the folks at WPT Enterprises. When he moved back to the Bay 101, “I sort of brought the World Poker Tour with me. I had a meeting with Steve Lipscomb and said, ‘look, I’d really like to have the Shooting Star be on the World Poker Tour.’ They accepted the offer and since then we’ve been on the World Poker Tour at Bay 101.

“The Shooting Star is such a great event it seemed like a natural fit to be in the World Poker Tour and televised. I was happy to get that tournament where it is today. That event started a long time ago. I think the first Shooting Star was in 1995. It was a $1,000 buy-in and now it’s $10,000 and our highest was over 500 players.”

While still officially on the staff at Bay 101, he maintains the flexibility to take on other projects. “I consider it my home away from home. I’m a full-time employee there. I consult with them year around, but at the same time I’m able to travel and do other things. The owner kind of likes it that way too, because I keep my connections with all the players and get to know everybody and still can run the TDA and do all those other things that are important for me.”

He did have the opportunity to continue as tournament director for the World Series, but that would have meant working just for Harrahs, which would have cut into his other interests. “I’ve had a lot of people ask me why I’m not with the World Series and I’d still like to be there, but at the same time other opportunities have come up that have been just as good for me and my family—being able to travel and see the world and do different things.

“I’ve been involved in tournaments in Monte Carlo, London, Australia—I’ve done the Aussie Millions for the last three years—did speaking engagements all over. I just came back from Budapest last year and now I’m going to be the tournament director at the Commerce for the tournament coming up in February—the LAPC—probably the second biggest tournament in the world. I haven’t been involved with the World Series except as an advisor over the last three years, but still have been around it.”

When asked if he thought poker’s future was expanding beyond Hold’em he responded in the affirmative. “We’re moving past just no-limit Hold’em. I think in the respect that some players want limit Hold’em back. Obviously the mixed games are becoming more and more popular. And, as far as prestige, the big buy-in H.O.R.S.E. tournaments and heads up events are becoming more popular, as are shootouts and six-handed events. A lot of things are becoming more popular and people are wanting to play more and more games which is good I think.”

The Shooting Star at Bay 101, though, will always hold a special place with Savage. “The Shooting Star, to me, is the most unique, special tournament of the year for all the players. With the $5,000 bounties, people can come in there, not even perform well, knock out a star and win $5,000 even though they may have won their way in for as little as $100. Later in that tournament it becomes six-handed play which is a different aspect of that tournament that most people don’t get to play year around. We pay $10,000 to the chip leader at the end of Day 1A and 1B, so that’s something else that doesn’t happen in most tournaments. For the regular player, to be in there with all those stars and have one at each table, it’s really unique I think.”

When asked for a closing comment, he came back to what can only be described as his “baby”—the TDA. “I always like to promote the TDA. It’s something that I feel really strongly about. It’s been accepted worldwide and it’s kind of a proud accomplishment for me, just being able to standardize tournament rules and make the world a better place for the average poker player, just because one of the things I’ve been strongly against is abuse of dealers and other players.”

Whether it’s promoting poker around the globe, acting in Hollywood movies, or advancing the cause of the Tournament Director’s Association, Savage always seems to maintain his perspective. At heart, he’s still just a kid from San Jose who was a bad poker player. The rest, as they say, is history.

Be sure to check with the Bay 101 for their ongoing satellites into the Shooting Star tournament for your chance to compete on the World Poker Tour. They can be reached at 408-451-8888 or on the web at www.bay101.com.

Barbara Engler considers herself to be at least as bad a poker player as Matt Savage. That’s why she spends more time writing and less tying to figure out what to do with that unsuited K-J.