Tag: Phil Hellmuth

The 2020 World Series of Poker (WSOP) has started, and it’s unlike anything the world has ever seen. The irresistible interlocutors of the live realm have to make to do with a comfortable chair, banging playlist and a box full of Pot Noodles as the WSOP moves wholly online. The first quotidian bracelet events are in the bag, and two of the biggest names in WSOP history enjoyed deep, deep runs.

We start with the man who has won more bracelets than anyone breathing or not, Mr Phil Hellmuth Jr. Playing under the pseudonym ‘Lumestackin’ (an anagram of ‘Luckiest Man’), Hellmuth came close to bracelet #16, with an 11th place finish in Event #1: $500 No-Limit Hold’em. It’s a feat worthy of an affectionate salute given that Hellmuth had to compete in a field of 1,715 runners.

Hellmuth wasn’t the only recognisable pro to come close to turning their palm readers into bona fide psychics. The World Poker Tour (WPT) commentator, Tony Dunst finished third, and Taylor Von Kriegenbergh finished ninth.

Here are those results.

Event #1: $500 No-Limit Hold’em

1,715 entrants

Results

  1. Jonathan ‘Art.Vandelay’ Dokler – $130,426
  2. Justin ‘MadTitan’ Turner – $80,416
  3. Tony ‘Panoramic’ Dunst – $57,881
  4. Shawn ‘SayGoodNight’Daniels – $42,060
  5. Michael ‘DDSpade’ Balan – $30,947
  6. Kyle ‘ChefShap’ Shappelle – $22,998
  7. Daniel ‘djp1006’ Park – $17,287
  8. Mark ‘ NostraDonkus’ Liedtke – $13,120
  9. Taylor ‘ZeroTo100’ Von Kriegenbergh – $10,110

Daniel Negreanu Runs Deep in Event #2 $1,000 No Limit Hold’em Deepstack 8-Max

The man with the most publicised side action in the WSOP enjoyed a deep run in the second event. Daniel Negreanu has offered the world dibs on a $1m+ array of bracelet action, and he nearly closed the book, early.

Negreanu, who is grinding from his Las Vegas pad, finished 18th from 919-entrants in the first $1k event of the series. The man who put poker streaming on the map, Jason Somerville, finished sixth, and Roland Israelishvili extended his WSOP in the money (ITM) record with 225 cashes (bracelet & ring events).

Here are those results.

Event #2: $1,000 No Limit Hold’em Deepstack 8-Max

919-entrants

Results

  1. Louis ‘PokeThese’ Lynch – $168,586
  2. Ryan ‘KOVID19’ Ko – $104,242
  3. Kevin ‘GoneBananas’ Garosshen – $73,424
  4. Daniel ‘IntoTheRiver’ Fischer – $52,38
  5. Sean ‘bahbababa’ Prendiville – $37,890
  6. Jason ‘haderade’ Somerville – $27,763
  7. Jon ‘jonnyg93’ Gisler – $20,691
  8. Matthew ‘Michmeister’ Mich – $15,628

WSOP All-Time Cashes Leaderboard (Rings and Bracelets)

  1. Roland Israelishvili – 225
  2. Douglas Carli – 196
  3. Allen Kessler – 177
  4. Phil Hellmuth – 154
  5. Chris Ferguson – 150
  6. Maurice Hawkins – 144
  7. Ari Engel – 142
  8. Chris Conrad – 141
  9. Daniel Negreanu – 133
  10. Vincent Moscati – 130

