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Maryann Guberman has been a writer and editor with many gaming publications, including Sports Form, Card Player, Poker World, Player's Panorama and Systems and Methods. She also has written and edited numerous books on gambling.

Jun 23, 2007

Big Bad Phil

There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes. -- Doctor Who

It was a typical Las Vegas morning in May. The oleanders and olive trees had finished spreading their noxious pollen (I could breathe again), the latest issue of Card Player (where I was employed) had been put to bed and I was out the door on my way on a seven-mile trip downtown. I planned to watch all the action at the final table of the 1989 World Series of Poker specifically because someone I knew had predicted that a young poker star named Phil Hellmuth Jr. had a good chance of taking home the title.

I had heard the name before, or rather had seen it in tournament results print but I'd never actually seen this kid in action. I certainly didn't expect someone as young and as new to the game as he could possibly get the best of the best players in the world. Upstarts just didn't win this event in those days.

Sadly, I never got to see a single hand of the championship event -- contests that usually last for hours and hours. By the time I reached Binion's, the deed had been done. Phil defeated the previous year's champ (Johnny Chan) and was posing for photos as I descended the escalator toward the poker room. All I could see was this tall lanky guy in a button down shirt looking like a college hottie.

Being a close observer of the poker world, I followed Phil's career as part of my own line of work. I saw him win some and lose some. I first witnessed his bad boy attitude when he deposited a second-place trophy in a trash can on his way out of a tournament. I saw him develop his own brand of Phil patter and I watch numerous times as he decimated opponents while holding cards that would make an amateur cringe.

Outside the poker arena Phil seems like the proverbial absent minded professor. I've seen him drop reams of paper from under one arm while trying to balance a stack of books in another and then struggle to gather it all together.

One thing was and is perfectly clear about his persona though - Phil Hellmuth does not like to lose. He convinced himself he was the best poker player in the world and by damn he had others thinking that as well.

In recent years, though, Phil pushed a bad-boy image past the toleration point and was on the verge of becoming a caricature of himself. In 2002, he managed to steal the limelight from Robert Varkonyi by stating that if the New Yorker were fortunate enough to win the World Series championship he would shave his head. Varkonyi won, Phil shaved his head, and then made the inane statement that he should let the winner have his 15 minutes of fame.

Fans of the televised game complained to me about Phil's whining, about the asides when he complained about his opponents' stupid moves and about his petulant attitude. (Of course, the same moves in his hands are genius.) Even his poker friends seemed to be getting annoyed with his poker brat behavior.

For a while, I thought Phil Hellmuth might be buying into his public personality, a notion not bolstered by the knowledge that he had taken some time to study the quieter aspects of life at Esalen, a noted California retreat devoted to aspects of Buddhism. I'm sure Phil learned much during his week-long stay there but whatever he learned did not necessarily translate to the poker room. Not that it mattered much because it was the man's brash confidence that pushed him into the running for the most World Series of Poker bracelets in the universe.

And this year, 2007, Phil Hellmuth accomplished his goal. He won the 15th event of this year's series and locked his eleventh bracelet around his wrist. He bested his previous group of celebrities, Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson, by one and now owns the word Champion to the front of his name eleven times.

Perhaps we should not tamper with something that works.

Sure anyone can win a tournament on any given day but when you win this many prestigious events, you are special.

So, even though it's not necessary because you've proven you're the greatest by winning, but go ahead. Whine away, Phil.