Matthew Paige Damon is an American actor, screenwriter and producer.
He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA on the 8 October 1970.
Learning Poker Skills for his Roles
Matt Damon is a prolific actor who takes his roles very seriously, which results in him doing a lot of behind the scenes preparation before taking on a role.
An example of this is when he landed the lead role in the gambling film Rounders in 1998. Rounders is a movie about card cheating. Whilst preparing for the movie, Matt Damon took lessons from Professional Poker players like Molly Bloom and visited various underground poker clubs. It was at these clubs where he learned how to cheat at a Texas Hold’em Poker table.
He even put his newly acquired skills to practice by playing Poker with his co-star Ed Norton in real life. However, luckily they were just playing for fun money, so avoided being arrested, unlike in the Rounders movie.
World Series of Poker
Matt Damon has always enjoyed playing Texas Hold’em Poker and has attended several World Series Poker events. His best friend and fellow poker player and actor Ben Affleck often accompanies Damon on his trips to Vegas and the World Series of Poker.
During the 1998 World Series of Poker Tournament Damon was eliminated by Doyle Brunson, also known as The Godfather of Poker.
He has also participated in the 2010 World Series of Poker main event, along with Ben Affleck, but did not win anything notable. In some instances, he has lost amounts of $30, 000 and $40,000 playing Texas’s Hold’em Poker, and has mentioned that this is why he sticks to acting instead.
Charity
Although Matt Damon still enjoys his poker games, he now only participates in friendly games with his friends and charity tournaments.