The Phil Hellmuth Guide to Dominating the World Series of Poker
Cast
your minds back to May 10, 1988, at the Binion’s Horseshoe & Casino
in Downtown Las Vegas, and Lance Hilt was winning a World Series of
Poker (WSOP) bracelet after defeating 206-players in the $1,500 Seven
Card Stud Split event.
It was the only significant score in the
life of Hilt. I have no idea who he is, or what became of him, but one
can assume poker was not a hugely significant part of his life.

In
contrast, seated at that same final table was a 23-year old kid called
Phil Hellmuth Jr. He was just coming off his first live tournament
victory – a $200 No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) event in the Grand Sierra
Resort in Reno – and he was full of confidence.
He would finish
fifth for less than he won in Reno, but unlike Hilt, it would not be the
only significant score of his life. Unlike Hilt, poker would be a
hugely significant part of his life. Much more than that. It would be a
very part of his being.
One year after that final table
appearance Hellmuth would defeat the great Johnny Chan to become the
youngest-ever WSOP Main Event champion. It was perfect timing for a
young man who had stopped Chan from winning an unprecedented three
consecutive WSOP Main Events.
He would go on to win 12 more
bracelets – more than any other player on the planet – become the only
player to win WSOP Main Event titles on two continents, cash in 100 WSOP
events, and take over $12m off the WSOP felts.
After being
indoctrinated in the Poker Hall of Fame he became arguably the most
decorated player in WSOP history; and yet a large proportion of the
poker community will tell you that he is useless, has major flaws when
it comes to the basic fundamentals of poker, and is just lucky.
I don’t buy it.
If
the collective ‘we’ believes that variance evens out over the long run,
then after 32-years of professional poker, Phil Hellmuth Jr. is one of
the most talented members of the poker playing fraternity the world has
ever seen.
That or the U.S government is spot on in their
valuation of our game, and we are all sitting down to play nothing more
than roulette with cards.
After speaking to a dozen poker players
who have shared table space with the WSOP legend, I have come up with a
list of 10 reasons why Phil Hellmuth has managed to dominate the WSOP
headlines for longer than most of you have even been born.
1. Game Selection
Most
poker coaches will tell you that game selection is key if you are to
survive in this game, and Phil Hellmuth Jr. knows how to pick a game
that gives him an edge sharper than Ricky Gervais’s wit.
The WSOP
attracts more fish than any other tournament series in the world and
Hellmuth has used this to his advantage better than anyone else of his
ilk.
When the world’s greatest players are competing at the
highest level in the game where is Hellmuth? Why don’t we see him
playing at more European Poker Tours (EPTs)? Why isn’t he playing the
World Poker Tour (WPT) Alpha8?
The answer is simple. The fewer
weaker players you see in the game, the less likely you are to see that
Aria hat and dark sunglasses. When it comes to taking on the world’s
best players, Hellmuth couldn’t give a *bleep* He has nothing to prove
and just loves to eat nothing but fish.
2. Confidence
If
we were to use the metaphor of the jungle, Hellmuth believes he is a
flying lion that can shoot lasers out of his eyes when it comes to the
Savannah of the WSOP.
It doesn’t matter if people think he’s
*bleep* all that matters is that he thinks he’s the best. He owns the
WSOP, and this creates an added zest to his game that very few possess.
He is one of 47 Ronin; he is King Leonidas; he is Neo in the middle of a thousand Agent Smith’s.
3. He is Under Estimated
During
my conversations with his fellow professionals I have gauged the
opinion that those who play with him can appreciate that he has a very
high level of talent, and those that haven’t, cannot fathom how he is
able to win a game of Connect 4, let alone 13-WSOP bracelets.
This tells me that it’s all about perception.
If
you are going to have your name sewn into the fabric of books like Play
Poker Like the Pros, and get your arse handed to you on a plate when
trying to compete against the very best cash players on the most watched
poker TV shows in the world, then people are going to assume you are a
goal keeper short of a football team.
A lot of players believe
that your qualities as a poker player are determined by your abilities
in a cash game. That might be true, but the last time I looked they were
not handing out WSOP bracelets for cash games.
Player’s under-estimate him, and he’s smart enough to understand this.
4. The Man Knows How to Survive
We
have all laughed as the action folds around to him on the button and he
folds his 4 big blinds because queen-ten off suit is not strong enough
for him; but it’s this stubbornness to part with his stack that sets him
apart from his peers.
Is it in line with optimum game theory?
He
couldn’t care less. For every single person who tells him that he
should do things differently he has $18m reasons why he can’t be arsed
listening.
The man wrote the book on how to fold a hand. Perhaps,
it’s true that he plays a short stack no better than Verne Troyer plays
basketball, but it’s this instinct to survive that will see him
consistently go deeper than Linda Lovelace.
