A Phil Hellmuth in all of us
A Phil Hellmuth in all of us?
Phil “The Poker Brat” Hellmuth, is one of the greatest tournament players in the world but it seems like everyone who follows poker only recognizes him for being a sore loser and a essentially a “Brat”. Compared to the classiness of old legends such as Doyle Brunson, and newcomers like Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth seems childish and immature. It is easy to tell that there are many more of people that are critical of him than his number of fans. For example, during the 2004 World Series of Poker we all heard the now famous quote “I would win every time if luck wasn’t involved” the producers tried the angle of building up his bad sportsmanship reputation and make him look like a real ass, but can we really blame him? I will be the first to admit that if I won 9 bracelets I would be more cocky than Phil and I’m sure most people would also. In essence all poker players think they are better than they are or else why would they play? If we didn’t think we were better than most players basically we would be throwing are money away willfully.
Everytime one of my friend’s or I get a bad beat, we throw those tantrums too. It’s just that no one is there to see us while playing online poker. Plus, we have the outlet of the Bad Beat Forum. Considering we are usually playing for less than a couple dollars we should be expecting things like that from Phil Hellmuth as he is playing for millions of dollars. As Lee Jones said “It’s easy to put blame for bad results on others, but you should review your own play first.” In actuality this is how we become better players, by seeing what we did wrong instead of crying “bad beat” when we lose a hand. I think if instead of getting into a negative mindset, we can take a lesson from the beat, because most of the time (even if it was a bad beat) we did something wrong. If we figure out how we could have saved that extra bet on the river or played a bit more aggressively on the turn, we could have had a bit more money in out bankroll. It is human nature to put the blame on other’s but if we remain positive and take one lesson from the beat eventually that money will come back to us. If you played it perfectly stick with it eventually the odds will play out and you will get paid off for your good play. As one of the great author’s said just think of it as you are lending them money until you take it back from them after they keep up their poor play. You can look at a bad beat as a good sign, because the way you get paid in Hold’em is by your opponents mistakes, you will see they are poor players and all you have to do is be patient
In conclusion I think the online poker community needs to recognize Hellmuth's greatness because most of the time he does make the right play, but instead of using him as a role model we should all tone down the complaining a bit and see what we can learn out of the situation, because most of us think we are better poker players than we really are.
