Punked By Brunson

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I happened to catch the Tivo of the WSOP Tournament of Champions the other night and I was almost rolling out of my seat. Basically it was a $2 million, winner take all, tournament with the following players:

TJ Cloutier
Greg “Fossilman” Raymer
Phil Ivey
Phil Hellmuth
Howard Lederer
Johhny Chan
Annie Duke
Daniel Negreanu
Doyle Brunson
Chip Reese

In other words, if most mere mortals sat down at that table they would be skinned alive.

It was interesting to watch for the pure poker aspect of it but the real entertainment value came from (and at the expense of) Phil Hellmuth.

Brunson was seated to Phil’s left and after several long pauses by Phil mulling over his cards Brunson made a comment to Phil along the lines of “Do you pose for the camera every hand?” Several hands later Brunson was less diplomatic about it and just came out and said, “Phil, it’s simply impossible for a player at this level to be getting that many hands that could require so much thought.”

Phil went heads-up with Howard and Howard pulled a straight on the turn and only makes a minimum bet while Phil calls with his small pair. A duece comes on the river and Howard fires $50k at the pot. Phil, obivously a little toasty because he has no idea how a 2 helped Howard’s hand says something along the lines of “This is just like what happens with the amatuers.” Annie and Johnny come to Howard’s defense but Phil is steaming because he thinks Howard might be trying to bluff him out of the pot. Phil lays it down and then jumps up from the table muttering frickin’ this and frickin’ that. When he sits back down at the table he says, “Well, I sure want to see that one when it’s on TV,” to which Howard fires back, “Oh believe me Phil, they’ll definately be showing that hand.”

The best part was when they did Phil’s profile like they did with all of the other players but instead of the poofy interview they sat him down in front of a monitor of the WSOP coverage and played back parts of his play along with Norman Chad’s heckling of Phil. They played back when he came in late and was looking around, Lon commented that he was looking for his table but Norm said that Phil looked more like he was waiting for people to acknowledge him. Then they cut to Phil who laughs and says that he wasn’t waiting for people to acknowledge him but . . . when he walks into an event like the WSOP it’s nice if people do. Another scene they showed him was on his bust-out hand where he couldn’t just take his beating and walk away, instead making some zinger at the guy who beat him. Norm commented that Phil’s last book was “Play Poker Like The Pros” and that his next one should be “Cry Like A Baby.” Phil gave Norm kudos for a good line and then said that he’s not sure why he can’t just shut up and tell someone “Nice Hand.”

After Annie Duke busted him out he walked off the set where the camera followed him into the lobby of the casino bleeping every third word out of his mouth. Of course, he was bitching and moaning about how Annie had check-raised him and won every race situation against him. But the most telling was when he said that she shouldn’t beat him because she was a 30:1 dog to win the tournament.

Man, living in LA and having worked around the entertainment industry I’ve met my fair share of egomaniacs but Phil is just so far out on the scale that he may require a new word to describe his psychosis.

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