Poker Articles

Why Phil Hellmuth Can't Lose...or Win
By Greg Dinkin and Nolan Dalla
(Exclusive For PokerPages.com -- All Rights Reserved)

After winning the Super Bowl in 2001, the Baltimore Ravens were clearly the favorites to repeat as champions the following year. The Ravens' defense was arguably the best of all-time. They set an NFL-record for fewest points allowed in a season. To make matters even more daunting for opponents, the Ravens added $25 million free-agent quarterback Elvis Grbac, who was coming off a Pro Bowl season. They signed All-Pro offensive tackle Leon Searcy, and their first-round draft pick Todd Heap at tight end. The Ravens looked like an absolute powerhouse coming into the new football season. The "D" word -- short for "dynasty" -- was whispered in hushed tones.

Then, something strange happened. The Ravens, who had been relatively anonymous in previous years, turned into media stars. They wrote books. They invited television cameras into training camp. The Ravens went from a closely-knit group of talented, hungry players, to a group of individuals that seemed more concerned with selling themselves like soda pop and min-vans.

The Ravens' new season began with cable-TV giant, Home Box Office Productions (HBO) at every team practice and inside every team meeting. Head coach Brian Billick agreed to allow the Ravens' training camp to be filmed from start to finish. Billick was eager to bask in the glory of his team's championship. He had his own local television show in Baltimore. His book, Competitive Leadership: Twelve Principles for Success was published in June. Billick also made this third "how to" video on coaching football. Billick made frequent media appearances in which he pontificated about his "genius."

Then, came the rude awakening. The Ravens finished 9-7 and were very fortunate to make the playoffs. Then, they were abruptly bounced out of the playoffs in a 17-point loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Critics noted the team failed to play with emotion, consistency, or heart -- the mark of a poorly-coached team. Injuries and a few bad breaks were certainly costly, but the blame clearly belonged on the shoulders of Brian Billick.

This sports story is hardly unusual. A few years earlier, Denver Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan had written a book after his team won two Super Bowls. He appeared on late night talk shows. He seemed to relish the role of "genius." Is it just a coincidence that his team has failed to reach the playoffs in the three seasons since then?

On to basketball. Miami Heat head coach Pat Riley wrote a bestseller last year and has become a star on the speaking circuit. This past year, his team failed to make the playoffs for the first time in Riley's nineteen seasons as a head coach. After Rick Pitino wrote his book, he seemed more interested in self-promotion than winning basketball games. Upon receiving the biggest compensation package for an NBA head coach in history, he managed to make the lowly Boston Celtics worse. He resigned in disgrace as he was run out of town by fanatic Celtic's fans.

Do you see a pattern here?

Now, let's talk about poker. In 1989, Phil Hellmuth, Jr. became the youngest player ever to win the World Series of Poker. He has a total of seven gold bracelets -- won between 1989 and 2002. Before being surpassed by T.J. Cloutier and later Johnny Chan in this year's tournament (2002), he was the leading money winner in World Series history. But that just scratches the surface. He now writes a magazine column for Card Player. He landed a publishing deal with HarperCollins and has a book coming out in the Fall entitled Let's Play Poker. He's a partner in the on-line poker site UltimateBet.com and can be seen nearly everywhere holding his trademark two black nines (the hand that won him the 1989 championship) -- promoting his "Two Nines Room." You can't open up a magazine or turn on a poker show on television without seeing Hellmuth.

As a businessman, Hellmuth's branding strategy is to be commended. He has leveraged his poker success to become a bona fide celebrity both at and away from the table. He markets himself in such a way that draws visitors to his website and soon, readers to his book. He takes center stage whenever he wants it, and is always a featured guest in any poker forum where he chooses to appear -- such as the World Poker Player's Conference (WPPC) in Las Vegas where he'll lead a discussion with Russ Hamilton called "World Champs Discuss Successful No-Limit Techniques." There's no doubt that Hellmuth had a part in that name, just as he labeled a party at his house prior to the Shooting Stars tournament as the "Champions Party."

