Posts Tagged ‘phil hellmuth’
Hellmuth Misses 12th WSOP Bracelet, Extends POY Lead, is Humble
October 10th, 2011
For most poker players, finishing 7th in a WSOP Europe tournament and cashing for €24,184 would be something to be proud of, but for Phil Hellmuth it was a massive disappointment.
“I don’t play these things to finish seventh, I feel horrible,” stated Hellmuth after busting out of WSOP Europe Event 1.
Hellmuth had a great run in the tournament finishing day 1 with the second most chips but ultimately finishing in seventh. A result he was quick to blame on the luck factor of the game saying, “If I had won I would have called it my masterpiece but I guess I missed a few brush strokes along the way. When Picasso drew a masterpiece he didn’t have to deal with luck.”
He went on to explain what exactly he has to deal with as he approaches a final table.
“As the blinds go up and these kids think they have to move in with every ace-ten off-suit there’s a lot of luck involved. I was never all-in and I was never low on chips and I moved my chips so perfectly and my timing was so perfect. I put myself in a wonderful spot here but it’s just frustrating to lose every flip and lose every race.”
Yes Phil, we know. If it weren’t for luck you’d win them all, right? Well, might I suggest a new sport that eliminates that excuse?
Anyway, say what you will about Hellmuth, the fact is he’s having a great year and this latest cash further extends his lead over Ben Lamb in the race to win Player of the Year.
As if in a direct response to his critics who have accused Hellmuth of being unable to compete at the top levels in anything but No Limit Holdem, he managed to score three second place finishes in WSOP events, none of which were Holdem events.
Phil Hellmuth on Dancing With the Stars?
December 20th, 2010
Phil Hellmuth sashaying down the red carpet. (photo courtesy of LIFE, duh)
Another day another random-poker-player-to-appear-on-random-reality-TV-show rumor. This time around, the talk is that professional poker raconteur Phil Hellmuth may be appearing on the next season of Dancing With the Stars.
To be honest, the “talk” consists entirely of one tweet on the Poker Brat’s official Twitter account, followed by a bunch of blogs writing speculative pieces based on that tweet. So, believe it or don’t, but here’s the Tweet that started all the chatter, sent by Phil the night before last: “OMG! Phil Hellmuth (me!) on “Dancing With the Stars!” Outrageous! Might make a fool of myself on Worldwide Television one more time…
There’s no denying the guy has a big personality. And the idea of him attempting to gracefully twirl around the dancefloor has some appeal. But there’s also no getting around the fact that Hellmuth has a tendency to be full of s*** sometimes, and is one of the game’s great self-promoters. So we’ll wait and see for some more official word before we go setting our Tivo.
Poker Buddies Start Bearded Ski Mask Company
November 15th, 2010
The poker buddies model their “Beardskis”. (photo courtesy of GJ McCarthy)
I don’t know if my poker buddies are just particularly dim-witted, but the conversation at most of my home games usually revolves around football and whether or not Phil Hellmuth is really better than us. But to six Dallas friends, conversing over their regular game of Hold’Em led to the creation of a company that makes and sells the ultimate evolution in ski masks.
The “Beardski” is a pretty simple creation, but what it lacks in complexity, it more than makes up for in sweet on-the-slopes style. They consist of a hat with an attached fake beard, in a variety of styles. There’s the Biker, the ZZ Top, the Viking and a handful of others. Each one costs between $24.95 and $39.95 and you can buy them online at the Beardski website.
The six friends who started the company are all mid-40s guys, with little to no experience in bearded ski-wear. But after turning their poker games into business-brainstorm sessions, the idea struck them. One of the players, Drew Hamilton, said: “It was ‘let’s actually get together, throw ideas on the wall, see if there is one of them that we can do something with and let’s make it happen.’”
And they did, and now they’re selling fast. They only had a few thousand in their first product run, and that sold out quickly. But with more on the way, they’re ready to help make the ski slopes much hairier this winter.
Small Turnout at WPT Foxwoods World Poker Finals
October 29th, 2010
Foxwoods Casino will be the WPT’s home for the next few days.
The World Poker Finals is one of the oldest continuously running tournament series in the United States. Poker players have turned up at the Foxwoods tournament series every year since it started in 1992, but the event’s inclusion on the inaugural World Poker Tour schedule in 2002 really got things going. Attendance has generally been strong at the Foxwoods event since then, though there has been a declining trend in recent years that has mirrored the larger trend across the WPT.
