Phillip Jerome Hellmuth, Jr. was born on July 16th, 1964 and became the youngest player 
ever to win the WSOP main event. Known as the ‘poker brat’, he holds the record for winning 11 World Series of Poker gold bracelets and is also a member of the Poker Hall of Fame.
Hellmuth, who is frequently very talkative during play, so infuriated veteran poker player Sam Grizzle, that the two men actually had a physical confrontation. During the 2005 WSOP Main event, Hellmuth accused an opponent of not being able to spell poker after the player put all his money in the pot, pre-flop with a KJ against Hellmuth’s AK. The player hit a Jack on the river to win the pot. Other famous lines include “Idiot from northern Europe” and “If it weren’t for luck, I’d win ‘em all!”.
In the first week of the show ‘Poker After Dark’ on NBC, Hellmuth asked fellow pros Shawn Sheikhan, Steve Zolotow, Gus Hansen and Huck Seed to stop talking while it was his turn to act on his hand after Annie Duke raised him. They initially complied, but when Hellmuth began to talk himself, he was mocked by Seed, who said, “please be quiet so I can talk,” eliciting laughter from the other players. Hellmuth then threatened never to play on the show again and walked off the set. Producers of the show came up with a ruling regarding the situation, and Hellmuth returned but was eliminated a few hands later by Sheikhan. Duke was the only player at the table who remained quiet while the drama played out. However, in a later interview, she said of Hellmuth’s behavior, “I would call that one of the biggest overreactions I have ever seen.”
Hellmuth’s sponsor, UltimateBet arranged for him to arrive at the 2007 WSOP Main Event in an UltimateBet race car, escorted by 11 UltimateBet models (one for each of Hellmuth’s 11 WSOP bracelets). However, Hellmuth crashed the race car in the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino parking lot when he lost control of the vehicle and hit a concrete light fixture. After the accident, Hellmuth showed up in a limo, met his escorts, and made his grand entrance to the Main Event two hours late. The accident was briefly thought to be staged by some sources, but Hellmuth said it wasn’t. He later made light of the accident in a television advertisement for UltimateBet.
Yet one more controversy includes Hellmuth playing $200/$400 heads up limit hold ‘em on UltimateBet, (where he is a spokesperson), when an apparent software glitch occurred. The $5599 pot was awarded to Hellmuth, even though he held the worst hand. (His opponent held KQ for three Kings and Hellmuth held 10/2 for two pair.) This hand became the subject of considerable controversy in the online forums due to Hellmuth’s later comments about the hand. Immediately after the other player informed him of the error in awarding the pot, Hellmuth simply commented, “You wanna play or what?” and “I play U limit, right now.” In addition, when later questioned about the hand, Hellmuth commented that he had experienced such errors a hundred times in his online career, “maybe 50 the wrong way to them and 50 the wrong way to me.” However, this contradicted the official statement by UltimateBet that no other cases of this type of error had ever occurred previously. This contradicted the official statement of UltimateBet that no other cases of this error had been found.
According to bluffmagazine.com Hellmuth has earned over $8,600,000 in live tournament winnings and ranks 129th in 2010 Player of the Year Rankings. However I’m willing to bet that Phil Hellmuth will most likely always remain the “brat” of poker.
Great Players in Poker History 