A Conversation with Eight-Time ‘World Series of Poker’ Champion, Phil Hellmuth
Try
to imagine that your personal net worth will potentially change by tens or
hundreds of thousands of dollars on every trade you make. Imagine the stress
that would come by playing with stakes that high. In reality, that’s the world
that Phil Hellmuth lives in. In 1989,
at age 24, Phil Hellmuth, Jr., became the youngest person ever to win the World Championship of
Poker. Since then, he has won six more World Championship titles and
has been named by his peers, “The best poker tournament player in the world.” In
all, Phil has won over 50 poker tournaments since his career began in 1988,
including becoming the first American to win the European Poker Championship in
October, 2000. Phil’s biggest payday at the poker table was $750,000 and he’s
had many other six-figure days along the way. He’s done it through his knowledge
of the game, his ability to overcome losses associated with his profession along
with a burning passion to succeed. Many people may view poker playing as
gambling and for most of us, it really is. But at the highest levels of the
game, there are a great deal of similarities with successful trading and
investing.
Phil just published a new book
“href=”https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060005726/qid=1052161526/sr=11-1/ref=sr_11_1/103-1452904-4367866″>Play
Poker With The Pros,”
and was kind enough to take time to talk about what it takes to succeed in the
high pressure world he lives in.
Helvetica>Larry
Connors:size=2> Hi Phil. I’m
going to try to tie in what you do to what we do.
Phil Hellmuth, Jr.:face=”arial, helvetica” size=2> No problem. This is my cup of tea here. I have
fun with this stuff.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: I play a little bit of poker, so I know of you of course through the poker world. I started reading
your book, “href=”https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060005726/qid=1052161526/sr=11-1/ref=sr_11_1/103-1452904-4367866″>Play
Poker With The Pros,” over the weekend. It’s a great read. It’s
terrific.
size=2>Hellmuth: Oh thank you.
I thought it would be a kind of boring read, actually. face=Arial, color=#0000ff size=2>(Laughs)color=#0000ff size=2>
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: If you want to learn how to
play poker, this is the book.
size=2>Hellmuth: size=2>I agree with that. I tried to keep a lot of interesting stories in there,
so it’s not too boring.
Helvetica>Connors: size=2>Yes, that’s what made it fun. I know you have an interesting background.
How did you get into the game? The story of who your father is makes it even
more interesting…maybe you can go from there?
Helvetica>Hellmuth:
Sure. Well, my Dad has about 11
letters after his name. He has an MBA, a J.D. and a Ph.D.,
so for me to end up playing poker for a living — the oldest of five and a boy
— was quite a fight. You can imagine the first time I told him, “Dad, I’m going
to be dropping out of school.” He almost had a brain aneurysm. Then I was
going to play poker. He equated poker with drugs and alcohol, sleeping
until noon.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: So how did you make
the decision to become a professional poker player and do this for a
living?
size=2>Hellmuth: size=2>Well, IHelvetica> was playing poker in college — the University of Wisconsin — and one day
I made $6,500. And I just came back the next day and dropped all my classes. I
had lost my focus anyway and I had wanted to go to Business School which
required a 3.2 GPA at the University of Wisconsin. I’d gotten a 3.87 point my
last semester, just to prove that I could do it but my overall GPA was 2.9ish.
And I thought that maybe that one great semester would show that I could pull
the weight, but they
turned me down, so I just decided, “Hey, no matter what I do, no matter what
path I take through school, I’ll never make $6,500 in one day.”face=”arial, helvetica” color=#0000ff size=2> (Laughs)face=”arial, helvetica” color=#000000 size=2> So I just dropped
out.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors:
And that was in whatyear?
size=2>Hellmuth: That was
in 1987.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: So you’ve been playing
professional poker for about 15, 16 years now?
size=2>Hellmuth: Yes, that’s
right.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: That’s great.
Let’s dive into the business of poker.
size=2>Hellmuth: The
business of poker? OK, fire!
