Playing with Phil Hellmuth

Today was day 3 of the Bellagio 5 Diamond WPT event. The day started with 139 players with the money coming at 100. I had the chip leader Phil Hellmuth on my left who began the day with over 400,000 in chips. Things went very slowly for me and I played very few hands, slowly crawling up to 130,000 in chips, while Phil kept bleeding. He initially played pretty aggressively, and lost a couple of pots on the river. He began talking right from the beginning berating most of the players at the table, except for me, at least for the moment. The player on his left who also started with a lot of chips. It seemed every time Phil raised he was 3 bet. He threw away a lot of the hands and lost the ones he called.

I have to say that I really like and respect Phil, but he really does go off at the table. When Artie moved in with 3 4 after flopping bottom pair and Phil called with top pair, it was hard to watch a 3 fall on the river for two pair. Phil really went crazy, and I did feel bad for him. I had a chance to suck out on him as well. I hadn't played a hand in what seemed like forever and I re-raised Matt Hymen's early position raise with the 7 8 of clubs. Phil then smooth called my raise and Matt folded. The flop came 9 8 6 all spades. Phil bet about 66% of the pot and I called. He also lifted his cards to check the suites and I was pretty sure he didn't have a spade. When a fourth spade came on the turn I moved all in. Phil tanked for a long time and called for about 90% of his remaining chips. The river brought another spade, which gave us a chop. Phil once again went crazy. I have to say it was an interesting day.

I then doubled with QQ vs AK and that's where I peaked. I lost 88 to 99, 88 to AQ and you guessed it 88 to 66. The finally came when I was in the small blind with 6 big blinds left and I moved in with 10 4 and the big blind had AA. I went out 77th. I am off to Palm Springs tomorrow, then NY on Monday for the holidays.

For more information on Roy Winston, you can visit his website: www.oraclepoker.net or send him an email: [email protected]. The contents presented herein on this blog are purely the opinions of Roy Winston, and are not intended to reflect or promote the opinions of any other person, group, or entity. If you like what I write than thanks for reading, and if not well, thanks anyway.