name	PokerStars Inc.
logo
type	Private company
location	Costa Rica
area served	Worldwide
industry	Online poker
owner	Isai Scheinberg
homepage	PokerStars.com
intl	yes }}

PokerStars is the largest online poker cardroom in the world. PokerStars' satellite tournaments produced the 2003 World Series of Poker champion, Chris Moneymaker. 1983 champion Tom McEvoy, 2005 champion Joe Hachem, 2009 champion Joe Cada and 2010 champion Jonathan Duhamel and others also represent the site and are also regular players. PokerStars is the headline sponsor of the European Poker Tour (EPT), Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT), Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT), Australia & New Zealand Poker Tour (ANZPT), United Kingdom & Ireland Poker Tour (UKIPT), Italian Poker Tour (IPT), Czech-Slovak Poker Tour (CSPT), and North American Poker Tour (NAPT). PokerStars also sponsors the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA), a stop on the European, Latin American and North American Poker Tours. In 2005, ''eGaming Review'' named PokerStars.com the "Best Poker Operator of the Year". PokerStars offers a downloadable poker client for both Windows and Macintosh operating systems, offering the same features to users of each client. The Windows client has been reported to work at Linux operating systems using Wine emulator.

History

PokerStars launched its beta play money only site on September 11, 2001, and later began real money wagering on December 12, 2001. PokerStars was originally a Costa Rican company, Rational Enterprises, majority owned by the Scheinberg family of Israel. The company was subsequently moved to the Isle of Man, a British Crown dependency. The move was driven by the establishment of a 0% corporate tax rate and the removal of rules barring companies from accepting casino and poker bets from America. PokerStars holds its license with the Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission, and is also licensed in Italy by the Amministrazione Autonoma dei Monopoli di Stato (AAMS).

Since relocating, PokerStars has been the subject of financial media speculation regarding a possible initial public offering or merger with a publicly listed company. Analysts estimated its market value would have been approximately $2 billion (US) in 2004, which would have made the company one of the world's largest privately held gambling companies. Now, in 2009 and into 2010 PokerStars earns approximately $1.4 billion per year, and nets $1.34 million per day. PokerStars overtook PartyPoker as the world's largest online poker room at around the time the U.S. Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. Many sites, including PartyPoker, immediately suspended business with U.S. gamblers, while others, including PokerStars, did not.

On December 27, 2009, Pokerstars set the world record for the biggest online tournament. The tournament entry fee was $1, and the record number of people reached was 149,196.

The site dealt its 60 billionth hand on March 31, 2011. Pogo650 won the milestone hand winning $102,090.

Games offered

PokerStars offers ten varieties of poker games: Texas hold 'em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo (8 or Better), Stud, Stud Hi/Lo (8 or Better), Razz, Five-card draw, Deuce to Seven Triple Draw, Deuce to Seven Single Draw and Badugi. HORSE, HOSE, Mixed Hold'em, Mixed Omaha Hi/Lo, Triple Stud and 8-Game, "mixed games" that rotate through several of the above, are also offered. Players can participate in real money games ranging from $.01/$.02 up to $1,000/$2,000. The home of the World Championship of Online Poker, the largest online poker tournament series in the world, PokerStars has over 20,000 players playing real money ring games daily, plus thousands more playing real money tournaments or free-play games. During peak operating times, this often adds up to over 300,000 players online simultaneously. PokerStars.com's play money players mix with those logging in from PokerStars.net, a free play-only site without real money games. In October 2008, PokerStars launched PokerStars.it, exclusively for Italian players, which will offer real money tournaments in Euro currency in addition to the usual play money games. PokerStars now offers some ring games and tournaments on its main PokerStars.com site in euro. In March 2010, the site began allowing users to keep their real-money accounts in British pounds and Canadian dollars as well as U.S. dollars and euro.

The site's flagship weekly event is the ''Sunday Million'', a weekly tournament with a guaranteed $1 million prize pool with a buy-in of $215 and is the biggest weekly online poker tournament in the world. On March 7, 2011, The 5th Anniversary Sunday Million broke records, with 59,128 players creating a total prize pool of $11,825,600.