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: The things I’ve
read about you indicates that you’re probably a businessman as much as you
are a poker player. Do you view it as a business for yourself?
size=2>Hellmuth: Well, I mean
of course we pay tax on a Schedule C. So in that way I’m similar to this
business as well. (Laughs)
Absolutely, it’s a
business. And it’s important in this business, just like if you’re trading on
the Street under your own name, under your own account, with no
supervision… it’s very important to monitor the ups and downs and make sure
you keep yourself in the game. Icolor=#000000 size=2>n other words, don’t run out of cash. Of course the skilled
poker players can get staked when they’re low on cash, or out of cash. And I’m
sure the same thing’s true in the markets. So yes, it’s definitely a
business. It costs $350,000 to play every major poker
tournament these days. And I started to add it up and sure enough, just to get
through the 35-day World Series Of Poker’s over $100,000.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: Go back to the business side.
What are the skills needed to succeed in the poker world? Not so much succeed on
a month by month, but on a long-term basis, to do it for a sustained period of
time like you have?
helvetica>“You really have to understand what other people are |
size=2>Hellmuth: That’s a good
question. I’d say that poker and business are very similar. I believe that some
of the most talented poker players in the world could do well in any area
of business. I’m talking about the crsize=-1>ème de la
crèsize=2>me now. Some of the skills are the same: You really have to get
along with people well. You really have to understand what other people
are thinking. You have to understand how people tick. This, in the long term, is
huge. And of course reading people.
I mean, if
someone is lying to you for $100 million business deal, you can have your lawyer
do due diligence and he’s going to track down most of that lie. In poker, you
don’t have your lawyer do due diligence. If he bluffs $100,000 at you, you have
to make up your mind right then, right there, and then go with it. So
reading people is a huge thing in poker, formulating a good strategy is
huge. And, you know, standing the test of time is something which a lot
of people in poker have not done.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: How do you define formulating
a good strategy?
size=2>Hellmuth: size=2>Well, you have to decide if you’re playing, for example, Texas Hold’em
(which is the main game on tour these days), you have to decide exactly how you
want to play Hold’em aHelvetica>nd what works well for you
and what doesn’t work well for you. You might want to try to emulate the way
that I play, but it might not work for you. You might want to try to play
the way another player plays, but then that might not work for you — it’s a very dangerous
fast strategy. So you have to decide the way you want to play the
game and then add
moves that work for you along the way.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors:
So it’s basically finding astyle that fits your personality?
size=2>Hellmuth: size=2>Exactly.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: Which is no
different than trading. Is that strategy tied into a risk profile? Or is
it tied into a skill set?
size=2>Hellmuth: Both. It’s
interesting because in trading, you have to stick to your guns. I’ve read that
over and over. The great traders decide the way they’re going to play and then
they stick to their guns. And whenever they fall off their guns, things seem to
go badly for them. Right?
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: Yes.
size=2>Hellmuth: size=2>But pface=”arial, helvetica” color=#000000 size=2 Helvetica>oker is a little
different in that other people are involved. So if other people are playing a
particular way, sometimes you need to make a few adjustments. I suppose
that’s true in the markets too. When you have extreme up and downs, you need to
make adjustments. Both trading and poker are fast paced. face=”arial, helvetica” color=#000000 size=2>In both poker and trading,
you can lose a large percent of your net worth in a single day if you’re not
careful. Or for that matter, in a single hour, if you’re not careful.
Helvetica>size=2>Connors: Right.
Helvetica>Hellmuth: And
yes, you have to have
a certain amount of control. You have to have some discipline to stick to your
game plan, to stick to your strategy throughout the years. And then it’s
important to look at your money management. Money management is just huge
in poker. The thing is that a lot of businessmen have people help them with
their money management. Let’s just say there is a great poker player out there
and he only has himself, so the level of money that he has at the end of time on
any given day may come close to matching his self esteem. Whereas someone who is
a great businessman, if he wants to self destruct, a lot of times he’ll have a
buffer in there — a board of directors.
size=2>Like a Bill Gates, for example. Let’s just say that he can’t handle it
any more. He can’t handle being the richest man in the world and on a lot of
levels, it’s doesn’t add up to him. So he thinks of something crazy to do
with his money that’s just not going to work. I mean just a normal
self-destructive thing. And then he, for example, can’t get it past his first
buffer. Never mind the board of directors who are just going to say, “Are
you nuts?” So this guy just continues to go up. face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Now a poker player, if they get self-destructive,
they can just go lose 25%, 50% of their money in any given night. Boom!
