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OK, shut up. I know. It was a rhetorical question. But it did what I wanted it to do; it got the hairs on the back of your neck standing, your eyes bulging. It hit your trigger, am I right? It had you ready to fire back with, “Huh?!?!? About as much as root canal!” Thing is, whether or not you realize it, you do. Bear with me.
When we think of the people most responsible for poker’s explosion, we’re quick to give credit to so many others: Chris Moneymaker, Steve Lipscomb, Mike Sexton, Doyle Brunson, Jack Binion…the list goes on and on, but Phil never gets the credit. I’m here to tell you he deserves it as much as anyone, because more than anyone else, he gave us all someone to talk about. He keeps the storyline alive.
Get a bunch of poker players together for long enough and the conversation eventually drifts towards Phil. Every game has a guy like that: baseball has Barry Bonds; football Terrell Owens; basketball Kobe Bryant. They combine skill with strong personalities that demand our attention. We may not adore them, but we love them in the same way we love that one weird family member who we’d never spend much time with if weren’t for an accident of birth. You may not like having to love them, but you do.
Inevitably, Crazy Uncle Phil is in our thoughts as the 2007 World Series plays out. Thanks to our Hand of the Month, he’s back on his perch, tied with Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson with ten bracelets; more than anyone else has won. The cover story for this year’s World Series of Poker program is called “The Race to Eleven”1 because the bracelet record is our home run record; the single most remarkable and distinguished the game has to offer.
Phil came into the 2006 World Series of Poker with a head of fire; after all, Doyle and Johnny had each won number ten a year earlier, which made Hellmuth just another guy who didn’t have a share of the record. We’re talking about a man with a tremendous ego to satisfy and a heightened sense of the importance of titles. To Phil, they are a measure greatness, and he is happy to tell anyone who asks that, “I want to be remembered as the greatest poker player of all time.” With that as his modus operandi, the record means everything to Phil.
He started the ’06 Series with a pair of Hold’em cashes before making his first final table. There, he blew through the opposition. Chan and Brunson were summoned for the seemingly inevitable celebration, but 21-year-old Jeff Cabanillas had other ideas, keeping his focus while Phil celebrated prematurely. Cabanillas sent the crowd home disappointed.
After that close call, there was a sixth place finish in Omaha hi/lo, and another cash, but neither were close calls with bracelet glory. That would come on July 25th, the third day of the $1,000 Hold’em with Rebuys event. While the final table offered a number of solid competitors, most of the familiar names were gone early. In the end, it was down to just Phil and Juha Helppi.
It almost ended the same way as the Cabanillas face-off did. Again, Doyle and Johnny were brought in; again, Phil brimmed with confidence, but Helppi stayed true to the course. He took the lead from Hellmuth then got Phil’s chips in the middle on a flop that gave Phil three fives and Juha the nut flush draw. The required diamond came on the turn, but the board paired on the river to give Hellmuth the full house and keep his tournament alive. Of course, for those who buy into such things, that river smacked of destiny; and destiny was fulfilled when Hellmuth won the tournament less than half an hour later.
The final hand started with Phil limping in on the button. He’d done that many times before in the match against Helppi, who employs a similar post-flop, small pot strategy. With just 300,000 in chips, Juha moved all-in on the strength of his Ad 9h. Phil insta-called, standing from his chair as he flipped over As Jh. Pins and needles.
The flop came Qs 8s 2c — no help to either hand. The crowd was silent except for the occasional scream for a jack or a ten, summoning Phil’s impending victory. The turn was Ks, leaving Juha just the two remaining non-spade nines in the deck as outs, and when the river came 6c, all hell broke loose.
Amazingly, the $631,863 Hellmuth took home with the title was the biggest cash of his tournament career. That fact, in light of his constant presence in tournaments with ten times the buy-in and those ten total bracelets, is testimony to the growth of the game Phil loves so much. He celebrated by buying a roomful of complete strangers Dom Perignon long into the night. It was a celebration worthy of an historic moment from the player you’ve got to love, even if you love to hate him.
Good luck on #11, Phil.
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