Team PokerStars

PokerStars sponsors many professional poker players under the designation: Team PokerStars Pro

"Team PokerStars Pro" members include Bertrand 'Elky' Grospellier, Barry Greenstein, John Duthie, Lee Nelson, Luca Pagano, Liv Boeree, Vanessa Rousso, Victor Ramdin, Noah Boeken, Andre Akkari, Humberto Brenes, Chad Brown, Angel Guillen, Victoria Coren, Marcin Horecki, Dennis Phillips, Johnny Lodden, Leo Fernandez, Ivan Demidov, Juan Maceiras, Marcel Luske, Arnaud Mattern, Dario Minieri, Daniel Negreanu, Alex Kravchenko, Alexandre Gomes, Katja Thater, Jason Mercier, Angel Guillen, Jude Ainsworth, as well as WSOP main event champions Chris Moneymaker, Joe Hachem, Viktor Blom, 2009 WSOP champion Joe Cada, 2010 WSOP champion Jonathan Duhamel and 1983 WSOP champion Tom McEvoy.

PokerStars also have a Celebrity team and a Sports team, called respectively "Friends of PokerStars" and "SportStars". These count Actor Jason Alexander; quantitative analyst and author of the 'Chen Formula' for Texas Hold'em Bill Chen as and Brazilian auto racer and race team owner Gualter Salles, French rugby union international Sébastien Chabal and former tennis champion Boris Becker as SportStars.

United States criminal charges

On April 15, 2011, along with similar competitors' sites, Pokerstars.com was seized and shut down by U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, which alleged it was in violation of federal bank fraud and money laundering laws. The company subsequently stopped allowing players from the United States to play real money games and temporarily moved the main company website to Pokerstars.eu.

On April 20, 2011, control of the Pokerstars.com domain name was returned to the company from the US Attorney's office, "to facilitate the withdrawal of U.S. players’ funds held in account with the companies."

Notes

External links

Official site

Free Play site

PokerStars.fr

PokerStars.it

Category:Poker companies Category:Gambling websites Category:European Poker Tour Category:Gambling companies of the Isle of Man Category:Seized domain names

bg:PokerStars cs:PokerStars de:PokerStars es:PokerStars fr:PokerStars it:PokerStars he:פוקרסטארס nl:PokerStars pt:PokerStars ro:Pokerstars ru:PokerStars fi:PokerStars

name	Jason Calacanis
birth date	November 28, 1970
birth place	Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York City
occupation	Internet entrepreneur / Blogger
spouse	}}

Jason McCabe Calacanis (born November 28, 1970) is an American Internet entrepreneur and blogger. His first company was part of the dot-com era in New York, and his second venture, Weblogs, Inc., capitalized on the growth of blogs before being sold to AOL.

Early life

Calacanis was born in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from Xaverian High School in 1988. He then attended Fordham University, where he majored in psychology.

Career

During the dot-com boom, Calacanis was active in New York's Silicon Alley community and in 1996 began producing a publication known as the ''Silicon Alley Reporter''. Originally a 16-page photocopied newsletter, as its popularity grew it expanded into a 300-page magazine, with a sister publication called the ''Digital Coast Reporter'' for the West Coast. Calacanis's tireless socializing earned him a nickname as the "yearbook editor" of the Silicon Alley community. With the end of the Dot-com bubble, Silicon Alley Reporter failed.

Calacanis co-founded Weblogs, Inc. with Brian Alvey in 2003, supported by an angel investment from Mark Cuban. Time Warner's America Online agreed to buy Weblogs, Inc. in October 2005 for $25–30 million.

Netscape.com

Six months into his tenure with AOL, Calacanis was offered a chance to be the General Manager of the new Netscape website. Calacanis used the model pioneered by Digg, Del.icio.us, and Furl and added an editorial layer to the system. The project has launched and occupied the front page of Netscape. Calacanis started by hiring a team of eight "anchors" to follow up users' top stories. He then hired some of the top users of social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit, Newsvine and Flickr to go to Netscape as Netscape Navigators, which prompted a public debate with Kevin Rose, founder of Digg.