Gone.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors:
Do you see thathappening?
size=2>Hellmuth: Absolutely,
it happens. All the time.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: It happens in the trading
world all the time too.
size=2>Hellmuth: Yeah, I
imagine it does.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: Ultimately, in
your opinion, does it come down to the self discipline needed to control
yourself during those times?
size=2>Hellmuth: size=2>Absolutely, and I think that psize=2 Helvetica>art of that control, to
me, is the support system that you get through having a family. In that way, my
wife and kids are just invaluable to me. I know that it’s for them too that I
have to stay in money. I know that it’s for them too that I can’t lose this
house.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: It keeps you in
a more balanced time frame during those times where you could go out of
control?
helvetica>“And by the time my hug was done, I was in the greatest mood |
size=2>Hellmuth: Absolutely,
and you also understand that poker’s not everything. Because when you see your
sons… in my case, when I see my sons or my wife, I just go, “Wow! That’s
right.” Poker is like a movie. It’s a great movie but, you know, it’s just a
movie. My wife and kids are life. I’ll never forget the first time that
my 16 month-old son… I’d had the worst possible day in Madison, Wisconsin. I’d
lost $20,000 which, for Madison, was like a record loss in poker, I mean the
games were so small there.
So I’d set
the record up. Helvetica>I’d been up all night. It was noon now and it was just
miserable. I’d been up $3,000 to compound things. And so, now $20,000
wasn’t that much to what I was used to doing on the road but you know, I was
feeling the impact of a negative record… you know I’m a record guy.
size=2>(Laughs) Came
home, and my son said, “DadHelvetica>” and came running into my arms. And by the time my hug was done, I
was like in the greatest mood ever… like the whole weight had just
lifted and was gone.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: Yes, yes. It puts things in
perspective.
size=2>Hellmuth: Sure
does.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: I saw you just won a little bit
over $170,000 in a tournament. What is the most you’ve won in any single
tournament?
size=2>Hellmuth: size=2>Still $755,000 at the ’89 series.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: What is the pressure like when you’re playing for that type of money? What goes through
your head and how do you control that stress and pressure?
size=2>Hellmuth: Oh, there’s a
lot of pressure and it’s interesting that I don’t feel… to me, the pressure is
there for a different reason. I guess I’m kind of weird. I took the first five
days off from the World Series of Poker this year, which I hadn’t done in 10
years. I wanted to just be properly motivated before I went down there. And the
WSOP is where you make your name, it’s where you make your reputation, it’s
where you make history. And what I realized was — of course I knew this anyway
— I’m there not for the money, I’m there to win href=”https://www.pokerpages.com/pokerinfo/tournamentgallery/wsop/wsop-more-info.htm”>Bracelets.
This Bracelet that I won last Sunday was Number 8 for me. And href=”?sec=poy&sub=results_player_detail&player_id=1148″>Doyle
Brunson, the legendary Doyle, had just got Number 9 the week before. So I
almost tied him. And of course href=”?sec=poy&sub=results_player_detail&player_id=1076″>Johnny
Chan, who was on 7, Wednesday won the tournament, so that he tied me
at 8.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: Wow.
size=2>Hellmuth: And so you
have Doyle at 9 and Chan and I at 8.color=#000000 size=2> And then you drop back tocolor=#000000 size=2 Helvetica> href=”?sec=poy&sub=results_player_detail&player_id=177″>Erik
Seidel
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>at 6 — he won one this year already to go
to Number 6, href=”?sec=poy&sub=results_player_detail&player_id=743″>Chris
Ferguson won two of them to go to
Number 5 and href=”?sec=poy&sub=results_player_detail&player_id=1329″>Layne Flack
just won one yesterday to go to Number 4, I
think. So we have a lot of champions winning this year, but to me it’s
about the Bracelets and so there’s some pressure there.