The teachers in Los Angeles have been striking for better working conditions; astronauts have been learning that a trip to Mars is likely to increase their risk of cancer – so what’s been going on in the world of the high stakes professional poker player?
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Pinnacle.
We begin our ride on the rainbow of risk with the most famous face in poker: Daniel Negreanu.
What a tough week it’s been for the outspoken hero/anti-hero/villain (delete as you feel fit) as his willingness to share his thoughts with the world came back to bite him in the arse this week.
Three streams of tweets seemed to annoy a large contingent of the poker community.
There were a series of tweets focusing on ‘loaning money’ and taking ‘100% responsibility for your life.’
I’ve loaned money and been stiffed. It’s unfortunate, but I don’t hate those people. I don’t whine about how “unfair” it is, because I know who made the decision to loan the money: me.
No one put a gun to my head.
I’m not at “fault”, but I am responsible.
You are 100% responsible for every decision you make
Sometimes people will lie to you, and YOU will make a bad decision as a result
Sometimes you will make a bad decision under stress.
However it happens, it’s always YOU making the decision. Always. 100%
Negreanu aired his views on what constitutes a ‘good’ and ‘bad’ poker player, amending his ‘bad’ tweet after a tsunami of pain rained down on him.
5 things that make you good for a poker game:
– Lose Money
– Act Quickly
– Friendly/Engaging
– Generous/Give Action
– Positive Attitude
If you are 4 of these things but also win money, you are likely to be a pleasant addition to any poker game.
Here are Negreanu’s views on what traits constitutes a ‘bad’ poker player.
– Winner
– Slow
– Quiet (Also miserable)
– Nit (Cheap/Selfish)
– Hater (Complainer/Negative)
If you match all of these categories then you are probably a real treat t have at parties. 2 out for 5 is still bad.”
And he continued.
“This type of player is a cancer to poker. The Nits are like a disease. Some just don’t know any better, they aren’t bad people, but they do way more damage than good by playing poker.”
In response, Unibet Ambassadors, and Chip Race co-hosts, Dave Lappin & Dara O’Kearney both wrote blog posts airing their disappointment, and criticism of Negreanu’s actions, who in turn wrote a blog post apologising for the tweet, but pointing out that he felt some of the accusatory feedback felt too personal, and likely a smear campaign against him.
And then came the old chestnut courtesy of Sam Greenwood.
“How much damage does receiving a salary to promote a site that stole millions of dollars from its players do?”
Shaun Deeb was more personal than most in his vitriol predicting that Negreanu’s marriage to Amanda Leatherman will only last two years.
“I am a flawed human being as we all are to a certain extent, but I am always striving to be a better version of myself, and digesting feedback both positive and negative to look for areas where I can be better,” Negreanu wrote in his apologetic blog post. “I’d love to see a return to “I hate your ideas” rather than “I hate you.” Would do us all some good.”
You can read Dave Lappin’s thoughts right here (http://rocshot.com/lappin/265-yesterdays-faith/), similarly Dara O’Kearney’s view (http://dokearney.blogspot.com/2019/01/oh-danny-boy.html), Daniel’s reactionary blog post (https://fullcontactpoker.com/the-state-of-poker-2019/), and and my opinion on the debacle (https://calvinayre.com/2019/01/30/poker/negreanu-stars-enemies-musings-bad-faith-things/).
In stark contrast to the abuse Negreanu experienced, a terminally-ill man, Zachary Butler, suffering from the genetic disease Friedreich’s Ataxia, had his wish come true when the Dream Foundation (a non-profit that helps the terminally ill’s dreams come true), organised for him to visit Daniel Negreanu at his home to play poker with him.
To Butler, Negreanu is a star, who makes him laugh.
Pure.
Simple.
Negreanu will also be the emcee at the next Charity Series of Poker (CSOP) event scheduled to take place March 2 at Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa with proceeds going towards St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Jason Koon Joins Triton Poker, Andrew Robl Interview Airs, Badziakouski Joins partypoker; Leonard Wins Triple Crown

Jason Koon agreed to join Triton Poker in an ambassadorial capacity this week. Koon will promote the Triton Super High Roller Series to his buddies in the west, and will personally attend each tour stop throughout 2019.
The first of these stops are in Jeju, South Korea, and this week the Triton crew announced a schedule that includes six events including for the first time a No-Limit Hold’em Short-Deck Ante-Only Bounty tournament.


And that schedule:


Although unconfirmed, one person you would imagine will be in Jeju, taking his daily pew in the biggest cash games in the world, will be Andrew Robl, and this week we released our interview with the man during his time at the 2018 Triton Super High Roller Series in Montenegro.
Check it out.


The current Triton SHR Series Main Event champion of the Montenegro and Jeju series is Mikita Badziakouski, and this week, the Belarusian joined partypoker as an ambassador. And finally, partypoker Ambassador, and high stakes star, Patrick Leonard, won an online Triple Crown (he thinks) by taking down the $500 buy-in Blade on the GG Network for $19,663.10, the $1,050 Thursday Thrill on PokerStars for $19,342.01, and the partypoker Sunday High Roller Bounty Hunter for $40,100.15.

Phil Hellmuth Wins a Title; Gets His Hair Done; Plans for Brazil.

Phil Hellmuth was in the news this week for a variety of different reasons. The World Poker Tour (WPT) Raw Deal host took down his first title since winning his 15th World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet in the summer.
Hellmuth defeated 64-entrants to win the $37,248 first prize in the $1,590 No-Limit Heads-up side event at the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open. Hellmuth beat Joseph Cappello in his final heads-up match.
If you ever wondered what was underneath that ARIA cap, now you know.
Nothing.


