Phil Hellmuth

Phil Hellmuth without a doubt is one of the best professional poker players in the world. Also known as the Poker Brat, Phil Hellmuth was born in July 16th 1964 in Madison Wisconsin. He is the eldest in a family of five with an academic father and a mother who believed her kids would achieve great things. What is interesting about the success that this professional poker player has attained is the fact that his mother put up a poster in their bathroom that said “You are what you think. You become what you think. What you think becomes reality”. He says this is the one thing that he looked at the most times and inspired him to have the kind of mental attitude that he has. The truth is that his attitude which is considered braggish and vain earned him both the name Poker Brat and the fame that he elicits today.

Other than the antics that he shows at the poker table, the hostile words he throws at the TV camera and the usual tantrums that he throws, Phil Hellmuth is known for being the youngest player in his time to have won the World Series of Poker in 1989. His accomplishments are wide and varied and they include being in first in the Championship Event in 1989, Limit Hold em in 1992, 1993, and 2003, two No Limit Hold em events in 1993, one in 2001, and one in 2003, and Pot Limit Hold em in 1997. In a single year he won three bracelets and went ahead to win the other seven to join the ranks of Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson. These remarkable titles have earned him the fame of being in the threesome league of the only living legends to have 10 bracelets in the history of professional poker. Added to this he has under his name 50 title tournaments that have been won over the years since he entered professional poker. Undeniably these wins have earned him a lot of money making him one the top earners in the world of professional poker.

The fact that he has archived these great successes is a major source of reconciliation between him and his father who was not amused when Phil dropped out of school to play poker professionally .The fact that he aggressively played a lot of card and table games while he was growing up has also played a significant role in nurturing the professional poker player that he is today. Phi Hellmuth is very famous, and he know this and has gone ahead to capitalize on his good fortunes. Other than playing poker he has established a poker empire that houses all sorts of ventures with the most notable one being the poker tutorials, his autobiography, the Poker Brat and his flagship book Play Poker Like A Pro that was received only with a luke-warm review. Other ventures include a clothing line and a sun glasses line too.

Phil Hellmuth has an online presence in which he is also a player; it is aptly known as the Ultimate Bet. This 10 time winner of the World Poker Series has been accused of divulging much of his time in his business venture than he does in the cash poker game. He does not deny this but he is pleased to say that he has a work-family balance and that he greatly admires and is inspired by those like him who can strike this balance. And talking of family he is a devoted family and lives in Palo Alto California with his wife Kathy who is a psychiatrist at the University of Wisconsin, and their two sons.

Although Phil Hellmuth has a good game he is also known for the bad large stakes that also make him loose as much as he earns. However he is the kind of player that does not have a particular playing style and this makes it difficult to catch him. He says he plays out of the box so much so that one would not know how many hand he would raise at any given time. To find out more about Phil Hellmuth visit his official website at: Phil Hellmuth

Posted by Joel on May 1 2010. Filed under Player Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry