Lots of Hellmuth bashing lately. Time to give him his props.

[ohkanada]

Phil Hellmuth won his 8th WSOP bracelet yesterday. It was the $2500 Limit Hold'em tourney.

You may not love him or always agree with the way he acts but the man knows how to play.

Ken Poklitar

[jasonHoldEm]

bah...$2500 buy-in...that's easy...

/forums/images/icons/grin.gif /forums/images/icons/tongue.gif
jHE

[TimTimSalabim]

I'm probably not the first to make the comparison, but he's definitely the John McEnroe of our sport. The press always focused on McEnroe's tantrums, but most of the time he was just out there playing some of the most amazing and beautiful tennis in the history of the game.

[Joe Tall]

Absoultely a perfect analogy. Now all Phil needs to do when he gets a bad beat...is kick back his chair and yell, "....I SAW IT GO POOOFFFF! IT WAS IN!" /forums/images/icons/cool.gif

[MCS]

Phil Hellmuth isn't as good as John McEnroe was.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I wonder how well McEnroe would have played if the prize money was coming from his pocket?

[MCS]

*shrug*

Interesting point. I stand by what I said.

One thing I will concede is that tennis is much less luck-based. To win poker tournaments, you have to be good, but also lucky.

I don't think Hellmuth is as great as some do. But he's still a lot better than I am /forums/images/icons/grin.gif

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Obviously, sports have a lower luck component than poker. Tennis less luck than, say, golf. I think that reinforces how good somebody like Helmuth really is. He's making it to the top 10 or 20 in fields of 150+ on a regular basis in a game that is about 33% determined by the actions of a random generator.

Great poker players place highly on a regular basis in spite of luck, not because of it.