Finally, Hellmuth set himself a new bucket list goal of winning “at least four WPT’s”, told himself to “man up”, “attend more WPT’s”, and then declared an intention to do that by “ramping up my poker schedule.” Although it may not be a WPT event, Hellmuth is sticking to his word by appearing in South America for the first time as a guest of partypoker in the MILLIONS South America event scheduled for Rio.
Take ten!

Live Tournament News: Kempe and Lewis Pick Up Wins in Melbourne; Elias Likewise in California

Three high stakes live tournaments to get you up to speed on, and we will start in Melbourne at the Aussie Millions. There seems to have been a resurgence in High Stakes Action at the Crown Casino, after a dismal showing last year.
The AUD 25,000 Challenge attracted 151-entrants, and Rainer Kempe agreed on a heads-up deal with Toby Lewis before winning the flip for the title. Lewis would go on to win the deciding flip in the AUD 50,000 Challenge after overcoming 62-entrants, including Manig Loeser in heads-up action to round off a fantastic few days for the man from the UK.
Here are the podium places.
$25k Final Table Results
1. Rainer Kempe – $595,055*
2. Toby Lewis – $566,074*
3. Chino Rheem – $300,067
4. Guillaume Nolet – $221,789
5. Gautam Dhingra – $156,557
6. Luke Marsh – $110,894
7. Jack Salter – $84,802
*Denotes a heads-up deal
50K Final Table Results
1. Toby Lewis – $588,999*
2. Manig Loeser – $556,017*
3. Thomas Muehloecker – $296,856
4. Dominik Nitsche – $233,244
5. Bjorn Li – $169,632
6. Tobias Ziegler – $148,428
7. Michael Zhang – $127,224
*Denotes a heads-up deal
The WPT Gardens Poker Championships also held a $25,000 event, but with people jetting between the Bahamas and Melbourne it didn’t pull in the numbers the organisers hoped. Darren Elias defeated 11-entrants, including Chance Kornuth, heads-up, to win the $192,500 first prize.
Finally, Dan Smith beat the seven-time US Chess Champion, Alex Shabalov, in a PRO Chess League match, showing he has many arrows in that quiver of his.
And that’s this week’s Pinnacle.

In the fifth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School recalls how a young Phil Hellmuth stopped “The Orient Express” in his tracks

The 1989 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event was meant to be the remarkable story of how Johnny Chan, aka “The Orient Express”, powered his way to an unbeatable third championship title in a row.
He might have got away with it, too, were it not for that pesky kid, Phil Hellmuth…

Who is Phil Hellmuth?

Do you even have to ask? With his gift for self-promotion, backed up by a natural talent sharpened by three decades of playing at the highest levels, Phil Hellmuth might just be the most famous of all poker players – perhaps matched only by Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey.
Where would poker be without Phil Hellmuth? In an age in which so many pros are quiet, reserved maths obsessives, Hellmuth is a uniquely colourful figure. His live reads are so well honed that he calls his intuitive style of play “White Magic”. His brashness earned him the nickname “Poker Brat”, one he has embraced as the title of his new autobiography. He has earned more WSOP bracelets than any other player (14 and counting). Nor is he shy of reminding players of that fact: in 2009 he arrived at the WSOP dressed as a Roman Emperor, carried aloft by muscular men and attended by a bevy of beauties.

The 1989 WSOP Main Event

And it all began at the 1989 World Series of Poker. The poker world was preparing to celebrate the incredible “three-peat” victory of Johnny Chan, who was gunning for his third championship title after winning back-to-back Main Events in 1987 and 1988. Instead, The Orient Express hit the buffers and Hellmuth became, at 24, the youngest ever poker world champion.
Phil Hellmuth had knocked out two players in a single hand to get heads-up with Johnny Chan, and so held about twice as many chips as the defending champion. It didn’t last long. Holding pocket 9s, Hellmuth made a sudden outsized bet, moving all-in pre-flop. Johnny Chan barely hesitated before calling the young upstart, and found himself a clear underdog with A7.
It was a victory no one could have predicted – except, strangely, the two finalists themselves. Only a year and half earlier Phil Hellmuth had reassessed his directionless life, and written down a list of goals. They included “Win the Main Event”. Before the tournament, he left a message on his answerphone saying, “You’re talking to the 1989 world champion of poker”.
As for Chan, he had said of Phil Hellmuth in an Esquire interview earlier that year, “That kid, when he learns to rein it in, he’s going to win the Main Event.” This is one time where Chan can’t have been happy to have been proved right.

