Hugo's Blogspotting: 21 February

Number-Two

TJ Cloutier and Phil Hellmuth have been good pals for a long time. In fact, one of my earliest memories of the WSOP was watching Hellmuth come bounding across the room at Binion’s Horseshoe in order to tell TJ a bad beat story.

Poor old TJ was obviously trying to get out of it in a cash game and now he had to pretend to be sympathetic as Hellmuth told him his tale of woe. It should go without saying that the whole of the ‘Shoe heard the story too.

Thankfully the fact that they are best buds still doesn’t stop ol’ TJ from posting some funny stories about our favourite WSOP champ. In his current blog TJ recalls an early conversation with the PokerBrat:

"TJ, I want to tell you something before we sit down," he said. "I think I'm the second-best no-limit hold'em player alive." I almost keeled over backward! He was a young kid back then, you know, and brash.

"Oh yes?" I asked. "Well, who's number-one?"

"Johnny Chan won the World Series two years in a row," he said. "We've gotta give him due credit."

I guess Phil was a bit more humble back in those days. Of course, that was before he had eleven bracelets sitting on his wrist. TJ wasn’t one to let this tete a tete between two top players fade away though:

“That night we played a cash game that was half no-limit hold'em and half Omaha with Mansour Matloubi and a few Europeans at the table. It was quite a game, and Phil lost $10,000 in it. But the funny part was that all during the game, nobody called him Phil. We all called him "Number-Two." I'd told some of the guys beforehand so we could rib him a little bit. Here we were on the island of Malta with nothing to do except play poker - and Phil went to his room after that game and never came out of it for five days!”

Good work TJ, good work.

Hellmuth takes up Buddhism?

Sticking with the Wisconsin Whiner (or maybe I’ll refer to him as Number-Two for the rest of this blog) it appears he has had a good time in London playing at the Premier League flipament thingy. I’m in two minds as to whether I’d like to have overheard the conversation between him and Andy Black when Number-Two decided he’d pay the British Portrait Gallery (I think he means the National Portrait Gallery) a visit.

“So we trekked over there together, stopping for coffee on the way. We chatted about Buddhism, meditation, spirituality, and life. He helped me understand that I haven't been using 100% of my power to win here in London, and I told him that he needed to also understand that he had a lot more power available to himself, that he wasn't using. He recommended I read up on Vimilakirti, who strived to be all things to all men. I recommended that he try his hardest, and use all of his talents to win: stop holding back!”

Hmmm, Phil taking up Buddhism, there’s a thought. Is the Buddha ready for a total egomaniac to join his ranks? Presumably there are already a few practicing Buddhists out there with a bit of ego (I don’t know Andy Black so cannot make any comment about him), but as every poker player knows, Hellmuth’s ego is at least as big as the observable universe.

Phil doesn’t care because although he did terrible in the Premier League (setting a record for the least amount of points won) he won a few nice quid playing Chinese with Roland De Wolfe.

“It was so bad for Rolande, and so good for me that one hand I had 10-10-10-10 in back, 2-2-2-2 in the middle, and Q-Q in front, and Rolande set that hand for me! He must have been sick when he picked it up, as I was chatting with some of the guys and playing a bit slow. That hand "Scooped" him with double royalties, and we were playing two hands vs. two hands (Cross booking), so that I collected 20 points or $10,000 on that one side of one hand!”

Roland wasn’t tempted to split both sets of quads up and say that’s how Hellmuth would have done it anyway cos he plays so bad?

A final quote from Hellmuth’s blog is an amusing typo that, judging from past mis-spellings from his blog, is definitely inadvertent:

“Rolande (who finished second to Andy) told Andy, "I'm really happy for you that you won it. I'm glad that you were able to exercise some demons and take down the trophy."

So that’s all Andy Black had to do to win a trophy – make sure his demons got in shape…

A Dose of his own Medicine

If you think that’s Hellmuth over with then think again! Foucault’s blog mentions a run-in with the Champ on UltimateBet.

“I was sitting in a 50/100 NL game on Ultimate Bet with a full-stacked player against whom I felt I had a pretty good edge when who should come and sit us than poker brat Phil Hellmuth. Unfortunately, he only sat with $3000.”

As you can tell Foucault is somewhat peeved that the Brat has sat in with a short stack and so starts in on Hellmuth hoping he’ll either go on tilt and pull up or go on tilt and challenge Foucault to a heads-up match or some other similar profitable scenario. What happens?

“He gets pissed and leaves.

I mean honestly, of all people, Phil Hellmuth gets angry about trash talk? Granted, I did start in on him as soon as he sat down, but it's pretty ridiculous that he's short stacking the biggest game on the site that sponsors him.”

He who lives by the Sword Phil….

Doyle Keeps the Punters Happy

In his blog dated 16th February Doyle Brunson noticed a nice looking $200/$400 No limit Holdem game underway on his site so he took the opportunity to sit in.

“They were really gambling and I joined them. When they recognized my screen name TEX_DOLLY, they asked if I would let them play because they were amateurs. I said sure, and left them alone but kept watching.”

Talk about treating your customers happy. Would the Wisconsin Whinger have done that? Doyle was really letting these boys off the hook:

“There was an unraised pot and both players put in over $20,000. Both had the second pair with bad kickers. Where are these kinds of players when I am playing?”

Unlucky Doyle, but then again it’s unlikely those guys would have played like that if that had had a world champ in the game.

In the previous blog Doyle gives us an interesting insight to the reality of being a high stakes pro.

“I called a friend of mine and asked him to come to Bobby’s Room and start a two-thousand/four-thousand limit poker game. There were two out-of-town high rollers wanting to play. “I can’t, my wife wants to go see a movie,” my friend told me. I understand a man who has to get along with his family but if you are a professional poker player as my friend was, you have to play when the opportunity presents itself. I’ve been with the same woman for forty-five years and she has never tried to keep me from going to play.”

Wow, I’ve heard of game selection before, but wife selection, that maybe the toughest one of them all.

Further on, Doyle shows he’s not impervious to some Hellmuth-style self belief himself (mind you, how do you win without self-confidence?). Unlike the rest of us Doyle hasn’t really bothered watching High Stakes Poker until now, when he caught a few episodes by accident on the telly. His thoughts?

“I sometimes wonder how I came off a cotton farm in Texas to where I am today. After watching that show every night for the past month, I can understand it. Most of these so-called poker stars can’t play a lick! It is almost embarrassing to watch how badly they play.”

Naturally the Big Poppa is too diplomatic to name names, but if there’s one person qualified to make that assessment it must be him. In case you’re wondering Doyle has a pretty good showing on High Stakes so far:

“I think I have played eleven times since HSP started and have yet to have a losing session.”

I want to play a good Player!

As I mentioned game selection above a blog that caught my eye was this one from Stevesbets.

“I was playing 2 5 nl with some friends at the borgata a few weeks ago, when i play that low, i sometimes play pretty loose and terrible. My friend with me plays far worse than me. More than one of the “regulars” made some absurd offhand comment about how the players at this table were too loose and terrible for them, and they needed a table change. Several others left. I honestly dont understand how people so illogical can live in the world and get by.”

This is so true – if I could only have a dollar for every time I heard somebody say something similar. You sit in a game and suddenly people are complaining about another player raising too much with “trash”. To complain about someone playing badly is possibly the most idiotic thing one can do at a poker table, but I see it time and time again.

Bad Old Days at the Vic

This blog reminded me of certain players from the old days at the Vic and hey presto! I stumble across this blog by David Lloyd which has him reminiscing about the old days at UK poker’s HQ:

“A few years ago, when I was still living in London, I was sitting in the Vic, pondering the meaning of life (as you do) when I began to wonder what the hell I was doing in there anyway. After four or five hours of playing check the nuts with everyone else at the table…”

Ahhh, check the nuts – yes, I’m familiar with that particular Vic disease/strategy. What else are you supposed to do when everyone else in the game is so tight that they squeak when they walk? Anyway, back to Lloyd:

“As I surveyed the room, hoping to spot an easier table, I realised I was already there. Just behind me, the £50 round of each was in full swing…I say full swing but…err for full swing read motionless quagmire. I was in one of the three £100 PLO games that were so rocked up, even the dealers were checking! A £50 stud game just to my right featured five 7 card stud pro’s slowly sipping the life blood out of each other because no one else was playing the game anymore.”

Wow, David Lloyd just summed up about five years of my life in that paragraph. Next time I find myself waxing lyrical about the old days I shall re-read that quote. It’s hard to believe that the games were so bad once upon a time, but they really were. Long live the TV/Internet/No Limit Holdem revolution! Put me on every list in the room please!

Hugo 'Chimney Sweep' Martin

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