Player Profile – Phil Hellmuth

Everybody loves to hate Phil Hellmuth but we all know he does love himself.  Who can blame him though after his success around the Texas Holdem tournament tables?  In his own personal bio he starts by saying ‘Phil Hellmuth Jr is the greatest poker player to ever play the game.’

Phil Hellmuth is known as a great tournament player when it comes down to Texas Hold’em however he certainly isn’t the best all round poker player.  Phil held the record for the youngest ever WSOP main event winner in 1989 at the tender age of just 24 when he triumphed over the great Johnny Chan.  That record was only beaten in 2009 by Joe Cada who was only 21 years old at the time.  Not satisfied with that though Phil Hellmuth has gone on to win a total of 11 World Series of Poker bracelets.

The 11th of those bracelets gave Phil another of his record breaking achievements when he won $1,500 in a No Limit poker event in 2007.  Phil Hellmuth also holds the record for the most WSOP cashes (79) and the getting to the most WSOP final tables (42).

Then in 2007 Phil Hellmuth was inducted into the poker Hall of Fame and with $11.4 million in winnings from his poker career so far Hellmuth sits 4th on the all time money rankings list, which is just below the 2006 World Champion, Jamie Gold.

A lot of Hellmuth’s fame comes from appearances on televised poker shows like Poker After Dark, National Heads-Up Championship and High Stakes Poker show.  He was the first person to win the National Heads-Up Championship in 2005, however hasn’t been so successful since, which has caused some hilarious outbursts from Hellmuth.

YouTube is host to a number of these rants and strops and after seeing a few its clear where the name ‘ Official Brat of Poker’ has come from.  A great example being the video that came up when we searched, titled ‘ Phil Hellmuth needs to calm the F*** down.’

Before you go to YouTube and check it out for yourself why don’t you take a look at a video we have linked for you here?  It’s a classic Hellmuth moment in the 2008 WSOP.  We feel it highlights perfectly what a poker brat is and also you can see Phil Hellmuth’s blog and Twitter updates right here at PokerHarder UK.

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