Phil Hellmuth

Phillip J. Hellmuth, Jr. (born July 16, 1964 in Madison, Wisconsin) is a professional poker player. He is a member of the Poker Hall of Fame and holds the record for most bracelets won at the World Series of Poker (11)

World Series of Poker

In 1989, the 24-year-old Hellmuth became the youngest player to win the Main Event of the WSOP by defeating the two-time defending champion, Johnny Chan in heads up play. At the 2006 World Series of Poker, after making it down to the last two in a prior event, he captured his record 10th World Series of Poker bracelet in the $1,000 No Limit Hold’em with rebuys event. At the time, this tied him with fellow poker legends Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan. However, unlike Brunson and Chan, all of his bracelets are in Texas hold’em. Hellmuth won his record-breaking 11th bracelet in the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em Event. Hellmuth also holds the record for most WSOP Cashes (63) and is tied with TJ Cloutier for most WSOP final tables (39).

Hellmuth has won $5,604,386 at the WSOP and is ranked 7th on the WSOP All Time Money List.

World Series of Poker bracelets

World Poker Tour

Hellmuth has not won a World Poker Tour (WPT) tournament yet. He has cashed 9 times and made 2 final tables. He finished 4th in the $3,000 No Limit Hold’em WPT Event at the 3rd Annual 49′er Gold Rush Bonanza in 2002 and 3rd in the $10,000 No Limit Hold’em WPT Event at the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods in 2003. He also played in two WPT Invitational Events, the World Poker Tour by The Book in 2004 and the WPT Bad Boys of Poker II in 2006 and finished 3rd both times.

To date, Hellmuth has won $589,964 in WPT tournaments.

Other tournaments

Hellmuth is the season 3 champion of Late Night Poker.

In 2005, Hellmuth won the first National Heads-Up Poker Championship. He defeated Men Nguyen, Paul Phillips, Huck Seed, Lyle Berman and Antonio Esfandiari on the way to the final against Chris Ferguson whom he defeated in two out of three games. While trying to repeat in 2006, he lost in the first round to Chip Reese. In 2007, Hellmuth did not play due to the PartyPoker.com Premier League Poker, a tournament in which he took part. He won 4 out of his 6 group matches and eventually finished 3rd in the finals. Hellmuth will take part in the 2008 National Heads-Up Poker Championship.

He makes regular appearances on episodes of Poker After Dark, both as a player and as a drop in commentator, but as of August 2007, he has yet to win. He also appeared in the first and fourth seasons of GSN’s cash game show, High Stakes Poker.

As of 2007, his total live tournament winnings exceed $9,580,000. He is ranked 4th on the All Time Money List, behind Jamie Gold, Joe Hachem and Daniel Negreanu.

Poker-related activities

Hellmuth has made several instructional poker videos, including his Ultimate White To Black Belt Course and Phil Hellmuth’s Million Dollar Poker Secrets. He has written many articles for Cardplayer magazine and several poker books including Play Poker like the Pros, Bad Beats and Lucky Draws, The Greatest Poker Hands ever Played, and Poker Brat, which contains autobiographical material as well as poker advice. In spring 2006, Hellmuth replaced Phil Gordon as commentator on Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown.

Personality and controversy

Hellmuth is known for making scathing remarks about his opponents’ skills, especially after taking bad beats. During the Main Event of the 2005 World Series of Poker he stated “I can dodge bullets, baby!” after laying down Ace King to an opponent with pocket Aces on a board of A 4 4 Q rainbow, and even accused an amateur player of not even being able to spell poker after that player put all his money in the pot preflop with King Jack against Hellmuth’s Ace King and hit a three-outer to win the pot.

Some other famous quotes include: “If luck weren’t involved, I guess I’d win every one,” and “I’ve revolutionized the way to play Texas hold ‘em.”

In the first week of the show Poker After Dark on NBC, after fellow pros Shawn Sheikhan, Steve Zolotow, Gus Hansen, and Huck Seed refused to stop talking while it was his turn to act on his hand after Annie Duke raised him, he threatened to never play in these tournaments again and then he walked away. Annie was the only player at the table who remained quiet while the drama played out. Hellmuth eventually came back and was eliminated a few hands later.

While many professional players, amateurs, and fans alike consider his antics distasteful and abrasive at times, they respect his talent for the game and his personality when he is away from the table. It can be contended that Hellmuth engages in some bad etiquette purposely, since a large part of selling his image is as a “poker brat.”

Hellmuth’s sponsor, UltimateBet, had arranged for him to arrive at the 2007 WSOP Main Event in an Ultimatebet.com race car, complete with racing suit and helmet, accompanied by 11 Ultimatebet.com beauties, one for each of Hellmuth’s 11 World Series of Poker bracelets. Those plans came screeching to a halt when Hellmuth crashed the race car in the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino parking lot on Sunday. Hellmuth lost control of the race car and hit a concrete light fixture in the parking lot. After the accident, Hellmuth showed up in a limo, met his escorts, and made his grand entrance to the Main Event two hours late. The accident created some controversy because some people thought that the accident might have been staged, but Hellmuth said it wasn’t.

Hellmuth later made light of the accident in a television advertisement for ultimatebet.com in which the crash is shown.

Personal life

Hellmuth attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison for three years before dropping out to play poker full-time. Hellmuth resides in Palo Alto, California with his wife Katherine Sanborn (whom Phil convinced to play in the Ladies’ Event of the 2005 World Series of Poker, where she was eliminated by eventual champion Jennifer Tilly) and two sons, Phillip and Nicholas.