Who is Phil Hellmuth? Poker player profile

  • Born in 1964, Phil Hellmuth was the youngest ever winner of the WSOP Main Event, in 1989, and holds a record 14 bracelets
  • Nicknamed “the Poker Brat” for his outbursts when he suffers a bad beat
  • Author of three influential books on poker strategy, and a new autobiography, Poker Brat: the Story of the World’s Greatest Poker Player
  • Famous for saying “If there was no luck I’d win every hand”
  • Phil Hellmuth’s grand entrances to the World Series of Poker include dressing as a US general, a Roman emperor, and a mixed martial arts fighter

Read the 4th part of our WSOP series about a winning Main Event hand from Johnny Chan that was immortalised in the movie Rounders.
Or come back tomorrow to check out the next part which profiles the only woman to reach the final table at the World Series of Poker.

With the results now in of Mike Noori’s prop bet to eat $1,000 of McDonald’s in just 36 hours, Paul Phua lists five more poker prop bets that were even crazier

In the first part of my top 10, I wrote that poker player Mike Noori would be attempting to eat $1,000 of McDonald’s food in just 36 hours for a prop bet. The results of the weekend’s food-fest are in, and… he failed. To be fair, most people thought it was physically impossible!
Mike Noori entered the event in good spirit, dressed up as McDonald’s character the Hamburglar, and Tweeting video clips and updates as @McHamburgler1k. However, the writing was on the wall when he Tweeted: “10 hours in, $90 worth of food consumed. Mental state = shaky”. The final Tweet conceding defeat said that it had been “a fun time” and that the event had raised $14k for charity.
Will poker players go to any lengths for a prop bet? Judge for yourself, with the final five entries in my top 10, below.

Ashton Griffin and the ultra marathon

Poker players don’t always take the greatest care of themselves, which makes Ashton Griffin’s prop bet feat particularly impressive. In 2011, he claimed he could run 70 miles on a treadmill within 24 hours, and got enough people interested in the action to have $300,000 riding on success. Griffin was just 22, and hugely fit; he must have known he could do it, because he went out partying the night before his physical ordeal. Despite concerns for his health – his own parents turned up halfway through to plead with him to stop – he completed the 70 miles with 45 minutes to spare. Talk about “running good”!

Dan Bilzerian and the Vegas bike challenge

You might more readily associate Dan Bilzerian with private jets than bicycles, but the poker-playing playboy also completed an impressive physical challenge for a prop bet. He was bet $600,000 that he couldn’t cycle from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in less than 48 hours. Bilzerian had hardly touched a bicycle in years, so he left nothing to chance. He says he spent nearly $150,000 on preparing for the feat of endurance, including getting coaching from Lance Armstrong. In the end, it wasn’t even close: Bilzerian aced it in just 33 hours.

Joe Sebek and the face tattoos

Many prop bets involve tattoos, or haircuts. After being eliminated from the 2002 WSOP Main Event by Robert Varkonyi, Phil Hellmuth said he would shave his head if Varkonyi went on to win. He did, and Hellmuth honoured the bet. But the one the players likely regret most was a “last longer” bet between Joe Sebok, Jeff Madsen, and Gavin Smith: the loser had to get tattooed with the others’ faces. Sebok is the one with a permanent ink reminder on his skin of both men, while Jeff Madsen, who busted out next, “only” had to have a tattoo of Gavin Smith.

Ted Forrest, Mike Matusow and the crash diet

In 2008, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow won a $100,000 bet from Ted Forrest by losing 60lbs in a year. Two years later, the tables were turned: this time it was Forrest who had to get down to a trim 140lbs, by losing 48lbs. Forrest bet $50,000 at 10:1 he could do it in just four months, and another $100,000 at 20:1 he could do it in two. Two months to lose 40lbs is a tall order, but with $2 million riding on his crash diet, Forrest literally starved himself for the last ten days and made it just before the shorter deadline.

John Hennigan and the exile to Iowa

One of the most telling of all prop bet stories is told by Howard Lederer. Poker player John Hennigan was once bet that he couldn’t spend a quiet six weeks in casino-free Des Moines, Iowa. Some say the bet was $50,000, some say it was $100,000, but it certainly sounds like an easy enough bet to win. Hennigan even said he was looking forward to working on his golf. But after just two days he bought out of the bet and returned sheepishly to Vegas. It seems like the only prop bet a dedicated gambler can’t possibly win is a bet not to gamble!