For the most part that trend has been reversed at WPT events this year, but Foxwoods will need to see a sizeable crowd turn up at the beginning of Day 2 if it wants to match last year’s attendance. Just 238 players showed up yesterday to play Day 1, meaning that another 115 players will have to register before today’s first level is complete to equal the 353 who showed up last year. The final registration numbers and prize pool information won’t be available until later today, but it looks as if this tournament is likely to be the smallest WPT event Foxwoods has hosted since 2003, when Hoyt Corkins abused Phil Hellmuth en route to his first WPT title.
Among those who did show up yesterday, 177 survived to get themselves a Day 2 seating assignment. Returning to the largest stack will be Lance Steinberg, who ended the day with 144,000 chips. He is trailed by Mohsin Charania (134,900), NAPT Mohegan Sun runner-up Mike Beasley (115,000), Erik Cajelais (110,925) and Ehsan Ghods (98,675). Also technically still in the hunt is the defending champion, Cornel Cimpan, though with just 6,700 in chips he’ll have his work cut out for him.
Day 2 gets going at noon ET today. The WPT will have live updates all day from its excellent team of BJ Nemeth and Jess Welman.
GSN Announces Seventh Season of High Stakes Poker
October 25th, 2010
The most popular poker program on TV returns for another season.
GSN announced recently that it has ordered another season of High Stakes Poker. The show, which features the biggest names in poker duking it out with a minimum buy-in of $200,000, is the highest-rated program on the cable network, which is otherwise known for reruns of 1970s game shows like Match Game and Family Feud and keeping the career of Chuck Woolery alive with new shows like Lingo.
The network has confirmed that Gabe Kaplan will return as the show’s host for the seventh season. Also returning is Kara Scott, who joined the show last season and replaced former co-host AJ Benza. Scott’s segments received mixed reviews from the poker community last year, so hopefully the show’s producers will find a better way to use the beautiful and intelligent Scott instead of wasting her on silly interview segments.
Filming for the new season of High Stakes Poker will take place from November 18-20 this year, which is about the same time that the sixth season was filmed. The lineup has yet to be confirmed, though it’s hard to imagine the show taping a single minute without confirming that Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan and Patrik Antonius will be in the mix. Other regulars like Eli Elezra, Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein and high-stakes punching bag Phil Hellmuth are also likely to return.
There are no details yet on when the new season of High Stakes Poker will air, but if GSN holds to last year’s schedule we just might get our first peek at the new action in February 2011.
Steve Martin and Phil Hellmuth Help Raise Almost a Million for Charity
October 25th, 2010
Steve Martin was anything but a jerk, as he helped a charity for sick kids.
A poker tournament raised over $900,000 for charity this weekend. The event, the “2010 All In For Kids Poker Tournament” took place at the Mandarin Oriental in New York City. The nearly million dollars raised through group and individual donations goes to help fund the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Poker pro Phil Hellmuth may get more than his fair share of grief from poker players, but you can’t deny that he can be a great ambassador for the game. He’s a fixture at this tournament and was the host and biggest name pro to lend a hand. He was joined by other celebs, including actor Steve Martin and author Amy Tan.
More than 40 sponsors chipped in to provide funding for the hospital’s Center for Fetal Diagnostic and Treatment. Donors paid anywhere from $5,000 to $100,000 to take part.
The “All In” for Kids tournament was presented by Jami and Joel Friedman, and founded three years ago by Beth and Dan Shak.
10 Card Commandments From Poker Rapper
September 13th, 2010
Poker Rapper is no Jay-Z, but he takes poker rap in the right direction.
Poker and rap have flirted with each other for years, from Prahlad Friedman’s old-school “Poker Is Fun For Everyone” to two-time WSOP bracelet winner Jeff Madsen’s ill-advised, homemade rap videos. The results have never turned out all that well, but that hasn’t stopped countless MC’s from dropping their own bad beats on poker-playing rap fans over the years.
One overlooked mix of poker and rap comes from the fittingly named Poker Rapper, who has released an album called 10 Card Commandments. As you might have guessed, the content is all poker, all the time, with tracks full of the kinds of stories only a true poker player would be able to tell. The lyrical skill level on display is definitely above Madsen and other white-boy poker rappers, hovering somewhere near latter-day Friedman. In fact, the only serious knock on the album is that Phil Hellmuth is a fan.