He is the master at
playing small pot poker against weaker players, avoids big pots like the
pox and like the Stranglers once sang, “he’s always hanging around.”
5. He’s Different
“Great
thing about poker is that we play VASTLY different styles but there is
more than one way to win at this beautiful game.” Tweets Daniel
Negreanu.
There are very few players who have the same style as
Phil Hellmuth and it’s something that he’s not often given credit for.
He bucks the trend. When the kids in school were wearing skinny ties I
reckon Hellmuth had a great big fat one.
He doesn’t play a
‘normal’ style of poker and this is why everyone says he has weak
fundamentals. What he does do is play an extremely good style of poker
when he comes up against weaker players, and knows how to avoid those
that are better than him.
The better players will say he is too
predictable, but he can also baffle the *bleep* out of people, because
he doesn’t do what he is supposed to do.
6. He Preys on the Weak
When Phil Hellmuth Jr. gets angry he goes for a walk to find a midget so he can give it a good kick-in.
This
man doesn’t pick fights with people unless he has knows he is going to
win more often than lose. He’s your typical schoolyard bully. The guy
who picks on the weak players and runs a mile when anybody fights back.
This
was the most consistent reply that I got when I spoke to the poker
masses. He was viewed as being the master of finding and exploiting
weaknesses in those with skinny arms and a punch with about as much
weight behind it as a gnats fart.
The WSOP is full of the weak
and inviting Phil Hellmuth Jr. is the equivalent of inviting a lion to a
gazelle’s bondage sex party.
7. Passion
There is a reason
that Hellmuth rants and raves better than anyone in the game, and
that’s because he has more passion than anyone else.
It’s a
contentious issue, because calling someone ‘an idiot’ while another
player keeps his pipes closed, doesn’t always mean one has more passion
than the other; but in this case I really believe Hellmuth has more of
the good stuff than most.
I will always remember his famous rant
against Cristian Dragomir in the 2008 WSOP. Chino Rheem tries to calm
things down by saying to Hellmuth, “Ok he sucked out on you, I
understand, but this is poker.”
Hellmuth looked at Chino Rheem and said, “To you, this is poker man, but to me this is my life.”
There
are a lot of players with more skill than Hellmuth, but I’m not so sure
they stack up when it comes to wearing your heart on your sleeve.
8. The Mouth
Hellmuth
would never have become as famous as he is today without his outbursts.
If it wasn’t for the endorsements that allowed him to play at the
highest level in the game, he may have drifted away like so many before
him.
Fortunately, he had a mouth that burned with as much fire as
John McEnroe, and he quickly became a marketing dream. Every soap opera
needs a strong villain and Hellmuth was cast perfectly.
Hellmuth’s
mouth attracts players like a Beyoncé music video attracts male
eyeballs. Everyone wants to take a shot at him and in a way he’s like
the Venus fly trap. Players get so involved with him that before you
know it they are stuck. They try to flap those wings, but they just
can’t escape, and slowly, but surely, he eats them alive.
9. The Family Man
I
don’t think I have ever spoken to a man as devoted as Phil Hellmuth
when it comes to his family. He is a missus Hellmuth nut, and one of the
reasons that he hasn’t traversed the globe in the search of more titles
is because of his love for his children.
This love has given him
a strong foundation, and he has used that to his advantage. He does not
succumb to the temptations that poker can provide. He is as focused off
the felt as he is on the felt, and he knows win or lose he still has
his family to fall back on.
10. Self-Awareness
After
playing the game for so long I believe Hellmuth understands his
strengths and weaknesses better than you know. Sometimes he can come
across as a man who has lost a few marbles, but it’s very difficult to
understand if you are viewing the real Hellmuth, or the one that parades
around in front of the camera?
Take his late arrivals at live tournaments as an example.
Some
people believe that he does this to be ‘cool’. Like the kids, with the
upturned collars and slick back hair who turn up late for the dance,
never set foot on the floor, and expect to be snogging the girl from
beneath someone’s coat when the smooch songs are blaring out of the
speakers.
Then there others that believe he understands that deep
stacked, post flop poker is not his thing, and that he turns up late
because it is the smart thing for him to do.
When he tells the
world he is the greatest he is sending a psychological message to the
fish that he feeds off. This is no accident. It’s all part of the
Hellmuth master plan.
A plan that has seen him become the most
decorated poker player in WSOP history, and he still looks like he has
another 40-good years still left in the tank.
I summing up I
remind you that anyone can win a poker tournament. It’s why we love the
game so much. But if we start believing that you can be that lucky over a
30-year stretch, then we have a serious flaw in the construct of our
beautiful game.
If there was a study to determine what traits
made up a long term winner in the game of poker, then the first player
to fall under the knife would be Phil Hellmuth Jr., and do you know what
would happen as the blade sliced through that thick skin of his?
Chips and cards would spew all over the floor.