Story Time: Matthew Wantman Treasures Time Playing with Legend Billy Baxter

By Sean Chaffin

For two years in a row, Matthew Wantman (pictured right) has been in a seat many players would envy. Not a final table or among the final players looking for a shot at a televised final table. Here at the Commerce Casino Wantman has been seated next to poker legend Billy Baxter (left) and has certainly enjoyed the conversation and stories.

For those not be familiar with Baxter, he’s a member of poker’s old school and a contemporary of Doyle Brunson, Amarillo Slim Preston, Puggy Pearson, and others. He was gambling at high stakes before many players in the LAPC were born. Baxter has seven World Series of Poker bracelets, all in some form of lowball, and more than $2.7 million in live tournament winnings. While he hasn’t added a WPT title to his resumé yet, he does have fifth- and eighth-place finishes.

Poker players also owe a bit of gratitude to the 79-year-old for his fight against the federal government in 1986. The case led to poker winnings classified as “regular income” and thus taxed at a much smaller amount.

For Wantman, it’s been a treat hearing gambling tales and having some interesting discussions with Baxter. 

“He’s the absolute best when it comes to the stories and just overall friendliness,” Wantman says. “It’s all gambling-related stories, which hit home to me the most. They’re so refreshing to hear because gambling’s my life.

“He has all the old school stories from the ‘70s and ‘80s when they were gambling for hundreds of thousands of dollars, playing Deuce to Seven No Limit, which is like over a million now considering how much they were sitting down with. It’s awesome to hear about the gambling that went on before my time.”

Wantman has developed a real sense of respect for Baxter and found they have some mutual interests.

“I can’t take that for granted,” he says of being at the table with the Poker Hall of Famer. “It’s not going to be something you can get used to. We both love sports too and he’s a big sports fan.”

Wantman is no stranger to poker success himself. In Season XVII he won the WPT Aria Summer Championship for $443,475 and now has $2.2 million in career tournament winnings. On Day 1 at Commerce, Wantman bagged 145,000 in chips after some ups and downs.

“I didn’t get here at least three hours into the day,” he says. “It was rocky at first. I got off to kind of a bad start and got down to 30,000 early.”

That soon turned around however. A five-way hand where he had pocket 10s brought a nice payday when he hit a set on the turn. That catapulted him to about 130,000 and helped him sail through the rest of the day’s action.

A native of Boston, Wantman is a former chef and loves to cook when not playing cards. He dreams of opening a restaurant someday with traditional American food, but also some Asian and Italian food mixed in.

In the meantime he’s hoping to cook up a deep run here in Southern California and hoping a second WPT title is on the menu.

“I’ve got to do better than last year,” he says. “I had 175,000 going into Day 3 and then lost every single hand. But I’m winning it this year – you heard it here first. I’ve got to get up there and join the ranks of Mr. Anthony Zinno and Darren Elias and all those legends. But I guess I’ve got a couple to go first.”

Sean Chaffin is a freelance writer in Crandall, Texas, and his work appears in numerous websites and publications. Follow him on Twitter @PokerTraditions.