Scott Fischman (born 1980 in Langhorne, Pennsylvania) is an American professional poker player based in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Fischman grew up in South Jersey and moved to Las Vegas at the age of 12. He was introduced to poker by a schoolfriend and went on to become a poker dealer at the Sahara and the Mirage. At the 2004 World Series of Poker (WSOP) he became the youngest person ever to win two WSOP bracelets, winning one bracelet in a no limit Texas hold'em and a second in a H.O.R.S.E. tournament.

In 2003, Fischman became a member of the poker-playing group "The Crew," which also included Dutch Boyd, Bobby Boyd, David Smyth, Joe Bartholdi Jr, Tony Lazar and Brett Jungblut (Jungblut and Bartholdi have both since left the group).

In 2004, Fischman defeated Joe Cassidy to win the World Poker Tour (WPT) Young Guns of Poker invitational event. In 2005 he finished 2nd to Allen Cunningham in the WSOP $1,500 no-limit hold'em event.

In 2008, Fischman made the final table in the main event at the World Series of Poker Europe, finishing in 6th place.

Fischman has competed in and served as a guest commentator for the Ultimate Poker Challenge. As "emptyseat88", he plays on numerous online poker cardrooms.

As of 2010, his total live tournament winnings exceed $2,600,000. His 11 cashes at the WSOP account for $1,121,419 of those winnings.

Bibliography

Online Ace: A World Series of Poker Champion's Guide to Mastering Internet Poker (2006) ISBN 1933060123

Notes

External links

Official site

World Poker Tour profile

CardPlayer Magazine feature

PokerLizard.com interview

BarstoolSports interview

Pokulator 10 Questions Interview

Category:American poker players Category:World Poker Tour winners Category:World Series of Poker bracelet winners Category:American gambling writers Category:1981 births Category:Living people

Phillip Jerome Hellmuth, Jr. (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 and for his temperamental, "poker brat" personality. He is also a member of the Poker Hall of Fame.

Personal life

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

Poker

Live poker

Tournaments

As of May 2010, his total live tournament winnings were $11,330,398.

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. He held that distinction until 2008, when it was broken by Peter Eastgate who won the Main Event at age 22 and that was broken the following year in the 2009 Main Event by Joe Cada at age 21.

At the 2006 World Series of Poker, Hellmuth captured his record 10th World Series of Poker bracelet in the $1,000 No Limit Hold'em with rebuys event. At the time, this tied him with fellow poker legends Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan. However, unlike Brunson and Chan, all of Hellmuth's bracelets are in Texas hold'em.

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 World Series of Poker 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. Hellmuth took home $154,400. 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). He is behind Berry Johnston (10) and Doyle Brunson and Bobby Baldwin (8).

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 net of $100,000. In 2000 He won the Poker EM 7 Card Stud Main Event in Austria. The tournament was 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 round of 16 before he was eliminated. He earned $25,000 for his performance.

Cash games

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

Online poker

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

Other poker activities

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

.]] Hellmuth is known for making disparaging remarks about his opponents’ skills, especially after taking bad beats. 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 preflop with King-Jack against Hellmuth's Ace-King; Hellmuth's opponent hit a three-outer (a Jack on the river) to win the pot. Other famous quotes include:"Idiot from Northern Europe," "If it weren't for luck I'd win'em all," and "I can dodge bullets baby." In the first week of the show 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 himself, 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. Producers of the show came up with a ruling regarding the situation, Hellmuth returned and was eliminated a few hands later by Sheikhan. Duke was the only player at the table who remained quiet while the drama played out. However, in a later interview, she said of Hellmuth's behavior, "I would call that one of the biggest overreactions I have ever seen."

