If Barry Bonds played poker instead of baseball, he would be buy tiffany chasing Phil Hellmuth Jr., not Hank Aaron.
Hellmuth celebrated into Tuesday morning after setting a world record Monday night in Las Vegas, winning his 11th World Series of Poker bracelet — poker’s equivalent of the home run record.
“It’s the one I wanted,” said Hellmuth, who passed poker legends Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan for career victories in the WSOP — all in Hold’em games.
Hellmuth might have set another record in the celebration that followed his win in the $1,500 buy-in No-limit Hold’em tournament. “I think we spent about $10,000 on champagne for my friends,” he said. “Thing is, it bought only eight bottles.”
Hellmuth, 42, says he didn’t imbibe much champagne, but he was still drinking in his record — the latest high point of a career that started in the 1980s. He dropped out of the University of Wisconsin to become a full-time professional poker player and has won $5.5million in WSOP events. He won $637,254 in Monday’s event, which attracted 2,628 players — the largest field Hellmuth has defeated.
“I’ve been saying Doyle is the greatest poker player of all time,” Hellmuth said.earrings “I will say I’m the greatest Hold’em player in the world.”
Brash for sure, but that’s his trademark. There’s a reason Hellmuth is nicknamed “Poker Brat” — he has even berated players for what he considers poor play.
“It’s hard to describe what I do at the poker table,” Hellmuth said. “I can tell when they’re strong or they’re weak, and when you know that, you can win.”
“People just want to beat him and watch him go off,” Chan said. “They just give him too much action.”
That’s the reason Brunson said he would take Hellmuth against anybody in a tournament.
“His strength is getting players who don’t know him to not like him,” Brunson said. “It creates a giant edge for him. They’re going to show him they can beat him, but instead they fall right into his trap.
“You have to know Phil. He alienates people because of his attitude. (But) Phil’s emotions are genuine. Phil’s not showing off. That’s really Phil.”
So when Hellmuth says he’s the world’s greatest Hold’em player, he means it. And it’s key rings no surprise to hear he has no plans to stop at 11 bracelets.
Hellmuth said in 1993 he picked a number of bracelets he wanted to win in his career — 24. He’s almost halfway there, 14 years later.
“I keep thinking I can win 12 or 13 this trip,” he said.
One could come in the WSOP’s Main Event, the Texas Hold’em world championship, starting July 6. Hellmuth won the Main Event in 1989. He was 24, the youngest player to win the event.
Table talk
Allen Cunningham won the $5,000 buy-in Pot-limit Hold’em to become the eighth player to win five WSOP bracelets. … Former Northwestern wrestler Will Durkee, who competed in the 2006 NCAA championships, won the $2,000 buy-in No-limit Hold’em for his first WSOP bracelet. … Alex Kravchenko, a 36-year-old businessman from Moscow, won the $1,500 buy-in Omaha High-Low to become the first Russian citizen to win a WSOP bracelet.
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