Robert Varkonyi shaves Phil Hellmuth's head

What's really amazing (and some may say disturbing) is that even though he didn't make it past Day Three in this year's World Series, he still managed to steal the limelight away from Robert Varkonyi by getting his head shaved. Even after announcer Gabe Kaplan poked fun at Hellmuth's "modesty," (just as Rick Reilly did in a column for Sports Illustrated a couple of weeks earlier) Hellmuth took the microphone and said, "I lose either way. If Robert wins, I get my head shaved. But if Julian (Gardner) wins, I lose my record as being the youngest player to win the World Series." Seizing the spotlight and basking in his past accomplishments was classic Hellmuth.

Phil's "problem" in poker is that he has made becoming a celebrity a full-time occupation. Perhaps it's more important to him than winning tournaments or making money. A strong argument can be made that he simply invests too many hours in the day, or too many days in the month, being a celebrity and not enough in improving his poker abilities and keeping up to date with what has become a very talented field of competitors. Since Hellmuth won three gold bracelets in a single year (1993), the game has changed considerably and has become much tougher. That's a fact.

In the decade since Hellmuth's biggest payoff, the most significant change in poker is the amount and accessibility to good information. Between software packages, Internet newsgroups such as RGP, websites such as PokerPages.Com, and poker books on every game, there are so many tools out there to improve your play. If you aren't constantly sharpening your skills -- whether it be with computer simulations, or simply by having a trusted poker playing freind to run ideas by -- then you are going to fall behind. It's that simple, as Hellmuth's results confirm.

Being a full-time celebrity doesn't allow the time it takes to stay on top. Is it merely a coincidence that Phil Ivey, who won three gold bracelets in the 2002 World Series, seemingly has no interests beyond poker? This is not to say he doesn't have other thing going on in his life, but he clearly isn't playing the celebrity game. At the World Series this year, he wouldn't give a literary agent the time of day (guess who?) when asked about writing a book. Instead, he kept to himself and just kept on winning.

Aside from the time and energy that it takes to be a celebrity, what really hurt Billick, Shanahan, Pitino, Riley, and now Hellmuth, is attitude. It can be argued that the natural by-product of success is complacency. Those who are on top have no place else to go but downward. When you add the element of notoriety, it can also start to delude a person into thinking that he can do no wrong. For instance, when things are going poorly, rather than evaluating what they may have done wrong, these superegos tend to remember why they're so good and view the present downfall as an aberration. The result is that they forget what made them so successful in the first place -- relentlessly honing their craft, not their personna.

Indeed, you can't look anywhere in the poker media these days without seeing Phil Hellmuth holding his pair of nines. Those nines do nothing to help Hellmuth win his next tournament. Rather than focusing on his mistakes or exploring every possible outlet to get better at his craft, Hellmuth reassures himself by thinking about his past success -- just as Billick and others did -- which only prevents him from improving. Those two nines and that world championship came thirteen years ago, when Hellmuth was a poker player, not a celebrity. As a celebrity, he managed to miss all but one final table at this year's WSOP. Sure, he has won three gold bracelets in the last nine years, but given that he's played an extraordinary number of events in that time, three bracelets in nine years doesn't put him at the top of the poker world. Add Hellmuth's reputation as a mediocre ring game player and you wonder if his bankroll wouldn't be bigger if he wasn't so busy with his other pursuits.

Phil Hellmuth at WSOP

The big question is -- can you be both a celebrity and stay at the top of the poker world? Bobby Baldwin and Lyle Berman understand that to be world-class executives, they can't put in 2,000 hours a year at the poker table. Mike Caro understands that to be a world-class poker theorist and author, you can't put in those types of hours either. These men all have supreme confidence in themselves, but are smart enough to understand their limitations, as well.

No doubt, it's hard to give up celebrity status. But, it seems he will have to make a choice at some point -- celebrity or competitor? And, since both can be profitable, that explains the title of this column -- why he can't lose. It also points to why he can't win consistently in poker - the game has quite simply become too competitive and demanding for a celebrity's schedule.

Greg Dinkin is the author of The Poker MBA (www.thepokermba.com) and the founder of Venture Literary (www.ventureliterary.com), where he works with writers to sell their work to publishers and producers.

Nolan Dalla can be reached at: nolandalla@pokerpages.com