Poker: Two Nine Phil
Written by playerpress.com, Tuesday January 20 2009
Phil Hellmuth, Jr. is many things, but boring is not one of them. That’s why people either love him, or hate him. Hellmuth doesn’t care just as long as you get his name right. After all, he has his own branding line which features his initials arranged in a way to resemble a Roman numeral two and a reversed Arabic nine. Of course, that Roman numeral two could also represent the 11 WSOP bracelets Phil has captured.
Hellmuth holds the record for the number of bracelets awarded to one player. The man who quit the University of Wisconsin to pursue the dream of becoming the world’s best poker player certainly has the jewelry to lay claim to the title. Along the way Hellmuth has made some celebrity friends, such as Charles Barkley, and pissed off legions of fellow players. For example, he and the legendary Sam Grizzle once came to blows over events that transpired at the table.
That’s the type of thing that has led to Hellmuth being dubbed the Poker Brat, which is also the title of his autobiography and resulted in him being penalized for outrageous behavior and rude remarks during tournaments. Not always the best of sports, in the 2005 WSOP Hellmuth folded to Christian Dragomir only to discover that his adversary held a weak hand. Instead of congratulating Dragomir on his skill at the bluff Hellmuth berated him by calling him an idiot and launching into a diatribe that resulted in a penalty being assessed on the next round which was scheduled on the following day. Hellmuth worked his magic that affords him celebrity status and appealed to WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack. Pollack sided with the Poker Brat and overturned the penalty.
Along with his status on the WSOP tour Hellmuth has made a name for himself in on line betting and TV. He is endorsed by ultimatebet.com and you can play him on line or over your cell phone. Ultimatebet uses him as their poster child and often stages PR events to coincide with his entry in tournaments. He was once supplied with a race car that he was to drive to a 2007 WSOP Main Event. Once he arrived he was to be escorted into the venue by 11 models to represent his number of bracelets. Hellmut crashed the car in his hotel parking lot and arrived two hours later by a chauffeured limo. In ’08 Ultimatebet took a safer route and had him escorted by a military style convoy from which he appeared in uniform with 11 stars on his helmet.
A major subject of controversy regarding his relationship with Ultimatebet resulted in December 2008 when he was awarded an on line pot of $5599.00 when he held the worst hand in the field. Hellmuth responded to the aftermath by saying that he had been in similar on line situations where he was sometimes the recipient of the glitch and sometimes came out on the losing end. Since Ultimatebet claimed that such glitches did not exist they were at a loss to explain what had happened and why the guy they endorse suggested these types of occurrences were commonplace.
Since then Ultimatebet has stated a bug caused the error, but many still believe that cheating was at the root. As for Hellmuth, he has shaken it off and continues to display the behavior that once caused him to walk away from a televised event because others at the table were talking. In other words, he is still the Poker Brat and proud of it.
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