Helvetica>It’s amazing if you just stay focused on the game and what you’re
doing, it’s amazing how the pressure disappears. I haven’t been able to avoid
the pressure in the last few years but tface=”arial, helvetica” color=#000000 size=2>his year, when I’m down
there, I just realize, “Hey, this is just another poker tournament for me. Yeah,
they’re doing a live Internet broadcast in the background and yeah, there’s
history at stake and yeah, there’s a ton of money…” but, you know, I can just
shut my eyes for a few seconds and say, “All right, we’re playing Texas Hold’em.
There’s four players left. What’s the ideal strategy? Ah yes, that’s it!”
size=2>So when I remember to keep my focus, the pressure disappears. When we
were four-handed in this game, the third- and fourth-placed players
self-destructed a little bit this year. And then it came down to me and another
player who had never been there before, but he was playing tough. But I just
kept thinking, “It’s going to be difficult for him to win. You don’t just — the
first time you make a final table — win it. But you know, we played about three
or four hundred hands between the two of us. It was a three- or four-hour
battle. He played great poker and finally I prevailed.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: Phil, is your
mind frame in these situations when you’re dealing with prizes worth $140,000 in ’89 with $750,000
on the line — it’s not on the money,
it’s simply just being there for the cards and there for the game itself, and
everything else becomes blocked out?
size=2>Hellmuth: Exactly.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: And that ultimately leads you
to be able to make proper decisions, as opposed to counting the money or
worrying about the money or anything else?
helvetica>“I’ve spent many years visualizing myself winning these |
size=2>Hellmuth: size=2>Exactly. Tface=”arial, helvetica” size=2>his whole interesting thing that I saw recently
in Sports Illustrated — the guy who visualizes himself winning vs. the
“grinder.” And they were callingsize=2 Helvetica>
face=Arial size=2>Jeff Maggert a
grinder face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>(this is the PGA Tour) and they were talking
about href=”https://eng.tigerwoods.com/home/default.sps?sid=825&lid=1&atpval=0″>Tiger
Woods being a grinder. Well, I’m not so sure Tiger’s a grinder
(laughs) face=Arial, color=#000000 size=2 Helvetica>but you know, I’ve spent many years
visualizing myself winning these tournaments. It’s funny but that really allows
you to win these things. It’s important that you’ve seen yourself win it before,
because if you haven’t, you won’t win. But it’s also important to stay in
the moment. If you’re looking ahead to an hour later… you might make mistakes
now. Stay in the moment and just do the best you can and when you have either
all of the chips or there’s none in front of you, then say, “OK,
now it’s time to relax.”
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: Staying in the moment gives
you the courage to be able to make the proper decisions when you have that much
money at stake.
size=2>Hellmuth: Absolutely,
and I see a lot of other people not deal with pressure well in some of
these huge situations.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: How so?
size=2>Hellmuth: Well, they
panic. They start to break too many hands. You know, they fall off their game.
Especially now that we have the World
Poker Tour — it’s been advertised on Travel Channel.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: It’s wonderful. I’ve watched it
four or five times. It’s phenomenal.
size=2>Hellmuth: It’s a
fantastic show. It’s Wednesday nights on Travel Channel and they show the hole
cards in Texas Hold’em and this is really attracting the American public. It’s
becoming a hit show. But when you make the final six of a World Poker Tour
event, or the World Series of Poker, there’s a lot of pressure there. And the
cameras are there. The World Poker tour set has like 20 different
camerascolor=#0000ff size=2> (laughs) Helvetica>and there’sHelvetica> lights and it’s kind of intense. It’s like the Big World Championship
except not quite the money. So yeah, it’s interesting… I like to watch the PGA
Tour, the Majors, to see who can handle it and who can’t. And the same thing in
poker you see, who can handle it and who cant.
