By the end of the 1980’s, things started really heating up for the WSOP Tournament and it didn’t hurt to have the youngest player ever to win the main event in 1989. Phil Hellmuth Jr. was only 24 years old when he became the youngest player ever to win the Main Event by defeating the two-time defending champion Johnny Chan in heads up play. He brought home $755,000 and ranks 11th on the WSOP All Time Money List. Phil “Poker Brat” Hellmuth Jr. was able to hold that distinction until 2008 when Peter Eastgate won the Main Event at age 22 and that was broken the following year in 2009 when at age 21, Joe Cada won.
At the 2007 World Series of Poker, Hellmuth won his record-breaking 11th bracelet in the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em Event. Hellmuth also holds the records for most WSOP cashes (79) and most WSOP final tables (42), recently overtaking TJ Cloutier. At the Main Event of the 2008 WSOP, Hellmuth made a deep run finishing in 45th place out of a field of 6,844. He was the last former champion standing at the event when he was knocked out and took home $154,400. He has 7 Main Event cashes (1988, 1989, 1997, 2001, 2003, 2008, 2009).
Hellmuth dropped out of the University of Wisconsin to pursue his poker career. His phenomenal WSOP run all started in 1988, when he placed fifth in a Seven-Card Stud High-Low tournament. He is also one of only three players in history to win three gold bracelets within a single year. He holds a record which is unlikely and perhaps impossible to break – three consecutive WSOP wins in three consecutive days (April 26-28, 1993). He has been one of the most successful players of the last twenty years.
Hellmuth was raised in a middle-class Madison neighborhood. The entire family shared just one bathroom, where his mother had posted a sign on the mirror that read, “You are what you think. You become what you think. What you think becomes reality.” Hellmuth said he read that sign every time he brushed his teeth or took a shower and was inspired by his mother’s belief that he and his siblings could all achieve great things in life.
While Hellmuth’s reputation for having a huge ego and a less than professional attitude when he loses has earned him the “Poker Brat” nickname, it has also made him a favorite of poker television producers across the globe.
Great Players in Poker History 