On November 16, 2006, TechCrunch reported that Calacanis had resigned from his position as CEO of Weblogs, Inc. and General Manager of Netscape. Calacanis later confirmed this with a post at his blog.

Sequoia Capital

On December 5, 2006, Techcrunch reported that Calacanis was going to announce his new position at Sequoia Capital as an EIA (entrepreneur in action). Calacanis later confirmed this on his blog.

Mahalo.com

Calacanis founded Mahalo.com, a "human-powered search engine", which launched in alpha test in May 2007. During a speech about the site at the Gnomedex conference in August 2007, Calacanis got into a public confrontation with Dave Winer that led to Winer's resignation from the panel of experts for the TechCrunch20 conference organized by Calacanis. Winer interrupted Calacanis' speech during the event, calling it "conference spam" and igniting a war of words on their blogs. "I'm not interested in having someone berate me like this," Calacanis wrote on his blog.

As of April 21, 2010 Mahalo had 9.4 million global (5.7 million US) unique monthly visitors, down from a peak of 14.1 million global (7.4 million US) unique monthly visitors, according to Quantcast.

Angel Investing

In 2009 Calacanis founded the Open Angel Forum, an event that connects early stage startups with angel investors. The forum was the culmination of a series of public comments by Calacanis questioning the ethics of pay-to-pitch angel forums. Calacanis believes startups shouldn't have to pay to pitch angel investors. Calacanis is also an Angel Investor in Gowalla.

ThisWeekIn.com

Calacanis is a co-founder of ThisWeekIn.com and host of the live streamed "This Week In Startups" on the network.

LAUNCH Conference

Calacanis announced the creation of the LAUNCH Conference to spotlight unannounced start-ups. The first conference was held on February 23rd and 24th 2011 and featured 140 startups. A number of companies received funding at the event and the winners included Room 77 and GreenGoose.

Controversy

Calacanis was involved in a 2010 Internet hoax involving his Twitter postings regarding the introduction of the Apple iPad. In his tweets, he claimed to have a "reviewer's copy" of an iPad device describing in great detail the features of such device. The device in question was not in his possession nor did it exist. It was explained to have been an attempt by Calacanis to expose the hysteria regarding Apple product launches. The hoax also called into question the fact checking and verification processes of the mainstream media who published the hoax story as true.

Notes

References

Brown, Eryn (January 2006). "Revenge of the Dotcom Poster Boy". ''Wired''; Conde Nast Digital. Retrieved 2010-06-19.

External links

The Jason Calacanis Weblog

Category:1970 births Category:Living people Category:American bloggers Category:American computer businesspeople Category:American Internet personalities Category:American people of Greek descent Category:American people of Irish descent Category:Angel investors Category:Weblogs, Inc. Category:People from Brooklyn Category:Xaverian High School alumni

it:Jason Calacanis

Name	Daniel Negreanu
Nickname	Kid Poker
Birth date	July 26, 1974
Hometown	Toronto, Ontario Canada
Wsop bracelet count	4
Wsop final tables	26
Wsop money finishes	48
Wsop main event best finish rank	11th
Wsop main event best finish year	2001
Wpt titles	2
Wpt final tables	7
Wpt money finishes	18
Ept titles	0
Ept final tables	1
Ept money finishes	2
Updated	2010-10-30 }}

Daniel Negreanu (; born July 26, 1974) is a Canadian professional poker player. He has won four World Series of Poker bracelets and two World Poker Tour Championship titles. He is currently ranked second in the all-time career earnings list and is the star of poker game show ''Million Dollar Challenge''. He plays a big part in the Pokerstars.net Big Game.