style=”COLOR: blue”>Connors: Yes. You talk about this in href=”https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060005726/qid=1052176596/sr=11-1/ref=sr_11_1/103-1452904-4367866#product-details”>your
book: Patience, like discipline, is a virtue in many areas of life and
poker is no exception. If you’re playing too many hands…
Basically this analogy ties into
trading. I see this with traders, they tend to overtrade instead of looking for
situations where they have substantial edges. They’ll look to find edges that
really don’t exist.Helvetica>
size=2>Hellmuth: That makes
perfect sense and you can also take that analogy — you have poker
players that play too many hands and that leads to trouble. And a lot of times
they do that when they’re tired or under pressure or losing… and the same
thing I’m sure in the stock market. Traders that are supposed to stick to their
formula, their edges, are having a bad day with their formula, their edges, and
they start to take some flyers and they start to gamble…you know, and it just
compounds their losses or sometimes gets them out.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2 Helvetica>Connors: Right.
Helvetica>Hellmuth:
You know,
ucolor=#000000 size=2 Helvetica>nless you’re
a professional trader or a professional poker player, it’s very hard to explain
what being big loser is like on any given day. I imagine in poker and the
market, it’s the same thing. You start to panic a little bit, you’re frustrated.
Your system’s just not working that day. The poker players, a lot of times, they
start to steam. I imagine with traders it’s the same thing. They start looking
at other situations they wouldn’t normally touch. And fire at that. If they get
lucky, they get even for the day. And if they don’t, it’s a real bad day.
They’re going to lose a big number.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: But ultimately, guys like
that are going to lose.
size=2>Hellmuth: size=2>Well, you know, tHelvetica>here’s a lot of talented guys
that steam out there. You would imagine that ultimately they’re going to lose
but maybe they have so much talent that they can overcome losing $3 million in
bad trades each year, or $1 million steaming each year.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: How do you personally avoid
those situations? Obviously, no matter what profession you’re in — trading or
playing poker — there’s got to be streaks. How do you avoid it?
size=2>Hellmuth: Well, you
just have to stay focused. I have a reputation as a Poker Brat, you
know.color=#0000ff size=2> (Laughs) size=2 Helvetica>That’s my next book. color=#000000 size=2 Helvetica>Right now, this book is “href=”https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060005726/qid=1052176596/sr=11-1/ref=sr_11_1/103-1452904-4367866#product-details”>Play
Poker Like the Pros” and this is just a great book about how to play the
game. My next book is my autobiography, Poker Brat. But right now, they’re
shopping a movie about me around Hollywood, even as we speak, called “The
Madison Kid.” And so this poker-brat image of mine… sometimes I’ll “brat” at
the table. People that know me away from the table are shocked that I could ever
be bratty at the table. It’s just a separate personality for me. But sometimes
this bratty behavior like, “Oh, how could you play this hand?” or “How could you
play that hand?” — I actually say that out loud…
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: I’ve seen it on
TV.
size=2>Hellmuth: size=2>I’ve done it many times. I’m not proud of it. color=#000000 size=2 Helvetica>That makes
me look bad, number one. It makes me look like the John McEnroe of
poker.color=#0000ff size=2> (Laughs)size=2 Helvetica> So I look bad. Number two, it actually causes me to steam. So
that the other players want me to act like that. It’s funny because over the
years they realize that boy, if Phil’s acting like a brat, he’s playing bad. So
they actually try to put me on tilt. This year I’m controlling it well, and I
guess that’s why I have a first and a third already in the nine events I’ve
played, first, third and twelfth, you know.color=#000000 size=2 Helvetica>
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: If you had to
recommend some sources of information on how to play poker, where would I
go?
size=2>Hellmuth: Well,
“href=”https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060005726/qid=1052176596/sr=11-1/ref=sr_11_1/103-1452904-4367866#product-details”>Play
Poker Like the Pros” of course, and color=#000000 size=2>href=”https://www.ultimatebet.com/home.html”>https://www.ultimatebet.com.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: Talk about
streaks… winning and losing streaks. Is it really just coming back to being
focused on what you’re trying to accomplish that keeps it from bouncing through
the ups and downs?