Hellmuth's sponsor, UltimateBet, arranged for him to arrive at the 2007 WSOP Main Event in an Ultimatebet race car, escorted by 11 Ultimatebet models (one for each of Hellmuth's 11 World Series of Poker bracelets). However, Hellmuth crashed the race car in the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino parking lot when he lost control of the vehicle and hit a concrete light fixture. After the accident, Hellmuth showed up in a limo, met his escorts, and made his grand entrance to the Main Event two hours late. 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, Hellmuth again made a grand entrance into the WSOP Main Event. As part of Ultimatebet's "UB Army" promotion, Hellmuth arrived 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. In addition, other players (including close friend Mike Matusow, who was seated at the same table) 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. However, overnight, Hellmuth had a private meeting with WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack, after which Pollack overruled the floorperson's decision. (Hellmuth eventually finished this tournament in 45th place, while Dragomir finished in 29th). Hellmuth apologized to Dragomir for his behavior the next day.

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 the 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 Presents Read 'Em and Reap: A Career FBI Agent's Guide to Decoding Poker Tells (2006) ISBN 0061198595

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

Firstname	Tom
Lastname	Dwan
Nickname	durrrr
Hometown	Edison, New Jersey
Birth date	July 30, 1986
Wsop bracelet count	None
Wsop money finishes	7
Wsop main event best finish rank	None
Wpt titles	None
Wpt final tables	1
Wpt money finishes	2
Ept titles	None
Ept final tables	None
Ept money finishes	1

Thomas Dwan (born July 30, 1986 in Edison, New Jersey) is an American professional poker player who regularly plays online in the highest-stakes No-Limit Texas hold 'em and Pot-Limit Omaha games, primarily on Full Tilt Poker, where he plays under the screen name "durrrr". In early November 2009, Dwan became a member of Team Full Tilt.

Dwan has won prize money in live poker tournaments and has appeared on NBC's National Heads-Up Poker Championship, the fourth, fifth, & sixth seasons of Poker After Dark, the third and fourth seasons of Full Tilt Poker's Million Dollar Cash Game, and the fifth and sixth seasons of GSN's High Stakes Poker. He attended Boston University as an engineering major before dropping out to pursue poker full-time.

Poker

Online poker

In March 2004 at the age of 17, Dwan began playing online poker at Paradise Poker with $50 his father had given him for his 17th birthday. He believed the alias "durrrr" would put players on tilt if they'd lose to him. Dwan initially focused on $6 sit-and-go tournaments and ended up losing $35. With his last $15, he continued to focus on these sit-and-gos until he was able to turn a profit. After finding he could beat these games, he turned to cash games, where he built his bankroll starting at low stakes and slowly climbing his way up, eventually reaching the largest games found online. After beating multiplayer cash games, Dwan switched his focus to playing heads-up No-Limit hold 'em against other professionals, such as Frederick Halling at the $10/$20 stakes level. He challenged Prahlad Friedman at $25/$50 stakes but kept losing to him for several months, forcing him to drop to lower stakes before coming back again and again until he was able to beat Friedman.

According to HighStakesDB.com, a site that tracks high-stakes online poker action, Dwan earned $312,800 in 2007 on the Full Tilt online poker cardroom and $5.41 million in 2008, even though he has gone through several large swings throughout his career. Before the 2007 World Series of Poker, Dwan claimed to have lost, at the time, $2 million of his $3 million bankroll, over a span of four months.

In mid November 2009, a player from Sweden using the online name "Isildur1" challenged Dwan to a series of heads-up No Limit Holdem cash games. Isildur1's foray into online high stakes cash games began in late October, when he initially lost $1.1 million to Patrik Antonius, Brian Townsend, and other high stakes players. However, by the beginning of November, Isildur1 had recovered his losses and challenged Dwan to a heads-up marathon playing six tables at a time with over a million dollars in play. By the end of the week, Isildur1 had gone on the largest run in the history of online poker, winning approximately $5 million from Dwan, prompting Dwan to issue a live challenge to play Isildur1 at the Full Tilt Poker Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge.