Personal life

Negreanu was born in Toronto, Ontario. His parents, Annie and Constantin, left the old Communist regime of Romania in 1967, looking to start a new life in the United States. They ended up settling in Toronto instead, where Constantin found work as an electrician and sweets seller. They soon started a family, Daniel arriving five years after his older brother. It was a supportive environment, even when it became clear Daniel was destined for an unconventional lifestyle. While nursing dreams of a career as a professional snooker player, the 15-year-old learned how to play poker. By 16, he was spending time in pool halls, hustling, sports betting, and playing cards. When he was several credits short of graduation Daniel dropped out of high school and began his life as a rounder playing at the local charity casinos, usually at Casino Country and Fundtime Games, and looking for illegal games around the city. While in Toronto, Daniel met and began dating Evelyn Ng, who would also become a well-known professional poker player. After building up his bankroll, he left for Las Vegas at the age of 22 to pursue his dream of becoming a professional poker player. However, "The Strip" got the better of him and he was forced to move back home to Toronto to rebuild his bankroll.

In August 2005, he married Lori Lin Weber and they later separated in November 2007. He resides in Las Vegas, Nevada. Negreanu has a blog at Full Contact Poker where he posts his thoughts and feelings about different things in life, politics, the poker world and everything. He is also a heavy NHL fan once claiming on ''Poker After Dark'' at the dream table he was thinking of declining the offer because the tournament was in the middle of hockey season. He is often seen wearing NHL jerseys of the Toronto Maple Leafs and other teams. Daniel became a vegetarian in 2000, he has been vegan since 2006. After many years living in the USA, he received his green card on July 15, 2009. On November 23, 2009 Daniel's mother died in her sleep after being ill for many months.

Philanthropy

Negreanu has a personal history of philanthropy. In addition to frequent appearances in charity events, such as “Ante Up for Africa”, which raises money for crisis-torn Darfur, Negreanu is the founder of the annual “Big Swing” charity golf event.

The first annual Big Swing event was held on June 25 at the Harrah’s Rio Secco Golf Club. Professional poker players Scotty Nguyen and Erick Lindgren were among the celebrity poker players paired with foursomes who had donated $3,000 to the Lili Claire Foundation. The Lili Claire Foundation is a Las Vegas charity that serves children born with special needs and their families.

Poker

Negreanu is an accomplished tournament and cash game player. Negreanu has amassed four WSOP and two WPT championships, numerous WSOP and WPT final tables, as well as various other tournament titles. Negreanu's most successful year came in 2004 when he was named the Card Player Player of the Year and the WSOP Player of the Year. He was also named the 2004-05 WPT Player of the Year. In 2006, Negreanu was named "Favorite Poker Player" at ''Card Player Magazine'''s Player of the Year Awards Gala.

In the past, Negreanu has regularly played the big game in Bobby's Room, in the Bellagio casino, Las Vegas, where the limits are $4,000-$8,000 or greater and the games are mixed. He is a self-admitted action junkie who always seeks new challenges and sets high goals for himself, not only at the poker table but also on the golf course. Unlike many other players, he is very outspoken about his poker results and regularly posts updates in the forums at the Full Contact Poker website. Some of Negreanu’s success is attributed to his ability to read opponents. When asked about this, Negreanu explained that the most important skill he employs is observing what hands his opponents play and how capable they are of playing them.

Live poker

Tournaments

Negreanu burst onto the tournament poker scene in 1997 with three tournament wins including two events at the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods, earning $55,064 as well as being named the tournament's best all-around player.

As of 2010, his total live tournament winnings exceed $14,100,000. His 48 cashes at the WSOP account for $3,515,597 of those winnings. He recently became the all-time leading money winner for tournament poker, surpassing Phil Ivey, only to be surpassed by Erik Seidel.

World Series of Poker

Negreanu's first in the money finish at the WSOP also happened to be his first WSOP bracelet. Negreanu won $169,460 in the $2,000 Pot Limit Hold'em event in the 1998 World Series of Poker (WSOP) and became the youngest WSOP bracelet winner in history — a record he held until 2004. Negreanu has since captured another three bracelets. He has 23 career WSOP final table appearances, including two at the WSOP Europe, and 48 money finishes.

