Phil Hellmuth Falls Short at Bay 101 Shooting Star

Phil Hellmuth is still a WPT 0-fer.

You could forgive Phil Hellmuth if he came into the final table of the World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star tournament feeling a little pressure to perform. With every passing day the gap between his last win and present day widens. Meanwhile gaggles of young men who got their start in online poker decades after Hellmuth’s own WSOP Main Event championship continue to do well big tournaments, stealing the media spotlight that once belonged to Hellmuth alone, and other players who have gotten lucky against him in the past continue to do well while he languishes in the land of double-digit finishes that can’t pay for his monthly limo & Dom Perignon bill. It’s enough to drive a Poker Brat to tears behind his cool black shades.

Let it be said, though, that Hellmuth didn’t let that pressure get to him at Bay 101. The 11-time WSOP bracelet winner did everything he could, battling back and forth with a table full of tough players for 41 hands and getting his money in as a 2-to-1 favorite with pocket queens against online star Andy Seth’s Ac-Jc. The pot was big enough that it would have dropped Seth from the chip lead to third place and given Hellmuth the second chip position and all-important momentum in the hunt for his first WPT title. And with four of the requisite community cards on the table, the man who has become known more for his WSOP wild entrances than for his success against the online era’s rising stars knew that the laws of probability, which say that he should win this hand nearly eight out of nine times, were on his side.

But when the cruel ace of hearts fell on the river and turned probability into finality, the pot was shipped to the young online pro. While Seth scooped up his newfound chips, Phil Hellmuth was left to ponder how his awful luck at such a crucial moment cost him yet another chance at a WPT title. He stood up, shook his opponents’ hands – and then, as the WPT Live Updates Team described it: “he dropped to his knees, overwhelmed by the emotion of the situation. As he lay curled up on the floor, the players and audience watched unaware of how to proceed. Eventually, Hellmuth composed himself enough to make a graceful exit, even stopping to sign some autographs before heading home.”

In the end McLean Karr would defeat Seth heads-up for the Bay 101 Shooting Star title and $878,500. Hellmuth banked $117,000 for his sixth-place finish.