Matt Savage is an American poker Tournament Director and is the Executive Tour Director of the

World Poker Tour The World Poker Tour (WPT) is an internationally televised gaming and entertainment brand. Since 2002, the World Poker Tour has operated a series of international poker tournaments and associated television series broadcasting playdown and the f ...

.World Poker Tour: Matt Savage
/ref> He has officiated over 400 episodes of televised poker, a record, including the

World Series of Poker The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Paradise, Nevada and, since 2004, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment. It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker p ...

(2002–2004) and WPT (2002-2019). He is still a TD at

Commerce Casino Commerce Casino is a cardroom located in the Los Angeles suburb of Commerce. With over 240 tables on site, Commerce Casino is the largest cardroom in the world. Established in 1983, the casino accounted for 38% of Commerce's tax revenues for th ...

Bay 101 Bay 101 is a cardroom in San Jose, California. Like other California cardrooms, Bay 101 offers poker cash games and tournaments as well as special "California" style table games. Bay 101 is perhaps best known for hosting the Bay 101 Shooting Star ...

, and Thunder Valley Casino Resort.Pokernews.com: Matt Savage Looks Back on 25 Years in Poker
/ref> Other events Savage has overseen include Ultimate Poker Challenge,

Poker Dome Challenge ''The MANSIONPoker.net Poker Dome Challenge'' was a 43-week series of speed poker tournaments offering a grand prize of US$1,000,000. The tournament aired in the United States on Fox Sports Network from May 2006 to March 2007. The tournament featur ...

, and

King of Vegas ''King of Vegas'' was a gambling series that first aired on Spike TV in the United States on January 17, 2006. It was hosted by boxing commentator Max Kellerman and co-hosted by handicapper Wayne Allyn Root, who gave color commentary and his odds ...

. He has also worked with networks

Fox News The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...

, FSN,

Travel Channel Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in New York, New York, United S ...

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

, and

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

and served a prominent roll in the Warner Brothers movie " Lucky You" alongside

Eric Bana Eric Banadinović, (born 9 August 1968), known professionally as Eric Bana (), is an Australian actor and comedian. He began his career in the sketch comedy series '' Full Frontal'' before gaining notice in the comedy drama '' The Castle'' (19 ...

and

Robert Duvall Robert Selden Duvall (; born January 5, 1931) is an American actor and filmmaker. His career spans more than seven decades and he is considered one of the greatest American actors of all time. He is the recipient of an Academy Award, four Gold ...

. In 2001, Savage founded the

Tournament Directors Association {{Unreferenced, date=February 2010 In the game of poker, the tournament director (TD) is the individual charged with running the poker tournament. The job encompasses many roles, the most public of which is typically announcing the phrase "shuffle ...

(TDA) along with Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher and David Lamb. The TDA is an organization that works to standardize

poker tournament A poker tournament is a tournament where players compete by playing poker. It can feature as few as two players playing on a single table (called a " heads-up" tournament), and as many as tens of thousands of players playing on thousands of ta ...

rules worldwide. Savage was the inaugural inductee into the Poker Room Manager's Hall of Fame in 2003. Matt has been nominated for the

Poker Hall of Fame The Poker Hall of Fame is the hall of fame of professional poker in the United States. Founded in Las Vegas, it was created in 1979 by Benny Binion, the owner of the Horseshoe Casino, to preserve the names and legacies of the world's greatest p ...

multiple times. Savage played during what was considered "the Poker Boom" and was on the microphone to call the 2003 WSOP final hand in which

Chris Moneymaker Christopher Bryan Moneymaker (born November 21, 1975) is an American poker player who won the Main Event at the 2003 World Series of Poker (WSOP). His 2003 win is said to have revolutionized poker because he was the first person to become a wo ...

defeated

Sammy Farha Ihsan "Sam" Farha ( ar, إحسان فرحة; born 1959 in Beirut, Lebanon) is a Lebanese professional poker player. He is best known for finishing as runner up in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event in 2003. He has won three bracelets ...

. Though Savage is not a professional poker player he has cashed multiple times, the first time in the

in 2009 including his first final table when he finished in fifth place in the $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low 8 or Better event. As of 2019, his live tournament winnings exceeded $125,000.

Notes

External links

Official site

Tournament Directors Association site

Matt Savage Interview (video + transcript)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Savage, Matt American poker players Poker tournament directors Living people Year of birth missing (living people)