+ World Series of Poker bracelets
!Year	!Tournament	!Prize (US$)
		$169,460
		$100,440
		$169,100
		$204,874

World Poker Tour

+ World Poker Tour Titles
!Year	!Tournament	!Prize (US$)
	$10,300 Borgata Poker Open	$1,117,400
	$15,000 Five Diamond World Poker Classic	$1,795,218

Other notable tournaments

In 1997, he won two events at the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods, earning $55,064 as well as being named the tournament's best all-around player.

In November 2008, Negreanu won the fourth-annual British Columbia Poker Championships main event, topping a field of 690 players (a personal high for Daniel), and earning $371,910 CAD ($299,951 USD).

Cash games

In addition to Negreanu's regular appearances in the big game at Bobby's Room, he played in six seasons of ''High Stakes Poker''.

Online poker

In December 2005, he started his own online poker cardroom "skin" site on his official site, Full Contact Poker, which also includes his blog and a variety of poker forums. He played at his cardroom under the screen name "KidPoker". In 2006, he used Full Contact Poker to launch a competition to select a protege, whom Daniel would attempt to mold into a world-class live tournament poker player. In addition, he agreed to pay the protege's entry fee into four $10,000 buy-in events. Daniel's first protege was Brian Fidler. In 2007, Daniel ran a second protege promotion, which was won by Anthony Mak.

In June 2007 Negreanu signed with PokerStars, joining Chris Moneymaker, Joe Hachem, Greg Raymer and many other professional poker players as a member of Team PokerStars. His Full Contact Poker site has since returned to being a forum and informational site.

Negreanu is currently enduring a personal bankroll building challenge on PokerStars. He started with $10 and his goal is to increase it to $100,000.

Other poker activities

Upon opening, the Wynn Las Vegas resort recruited him as their "Poker Ambassador" to play for any stake in their poker room. The arrangement lasted until October 2005, when he opted out because it was restricting his ability to play for high stakes outside the Wynn.

Negreanu has played poker on various TV shows such as ''Late Night Poker'', ''Poker After Dark'', and ''High Stakes Poker'', as well as serving as a commentator and stand-in host on ''Ultimate Poker Challenge''. He also appeared in the third season of ''Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament''. In January 2007, Negreanu appeared in the Fox Reality original series ''Rob and Amber: Against the Odds'', in which he mentored reality television personality Rob Mariano in his bid to become a professional poker player.

In May 2008, Negreanu's book ''Power Hold'em Strategy'' was released. The book resembles the Doyle Brunson book Super/System in that it has contributions from several other poker players, including Evelyn Ng, Erick Lindgren, Paul Wasicka, Todd Brunson and David Williams. Negreanu's section presents and explains the strategy of small ball poker. At the same time he started a poker teaching site called Poker VT. Negreanu is also featured in the 2006 poker video game ''Stacked with Daniel Negreanu'', providing tips and hints as to how to play effectively. He has written over 100 articles for ''CardPlayer Magazine'' and contributed to Doyle Brunson's revised book, ''Super System II''. He has tutored on the web as part of Poker School Online and also personally given lessons to celebrities such as Tobey Maguire.

Other ventures

Negreanu made cameo appearances as a poker player playing against the mutant Gambit in the film ''X-Men Origins: Wolverine'' as well as a poker player in ''The Grand'', and as himself in the film ''Lucky You''. On Season two of Sports Science, Daniel attempts to show if a professional poker player can bluff a lie detector. He also appeared in Katy Perry's music video for "Waking Up in Vegas", also as a poker player.

