Phil Helmuth wins 14th bracelet!

BentleyBoy

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By any standards the achievement of 14 bracelets is pretty impressive, regardless of what ever one thinks of the player. Put it this way! Which one of us would refuse or decline winning this many bracelets?
 
Farseer

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Why would someone who is good at cash want to play in such a tournament?

I can tell you as a past 3/5 reg live, we'd watch the MTT players come in to sign up and literally salivate. The live MTT player is the weakest poker player on earth right now and it isn't debatable.

The problem with MTTs is the insane vig until you get pretty high and the variance is such that most players have no business playing 1k's or above on their own dime.

They don't, because in general cash players suck in MTTs big time. Same thing other way around as it requires totally different style to be succesful in either.

Just look at Gus Hansen. Beast in MTTs during his time as his style was dominating but terrible at cash games where people weren't afraid of losing their chips as they could just buy a new stack.

You could just say that live cash player is the weakest poker player on Earth and it is just as true as other way around.

I agree that the greatest downside in MTTs is huge variance. It is beatable though with good game selection (1st rule is NOT to play in any Stars.com NLHE regular tournament). In live tournaments you virtually never beat the variance so yeah, I at least acknowledge it and play them purely for fun and entertaiment (I mainly play just when I win packages easily and take it as a vacation).
 
KUN_AGUERO_KROOS

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I honestly do not think he's a good player, has several tilts the tables that watched play, chinga, speaks ill of his table mates. I find it very unpleasant to play with people like that. But even he is such a incontante his game right. Congratulations to him. But it is not of my prefiridos.

lol. Google Translator FTW.

You mispelled some words in Portuguese that`s why it didn`t translate them.
 
LD1977

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This is his 2nd Razz win, obviously he is good at it.

That said, Razz does have runner-runner-runner suckouts so yeah possibly he was lucky in HU a few times :) there are always chances to get paired incessantly while the other guy completes his Q-high hand.
 
Shumkoolie

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Funny that the majority of the people here like Phil and were happy to see him win his 14th. I agree as well, but on some other places, people were much less supportive of his winning #14. I watched the latter part of the live stream and David "Gunslinger" Bach, who is a prominent mixed games player thought Phil played a couple of critical hands very poorly when he was heads-up.

That said though, I think it's going to be tough to catch him, though if he gets to 20, it would be especially difficult.
 
FromHereOn

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What a class act... Bizarre thinking that of Hellmuth, but here we are.

His life coach deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.
 
Poker Orifice

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Watched the bracelet ceremony for Phil's 14th today in the Pavilion room. Crowd seemed to really like him. WTG Phil!
 
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People love to hate the guy but obviously he's doing something right!

He goes way out of line most of the times. Unless it's all staged and he only wants to make a name for himself by doing it (wouldn't surprise me).

He's not that good of a theoretical player also, hence why there's even a book called "Don't Listen to Phil Hellmuth". He does make some awesome plays from time to time tho :p
 
A2345Razz

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They don't, because in general cash players suck in MTTs big time. Same thing other way around as it requires totally different style to be succesful in either.

Just look at Gus Hansen. Beast in MTTs during his time as his style was dominating but terrible at cash games where people weren't afraid of losing their chips as they could just buy a new stack.

You could just say that live cash player is the weakest poker player on Earth and it is just as true as other way around.

I agree that the greatest downside in MTTs is huge variance. It is beatable though with good game selection (1st rule is NOT to play in any Stars.com NLHE regular tournament). In live tournaments you virtually never beat the variance so yeah, I at least acknowledge it and play them purely for fun and entertaiment (I mainly play just when I win packages easily and take it as a vacation).

Except, the whole point is winning, consistent cash game players generally aren't interested in becoming serious MTT'ers but almost to a man could quite easily make the switch, while the opposite is almost certainly untrue.

MTT play is simply much simpler, period.

As much as tournament players want to dismiss the idea, as someone who has played a decent amount of poker in the last decade, I can tell you it's crystal clear that the live MTT player is the weakest player on earth by category....and it isn't that close at all.

