When the subject of Phil Hellmuth comes up it always makes for some lively conversation. The debate over the “Poker Brat’s” career is often heated, and there are several schools of thought on his place in the poker pantheon that are in dispute:

* The greatest poker player of all time

* Best tournament player ever

* Best Holdem tournament player ever

There is plenty of room for argument on any of these fronts: the best poker player of all-time could include a dozen names, the best tournament player could boast just as many, but when you get to the best Holdem tournament player the competition gets whittled down a bit, maybe between Phil, Carlos Mortensen, Erik Seidel, and a few others.

However, the one thing that is indisputable is that Phil Hellmuth is hands down the best World Series of Poker player in the history of the game. The numbers simply don’t lie:

* Most career WSOP bracelets: 13

* Most career WSOP cashes: 100

* Most career WSOP final tables: 49

* Over $12 million in WSOP earnings

* 1989 WSOP Main Event Champion

* 2012 WSOPE Main Event Champion

* 5th place in the 2001 WSOP Main Event

Hellmuth’s historic cash in Event #5 of the 2013 WSOPE came 25 years after his first cash (which even with my poor math skills works out to four cashes per year on average –although someone may want to check my work) when he finished in 5th place in the 7-Card-Stud hi/lo tournament at the 1988 WSOP.

Of course Phil quickly took to social media to make sure everyone was aware of the accomplishment:

“Feels wonderful to hit my #WSOPCash100!! I’ve got 99 cashes, & a 100th one! BUT no time to celebrate as I’m in the zone w 36 players left”

But his mood changed following his elimination:

“Wow! I had a ton of chips and was in the zone, and just like that I’m out! I let the crazy player bluff me on the river or Im chip leader”

“In my room ruminating: if I make that call, then I’m chip leader with 28 left, instead busted…I’m in the zone, BUT didn’t trust my read”

“Should be celebrating 100th cash, but instead feeling down cause I lost 50 big blinds in 10 mins to bust! Gonna nap, then play #WSOPE PLO”

The next milestones for Phil will be WSOP final table #50 (he currently has 49), and perhaps bracelet #15, which would require two more WSOP victories.

*statistics and data from the www.thehendonmob.com website

 

This entry was posted on Friday, October 18th, 2013 at 12:24 pm and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.