So if you can’t get enough of poker crossing over into other areas of life where you don’t normally hear about short stacks or all-in shoves, you might want to check out Poker Rapper’s 10 Card Commandments. You can sample the tracks “Stall 101,” “Sitting on 44,” “10 Card Commandments” and “Take A Shot! F Bankroll Management” at the official Poker Rapper site, and you can also purchase the entire album there for $12.
Phil Hellmuth Teaches Poker to the Oakland A’s
September 8th, 2010
Phil Hellmuth can spell baseball. (Photo: Kristy Fick/Oakland A’s)
Phil Hellmuth spends a lot of time on the road promoting poker – and he took the opportunity yesterday to spend part of his time doing so with baseball’s Oakland A’s.
Hellmuth hung out with the team yesterday after batting practice and before the game, teaching them how to play Chinese Poker before they took to the field to play their American League West division rivals, the Seattle Mariners. Among the players who took part in the lesson were catcher Landon Powell, pitcher Andrew Bailey and outfielder Coco Crisp, who is considered by the rest of the team to be their best poker player. Once the team was fully versed in royalties, surrendering and low-in-the-middle, the Poker Brat took to the pitcher’s mound to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.
“Whew, was Simply hoping to NOT embarrass myself, but hurled it 75 mph up middle!! For non-believers–not sure even I believe it–video soon,” tweeted Hellmuth after leaving the mound.
For those of you who are superstitious, it’s worth noting that a Phil Hellmuth presence in the clubhouse did nothing to help the Oakland A’s. They lost Tuesday’s game with the Mariners 7-5, putting them seven games back of the division-leading Texas Rangers with just 24 games remaining in the season.
New Golden State Warriors Owner Plays Poker
August 18th, 2010
New NBA franchise owner Joe Lacob sees similarities between his job and poker.
Along with his ownership partner Peter Guber, Joe Lacob bought the National Basketball Association’s Golden State Warriors last month for an NBA record price of $450 million. Lacob has been a minority owner in the Boston Celtics and a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of the most prestigious venture capital firms in the world – and he’s also been known to play a bit of poker in his time.
In an interview with Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury-News conducted right after the sale of the team, Lacob spilled the beans about his love of poker. He compared the skills necessary to be successful in venture capital or running a pro basketball franchise – constant analysis and assessment that take unknown factors into account – to the skills necessary to be a successful poker player.
“I like poker,” Lacob told Kawakami. “I like the idea… of calculated risk. Doing my homework, and then you have to take a shot. You learn a lot in poker about people. Phil Hellmuth is a good friend of mine and you learn a lot about people when you play that game.”
“And by the way, venture capital, sort of similar. You’re making a calculated risk on whether you’re going to put your money on this company or put your money with this person. You have to be comfortable with unknowns. It’s easier actually in the NBA—there are more knowns than there are at a poker table.”
Owning a team in the NBA and playing poker are tied pretty closely together these days – Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss is a cash game regular and plays every year at the WSOP. Lacob himself might begin to get in the habit of playing at the WSOP, something he’s never done before (though he did come close to the money in the WPT Championship one year). He’d just better make sure not to skip any victory parades for the first few years if he wants to keep the rabid Golden State Warriors fan base happy.
Alexa Fisher is 7 Years Old and Can Beat you at Poker
August 12th, 2010
Finally, a poker player who looks younger than Tom Dwan. (photo courtesy of Card Player)
It looks like Daniel Negreanu may have to relinquish his nickname pretty soon. There’s a new kid poker in town, a seven year old girl who has mastered more than a dozen variants of the game and has already been written up in Card Player magazine. Of course, it’ll be more than a decade before she’s legally able to play in Vegas, or at an online poker room.
Seven year-old Alexa Fisher’s interest in poker started when she saw it being played on TV when she was just three years old. Her dad had been using playing cards and chips to teach her how to count, and she had mastered the rules and basic strategy of Hold’Em by the time she was five.
This summer she took a trip to the WSOP, where she chatted to some of the game’s biggest names, including Phil Hellmuth and Johnny Chan. She was interviewed by Poker News Daily, got some autographs, and was considered a lucky charm by a bunch of top pros.
These days she divides her time between elementary school, and learning the ins-and-outs of Badugi and double-flop Hold’Em. She already knows all the rules of every game played at the WSOP, and has shown off her skills by outlasting half the field at a charity tournament for Homes For Pets, in Texas. Most of the time, though, she plays at home. But never on a school night.