The canard about the two modes of play being "completely different" is just a cheap out MTT players use to delude themselves to the inescapable fact that MTT play can be simplified much of the time due to stack size.


Also, there is no evidence that Gus is a top MTT player anymore. The game has changed so much from when he dominated that I would be surprised if he was even a top 100 NLH mtt player right now, and wouldn't be shocked if he wasn't a top 250 player.

Now, that doesn't mean he isn't brilliant and courageous and that is taking NOTHING away from his past accomplishments.
 
VGShaa

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Cool, Phil Hellmuth, though very temperamental and hot-tempered player opposite of Negreanu, but it is unique and a great player :cool:
 
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I have heard that despite his table antics that Hellmuth is a nice guy away from the table. I used to think the poker brat was a person's but not as sure anymore
 
juanchoak

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I think Phil is an excellent player, his bracelets do the talking, but i think it's a bad thing that the most bracelets holder is a terrible person at the tables. He is a very disrespectful player, kind of a punk. If you are a poker pro you have to deal with the fact that there is going to be bad players who make bad decisions and get rewarded, that you will have to deal with bad beats, being poker a game that takes place in so many levels you have to be prepared for all of those facts and be a well educated person not the poker brat he is.
 
IntenseHeat

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I think Phil is an excellent player, his bracelets do the talking, but i think it's a bad thing that the most bracelets holder is a terrible person at the tables. He is a very disrespectful player, kind of a punk. If you are a poker pro you have to deal with the fact that there is going to be bad players who make bad decisions and get rewarded, that you will have to deal with bad beats, being poker a game that takes place in so many levels you have to be prepared for all of those facts and be a well educated person not the poker brat he is.

He's been working on the attitude thing for quite some time now. Someone must have shown him the replays of some of his antics. In fact these days, I think I have seen more of Phil trying to be on his best behavior, while other players try to provoke a reaction out of him. I'm not saying that he might not deserve it in some small measure because of some of his previous behavior. And I know some incidents of that behavior may be hard to forget. But I also think he needs to be given credit for the effort he's made to improve.
 
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I was watching the live stream and int he beginning of heads up he dominated, then it turned and I thought he was done for, but battled like a champion he is. Very happy for him.... I think he will hit 20 before he retires.... He has expanded his game...

Yep for the longest time he proclaimed himself as best NLH player in the world. Cool seeing him win bracelets in other games.
 
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Phil is great at the tournament table which is nice because he needs to pawn those bracelets to stay at the cash tables. I have not seen this guy do well in any of the televised cash games playing against other pros because they tilt him easy and he stays in tournament mode with his betting patterns.
 
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Phil is great at the tournament table which is nice because he needs to pawn those bracelets to stay at the cash tables. I have not seen this guy do well in any of the televised cash games playing against other pros because they tilt him easy and he stays in tournament mode with his betting patterns.

Is there anything wrong with a pro being an elite tournament player and not being so in cash?
 
dj11

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Is there anything wrong with a pro being an elite tournament player and not being so in cash?

Nothing at all. Knowing our own strength's, and weaknesses is vital to happy poker.
 
ribbybruno

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Very nice gesture! You have to give Phil thumbs up for giving his bracelet to the Goldberg family!
 
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It's so easy to root against Helmuth after watching him over the years. Blow up after blow up you start to really dislike the guy. There are certain times when props is due though and this is one of those times. Congrats to Helmuth on yet another bracelet.
 
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Congratulations to Phil, reading 1 of his books just now and plan to read more - a good player to learn from, I think.
 
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People like to hate on Phil because he isn't the strongest cash player and he gets owned on t.v. a lot. However, he is one of the top tournament players of all time. He is super tight which is probably why he suffers in cash games. What makes him so good is he is amazing at reading hands. He makes a lot of incredible lay downs that others can't make and usually gets it in good every time. How can you call him lucky when he has made over 18 million in tournament winnings and it wasn't like he just won the one drop one time he has made over 50 final tables.
 
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