Mike Sexton Meets Mike Sexton

Anyone looking through the seating assignments for the start of Day 2 in the Season XV WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown $3,500 Championship might have been surprised to see not one Mike Sexton that was listed, but two.

Indeed, WPT Co-Commentator Mike Sexton (pictured above, left) is in the field today, but so is another Mike Sexton (pictured above, right) from Coral Springs, Florida.

The two got to meet each other on a break today, and they even posed for some photos together. The “other Sexton” has a good sense of humor about sharing a name with one of most popular people in the poker world, and it has led to a number of amusing anecdotes. He then told us about how his tournament is going, his background as a dealer and poker room manager at the STAX Poker Lounge at Seminole Coconut Creek, and a few of the fun stories that have come as a result of his namesake.

WPT: How has your run in the tournament gone so far?

Sexton: “It’s been pretty steady since after the first hand. In the first hand I dumped off a third of my stack. I should have been coolered for everything, but I got lucky, the river saved me. It is what it is, not really fun, just trying to make money. Trying to grind. I got put in by one of my friends, so I’m trying to make the most of it.”

WPT: Do you find that working as a dealer gives you an interesting insight at the table when you’re playing?

Sexton: “Yeah, I mean it makes different dynamics. I think that if you observe when you’re actually working what’s going on, it gives you, not an edge, but it gives you a different understanding of how the hands play out. I don’t get check-raised as much because I don’t always c-bet, I’d rather float around and figure out what’s going on. I’ve been doing this for 21 years.”

WPT: You jokingly told WPT Co-Commentator Mike Sexton, “That you’re the bane of my existence.” What has it been like for you to share a name with such a figure in poker?

Sexton: “I can give you three highlight stories. One of the times when I first started, we ran a first tournament that was only employees. It was like 150 people, and I took first place in it. The very next tournament they ran they put a bounty on me, and I ended up taking second place. And the third tournament I took first out of 150 people. The first one I got lucky on, the second one I miscounted my chips or I would have won it, and the third one I was more polished then. So I had a vacation, and the other Mike Sexton had won [WPT Montreal]. It came out on CardPlayer Magazine that Mike Sexton wins, and everyone thought it was me. So when I came back they all thought I was going to quit, yada yada yada…

“The second one was trying to sign up for partypoker (laughs). That one is pretty self-explanatory. They wanted my DNA to make sure it was me. They wouldn’t believe there was another Mike Sexton playing poker.

“In the third one, I was playing at the Isle [Casino Pompano Park]. We were down to eight and the final table was all roped off. I woke up late so I got there late, and there was this huge crowd around my table, and I don’t know what’s going on. They’re like, ‘Oh, Mike Sexton is at this table!’ I’m like, ‘Oh really? That’s pretty cool.’ And then they were like, ‘Yeah, I can’t wait to meet him!’ I sat down in the chair, and everybody was like, ‘What the hell?’” (Sexton went on to win that tournament for a cash worth $12,500).

WPT: Had you ever met Mike before today?

Sexton: “I’ve run into him but I never bothered saying hi to him. He was cool. There was a show at one point where you switch jobs with your namesake, so I thought it would have been funny for us to have done that. Because I have run tournaments and announced, and I’m sure he could deal through a hand. It would be pretty fun.”

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