size=2>Hellmuth: Man, it’s not
easy dealing with losing streaks. Which baseball player deals well with the
slumps that last a month or two? And all of them go through it. Which basketball
player deals well with being 5 points off their average for a month? But it
happens, you know. Which poker player deals with going through a lot of money in
a short period of time — a month or two? It’s not easy. Sometimes at
those times, I’ll just say to myself if I’m having a losing streak, “You know,
now’s a good time to hang out more with the family. I’m always looking for
excuses to just be home anyway. So I might just play less. I’ll be on the road a
little bit less during those times. Because I’m not out there trying to bang my
head against the wall. size=2>(Laughs)
size=2>I write for a couple magazines and I have other book
projects. I’d like to write a script. There are a lot of things going on. I like
to place in my oars at ultimatebet.com and I’ll be out there doing different
things and relaxing more. And then I think the answer for me is to just look at
the strategy I’m using and say, “All right, is this working? Are you
doing what you’ve done for the last 15, 16 years? Do there need to be some
adjustments made? And oftentimes, I find that I’m not doing what I’ve
been doing the last 16, 17, 18 years. And I just go back to that strategy and
that still seems to work pretty well.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: It’s amazing the
similarities between trading and playing poker. Most people know the
strategies. It really comes down to the mind games — or the control of your
mind — that ultimately leads to the long-term success.
size=2>Hellmuth: size=2>We have the World Series of Poker, the $10,000 buy in each year. And it’s
just uncanny how 615 people played last year and 400 of them just fell out of
the sky. And so many of them are traders from Wall Street. They just take a week
off and go play the WSOP.
Helvetica>Connors: size=2>Anybody can sit down and play a game of poker if they know the rules.
Anybody can come in and trade the markets. That ease of entry allows people to
believe that they can go in and compete against the likes of yourself or some of
the professionals.
Helvetica>Hellmuth:
And
successfully this last year, because our $55,000 buy in tour champion was won by
href=”?sec=poy&sub=results_player_detail&player_id=1007″>Alan
Goehring who is
like a bond arbitrage or bond trader or something like that. But I mean it’s
amazing — the two five-day long championships that we had this year: One
of them paid $2 million and the other paid $1 million — were won by two
amateurs, Alan Goehring and Robert Varkonyi.
Helvetica>Connors: Why is
that?
Helvetica>Hellmuth: Helvetica>Well, there’s so many of them. But I don’t know why. I can’t
answer that. The Tour Championship was a $25,000 buy in. We had 110 players. I
knew most of them, so there weren’t that many strangers on the Tour Championship
— maybe 30 vs. 400 strangers in the World Championships. In the World
Championship, you can see why, hey listen, 400 people you’ve never heard of, if
one of those guys knows what he’s doing and gets eight breaks, he can be down at
the final table.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2 Helvetica>Connors: But at the end of the
year it’s the same names. When you add up the totals…
Helvetica>Hellmuth: Helvetica>At the end of the year, yes, but at the end of the five days it was
Robert Varkonyi. At the end of this five days, I don’t know how face=”arial, helvetica” color=#000000 size=2>Alan Goehring won it. He’s doing
something different and it’s working.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2 Helvetica>Connors: But it’s like trading.
At any given time, anybody can make money in any given week or month. But for a
sustained period of time, it’s usually the same names.
Helvetica>Hellmuth: Helvetica>I agree with that — at the end of the year but how many of
these Wall Street types that have such amazing skill at what they do, I
mean some of these guys would certainly be on the list at the end of the year
too.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2 Helvetica>Connors: You think
so?
Helvetica>Hellmuth: If they
focused on it, yes. But for them it’s a pay cut. A lot of the Wall Street
guys are making $10 million a year, $2 million a year…in any given year. And
we probably have only 10 or 15 poker players that make over a $1 million a
year.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2 Helvetica>Connors: Yes. Do you see the
business side of this thing exploding? It certainly seems like there’s almost an
insatiable…
Helvetica>Hellmuth: Man, it’s
incredible. ESPN is going to be producing seven one-hour TV shows from the five
day WSOP. For ESPN. And ESPN is playing poker over and over and it’s
getting NBA-like ratings. The WSOP is getting NBA-like ratings on ESPN — it’s
off the charts!