Bibliography

''Hold'em Wisdom for all Players'' (2007) ISBN 1580422101

''Power Hold'em Strategy'' (2008) ISBN 1580422047

''More Hold'em Wisdom for all Players'' (2008) ISBN 1580422241

Notes

External links

Official site

Cardplayer articles by Negreanu

Negreanu's vlog

Category:1974 births Category:Canadian Christians Category:Canadian expatriate sportspeople in the United States Category:Canadian emigrants to the United States Category:Canadian people of Romanian descent Category:Canadian poker players Category:Canadian vegans Category:Gambling writers Category:Living people Category:Participants in American reality television series Category:People from the Las Vegas metropolitan area Category:People from Toronto Category:Sportspeople from Ontario Category:World Poker Tour winners Category:World Series of Poker bracelet winners Category:World Series of Poker Circuit event winners

cs:Daniel Negreanu da:Daniel Negreanu de:Daniel Negreanu et:Daniel Negreanu es:Daniel Negreanu fr:Daniel Negreanu hr:Daniel Negreanu it:Daniel Negreanu he:דניאל נגראנו nl:Daniel Negreanu no:Daniel Negreanu pl:Daniel Negreanu pt:Daniel Negreanu ro:Daniel Negreanu ru:Негреану, Дэниел fi:Daniel Negreanu sv:Daniel Negreanu

Nickname	The Poker Brat
Hometown	Madison, Wisconsin
Birth date	July 16, 1964
Birth place	Madison, Wisconsin
Death date
Wsop bracelet count	11
Wsop money finishes	84
Wsop final tables	45
Wsop main event best finish rank	Winner
Wsop main event best finish year	1989
Wpt titles	''None''
Wpt final tables	4
Wpt money finishes	13
Updated	2011-07-07 }}

Phil Hellmuth (born July 16, 1964) is an American professional poker player. He is best known for holding a record 11 World Series of Poker bracelets, for winning the Main Event of the 1989 World Series of Poker (WSOP) and for his temperamental, "poker brat" personality. He is also a member of the WSOP's Poker Hall of Fame.

Personal life

Phillip Jerome Hellmuth, Jr. was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison for three years before dropping out to play poker full time.

Poker

Tournaments

As of 2011, his total live tournament winnings exceed $13,000,000. He is ranked fourth on the All Time Money List, behind Erik Seidel, Daniel Negreanu, and Phil Ivey. As a poker player, Hellmuth is known for entering tournaments hours after they begin.

World Series of Poker

In 1989, the 24-year-old Hellmuth became the youngest player to win the Main Event of the WSOP by defeating the two-time defending champion Johnny Chan in heads up play; his record has since been broken twice, when Peter Eastgate won in 2008 and Joe Cada won in 2009. Hellmuth holds the records for most WSOP cashes (85) and most WSOP final tables (45), overtaking T. J. Cloutier.

As of May 2010, Hellmuth has won $6,105,254 at the WSOP and ranks 10th on the WSOP All Time Money List. Hellmuth also is tied for 4th all time in number of times cashed in the WSOP Main Event. He has 7 Main Event cashes (1988, 1989, 1997, 2001, 2003, 2008, 2009), placing him behind Berry Johnston (10) and Doyle Brunson and Bobby Baldwin (8).

All of Hellmuth's bracelets have been in Texas hold'em, though he has had some success in non-hold'em events. As of the 2011 World Series, 18 of his 45 final tables are for a variety of games, including 2-7 Lowball, Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo, and Omaha hold'em (Pot Limit, Limit, and Hi-Lo); as well as mixed gamed like H.O.R.S.E and the Poker Players Championship. Of those 18 events, Hellmuth has finished runner-up five times.

+ World Series of Poker bracelets
!Year	!Tournament	!Prize (US$)
	$10,000 No Limit Hold'em World Championship	$755,000
	$5,000 Limit Hold'em	$168,000
	$1,500 No Limit Hold'em	$161,400
1993	$2,500 No Limit Hold'em	$173,000
1993	$5,000 Limit Hold'em	$138,000
	$3,000 Pot Limit Hold'em	$204,000
	$2,000 No Limit Hold'em	$316,550
	$2,500 Limit Hold'em	$171,400
2003	$3,000 No Limit Hold'em	$410,860
	$1,000 No Limit Hold'em with rebuys	$631,863
	$1,500 No Limit Hold'em	$637,254

During the Main Event of the 2005 World Series of Poker he accused an opponent of not being able to spell "poker" after the player put all of his money in the pot pre-flop with King-Jack against Hellmuth's Ace-King; Hellmuth's opponent hit a three-outer (a Jack on the river) to win the pot. At the 2006 World Series of Poker, Hellmuth captured his 10th World Series of Poker bracelet in the $1,000 No Limit Hold'em with rebuys event. At the time, it tied him with Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan for most bracelets. At the 2007 World Series of Poker, Hellmuth won his record-breaking 11th bracelet in the $1,500 No Limit Hold'em Event.