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2 Helvetica>Connors: I’m looking at your
book right now and it is ranked 156 on Amazon.com — did you ever think that
would happen? (Laughs) That’s unbelievable. I’ve written five or six
books on trading and I know I’ve never been 156.
Helvetica>Hellmuth: Helvetica>I actually expect to sell a million
copies of (Laughs). I don’t know if it’s going
to take 20 years or not. I wrote this book to be a classic and I wrote this book
for the American public and you know something? No one has ever written a poker
book like this before. I mean the second chapter teaches people how to
play Texas Hold’em. So that means, yeah all right, everybody gets two
cards, face down, there’s a round of betting, there’s blinds…face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>I start that basic.
face=Arial, color=#000000 size=2 Helvetica>
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: It certainly
seems that your timing was great for the book. I mean to see it rate this
high on Amazon, it just shows there’s an insatiable demand out there.
helvetica>“We didn’t think it would take this long, but the American public |
size=2>Hellmuth: size=2>I mean look at the World Poker Tour. It’s launching and tface=Arial, color=#000000 size=2 Helvetica>size=2>hey sent me a tape of their commercials when I got back to Palo Alto
here. I threw in the tape and there’s three TV commercials that I’ve been a part
of and two of them just feature me. And they’re awesome. I’m like, “Wow,
this is so cool.” And we could see this stuff coming. We didn’t think it
would take this long, but the American public right now is in love with poker.
href=”https://www.playwinningpoker.com/slim1.html”>Amarillo Slim is scheduled
to do the Letterman Show, I heard. He has a book
coming out.
There’s about five poker books that all came out and the World Poker Tour is
just helping us sell them. It’s great to see poker take off like this, ESPN
playing the Championships, Travel Channel having commercials everywhere for the
World Poker Tour. It’s cool.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2>Connors: From a business
viewpoint, you guys are where we were back in 1994/1995. Very exciting. Online
betting — and especially online poker — has begun to explode, the same way
online trading has exploded. Are there places in particular that people should
look into if they do want to play online?
helvetica>“Online poker is a lot like online trading… it’s just |
size=2>Hellmuth: Online
poker is really exploding and I play at href=”https://www.ultimatebet.com”>https://www.ultimatebet.com. There’s a
table at ultimatebet.com called “Table Phil Hellmuth” and I helped them design
their software and I know everything’s on the level there and I stand behind
their products. Online poker is a lot like online trading. You know, imagine
your office having lunch and you go and play 10/20. We have a 81/60 game that
goes all the time. And you can win or lose $10,000 at lunch. Now for most of the
people out there, they can play the $4 and $8 game, that’s the one that has
my name, and take a couple of hundred dollar swing. Or there’s a 10/20
game. But our site has up to 2,500 people playing all simultaneously. And
we are just one of 10 sites that are out there So a lot of time you have 25,000
or 30,000 people playing poker online right now… so the online poker world is
just launching… I was eating dinner with someone the other night — he plans
at ultimatebet.com. His name is Crazy Canuckface=”arial, helvetica” size=2>. Tcolor=#000000 size=2>his was inHelvetica> Atlanta and someone recognized
his ultimatebet jacket and he was signing autographs. This is an
online poker player! It just shows you what’s been happening out there,
the influence of the Web.
style=”COLOR: blue”>Connors: size=2 Helvetica>The whole thing’s amazing. This has
been a pleasure — I have, of course, known of you for years, but it’s been a
pleasure just to get a chance to speak with you, and to spend an hour
together.
Helvetica>Hellmuth:
Thanks,
Larry. It’s pretty cool that you play, actually.
face=”arial, helvetica” size=2 Helvetica>Connors: No, Phil, you
play. I only pretend to play. Thanks again.
Hellmuth:
Thanks for having me
on the site, Larry.
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