UltimateBet, Hellmuth's former sponsor, arranged for him to arrive at the 2007 WSOP Main Event in an race car, escorted by 11 models, one for each of his 11 WSOP bracelets. Hellmuth lost control of the vehicle and hit a concrete light fixture in the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino parking lot; Hellmuth showed up two hours late for the Main Event. 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.

In 2008, as part of an Ultimatebet promotion, Hellmuth arrived at the 2008 WSOP Main Event in a convoy dressed in military garb, with eleven stars on his helmet (for the eleven WSOP bracelets he has won). On Day 5 of the 2008 WSOP, Hellmuth folded to Cristian Dragomir's bet on a flop of . Asked by the table to show his hand, Dragomir revealed that he had called Hellmuth's pre-flop re-raise with , considered to be a weak hand. Hellmuth proceeded to call Dragomir an "idiot," among other insults, and was eventually issued a warning by the floorperson for continued berating of another player. Other players including his friend Mike Matusow advised him to stop. Nonetheless, he continued to verbally abuse Dragomir until receiving a one-round penalty. The penalty was to be carried out at the beginning of play the next day. After Hellmuth had a private meeting with WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack, Pollack overruled the floorperson's penalty. Hellmuth finished the tournament in 45th place, while Dragomir finished in 29th. Hellmuth apologized to Dragomir for his behavior the next day.

In the 2011 World Series of Poker, Phil finished 2nd in three tournaments, in the 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship, the Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split-8 or Better Championship, and The Poker Player's Championship eight-game mix.

World Poker Tour

Though Hellmuth has not won a World Poker Tour (WPT) tournament, he has cashed 13 times and made four final tables in WPT events. He finished fourth in the $3,000 No Limit Hold'em WPT Event at the 3rd Annual 49'er Gold Rush Bonanza in 2002 and 3rd in the $10,000 No Limit Hold'em WPT Event at the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods in 2003 and at the 2008 WPT L.A. Poker Classic Hellmuth finished in sixth place earning $229,480 in a final table that included both Phil Ivey and Nam Le. He also played in two WPT Invitational Events, the World Poker Tour by The Book in 2004 and the WPT Bad Boys of Poker II in 2006 and finished 3rd both times. In March 2010 Hellmuth made the final table in the $10,000 Shooting Star Event at the Bay 101 Casino 2nd in chips only to bust out in 6th place when his QQ was cracked by AJ on the river. He earned $117,000 for his efforts. In April he was the TV bubble boy finishing 7th at the $25,000 WPT World Championship. The finish gave Hellmuth over $152,000 for the tournament and made him the 122nd WPT poker made millionaire As of May 2010, Hellmuth has won $1,106,345 in WPT tournaments.

Other notable tournaments

Hellmuth makes regular appearances on episodes of ''Poker After Dark'', both as a player and as a drop-in commentator. Hellmuth won his first ''Poker After Dark tournament'' in the first episode of the third season, winning a net $100,000. Hellmuth returned two weeks later and claimed his second Poker After Dark title, winning another $100,000. Hellmuth is the season 3 champion of Late Night Poker.

In 2000 he won the Poker EM 7 Card Stud Main Event in Austria, billed the largest 7 Card Stud tournament in the world. Phil defeated 437 other players to win $106,250. In 2005, Hellmuth won the first National Heads-Up Poker Championship. He defeated Men Nguyen, Paul Phillips, Huck Seed, Lyle Berman and Antonio Esfandiari on the way to the final against Chris Ferguson whom he defeated in two out of three games. While trying to repeat in 2006, he lost in the first round to Chip Reese. In 2007, Hellmuth did not play due to the PartyPoker.com Premier League Poker, a British tournament in which he took part. He won four out of his six group matches and eventually finished third in the finals. Hellmuth took part in the 2008 National Heads-Up Poker Championship, losing in the first round to Tom Dwan. In the 2009 NBC Heads Up Phil made it to the quarterfinals before he was eliminated; he earned $75,000 for his performance.

Other poker activities

Hellmuth appeared in seasons 1, 4 and 6 of GSN's cash game show, High Stakes Poker.

Hellmuth was involved with creating the software for UltimateBet and was formerly a member of Team UB.

Hellmuth has made several instructional poker videos, including his ''Ultimate White To Black Belt Course'' and ''Phil Hellmuth's Million Dollar Poker System.'' He has written many articles for Cardplayer magazine and several poker books including ''Play Poker like the Pros,'' ''Bad Beats and Lucky Draws,'' ''The Greatest Poker Hands ever Played'', and ''Poker Brat'', which contains autobiographical material as well as poker advice. His latest book is called "Deal Me In." This book is a collection of 20 chapters, each one focusing on one of the top 20 poker players in the world. It is the first book published by Phil Hellmuth's publishing company PhilsHousePublishing and was written by professional sports writer Stephen John. Chapters include first-person biographies of Phil Hellmuth himself, Daniel Negreanu, Doyle Brunson, Chris Ferguson, Johnny Chan, Scotty Nguyen and others.

In May 2004 Phil Hellmuth partnered with Oasys Mobile for the release of ''Texas Hold'em by Phil Hellmuth.'' At the time it was one of the 10 most popular multi-player mobile phone games available. In spring 2006, Hellmuth replaced Phil Gordon as commentator on Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown. Along with Annie Duke, Hellmuth is a poker coach on Fox Sports Network’s Best Damn Poker Show, which is sponsored by the poker site Ultimatebet.net.

In October 2008, Hellmuth launched www.pokerbrat.com, a webstore where customers can purchase Hellmuth and non-Hellmuth brand poker gear. In May 2009, Phil Hellmuth released the book ''Deal Me In: 20 Of The World's Top Poker Players Share The Heartbreaking and Inspiring Stories of How They Turned Pro''.

Personality and controversy

On one occasion, Hellmuth so infuriated Sam Grizzle that the two men had a physical altercation. Hellmuth claims that the fight was a draw and that neither one of them was injured. In the first week of ''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, 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. After the show's producers intervened, Hellmuth returned and was eliminated a few hands later by Sheikhan. Duke remained quiet while the drama played out, though in a later interview, she described Hellmuth's behavior as "one of the biggest overreactions I have ever seen."

On December 20, 2008 Hellmuth was playing $200/$400 heads up limit hold em on UltimateBet, where he was at the time a spokesman, when an apparent software glitch occurred. The $5599 pot was awarded to Hellmuth, even though he held the worst hand. (His opponent held for Three Kings and Hellmuth held Ten Two for two pair.) This hand became the subject of considerable controversy in 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." (This contradicted the official statement of Ultimatebet that no other cases of this error had been found.) Finally, the previous cheating scandal at Ultimatebet led to suspicions about the plausibility of the company's explanation for the computer bug that they claim caused the error.

Bibliography

''Phil Hellmuth's Texas Hold 'Em'' (2005) ISBN 0060834609

''Bad Beats and Lucky Draws: Poker Strategies, Winning Hands, and Stories from the Professional Poker Tour'' (2004) ISBN 0060740833

''Play Poker Like the Pros''(2003) ISBN 0060005726

Notes

External links

Official website

Articles by Hellmuth from the ''Card Player'' magazine website

Category:American poker players Category:Poker commentators Category:American gambling writers Category:World Series of Poker bracelet winners Category:World Series of Poker Main Event winners Category:National Heads-Up Poker Championship winners Category:Living people Category:1964 births Category:People from Madison, Wisconsin

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