At the end of 2009, HighStakesDB.com reported that Dwan had lost $4.35 million in 2009, putting his cumulative online poker winnings at Full Tilt since January 2007 at approximately $1.4 million. HighStakesDB.com also reported that after stepping down in limits following his massive loss to Isildur1, Dwan won $2.7 million in December 2009. According to the same site, Dwan had more than recouped his 2009 losses in the first few months of 2010; he was reported to have won $1.6 million in the first two weeks of April 2010 alone, and after a session in which he won $1.6 million off Sahamies in a little over 2 hours, was up $7.3 million for the year to date as of April 21. However, in an illustration of the swings of fortune often associated with high-stakes play, Dwan lost about $4 million in the next three weeks, leaving him up about $3.3 million for 2010.

Million dollar challenge

In January 2009 Dwan issued a $1,000,000 challenge to play anyone online, "with the exception of Phil Galfond", heads up for 50,000 hands 4-tabling $200/$400 or higher No-Limit Holdem or Pot-Limit Omaha. If his opponent is ahead after 50,000 hands, Dwan agreed to give them $1,500,000 more, while if Dwan is ahead, he will get $500,000.

Patrik Antonius and Daniel Cates are playing Dwan as part of the challenge, but no 50,000-hand challenge is yet complete.

Live tournaments

Dwan was 19 when he cashed in his first live tournament, finishing 12th in the £3,000 no limit Texas hold 'em Main Event of the European Poker Tour's second season held in London, earning £7,000 ($12,398). His next cash wasn't until he was 21 years old at the World Poker Tour's 2007 World Poker Finals, $9,700 No Limit Hold'em Championship Event, where he finished 4th, earning $324,244. In January 2008, Dwan finished second at the Aussie Millions A$3,000 Pot Limit Omaha with Rebuys event, winning A$103,200 ($90,716) and later finished in 62nd place in the A$10,000 No Limit Hold'em Main Event, good for A$25,000 ($21,976).

Dwan cashed twice in the first year that he was eligible to play in a World Series of Poker (WSOP) event held in the United States. Dwan reached the final table in the $10,000 World Championship Mixed Event at the 2008 World Series of Poker finishing in 8th place, earning $54,144. He then nearly made another in a seven person final table, but finished again in 8th, this time in the $5,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw with Rebuys event, earning $45,110. At the 2008 Five-Star World Poker Classic (the $25,500 WPT Championship), Dwan finished in ninth place, winning $184,670.

Dwan had his highest ever WSOP finish at the 2010 WSOP in the $1,500 No Limit Hold'em event, he finished in second place for $381,885.

As of 2010, his total live tournament winnings exceed $1,550,000.

Live cash games

He holds the record for the largest pot won in a recorded live game at over $1.1 million, which occurred during the fourth season of Full Tilt Poker's Million Dollar Cash Game. This record broke the previous record of over $919,000 also won by Dwan in the fifth season of High Stakes Poker.

Full Tilt Poker Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge

Dwan’s Million Dollar Challenge was expanded to a 500 hand live heads up format in the Full Tilt Poker Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge. The event was held November 17 to 19, 2009, at Les Ambassadeurs Club in London and televised by Sky Sports.

The rules of the Challenge were that each player paid $250,000 for the privilege of playing, blinds were set at $500/$1,000 with each opponent having the choice of playing either Texas Hold’em or Pot Limit Omaha (PLO). Neither player could leave the match until at least 500 hands had been completed or one of them loses all of his buy-in and decides not to re-buy.

Dwan’s opponents were Marcello "luckexpress" Marigliano, Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies, and Sammy "Any Two" George respectively.

The first match between Dwan and Marigliano consisted mainly of Texas Hold’em, although the players did agree to play PLO near the end of the match. Dwan lost $22,500 which was highlighted by two bluffs by Marigliano.

In the second match between Dwan and Sahamies the players played only PLO. Although the match started surprisingly slow considering the history of online competition between Dwan and Sahamies, the match eventually became aggressive as expected. There were several large pots resulting in large swings in the players’ stacks. After 12 hours, the match concluded with Dwan winning $68,000.

The final round pitted Dwan against George in an exclusively Texas Hold’em match. During the match, the parties agreed to a 7-2 prop bet wherein if a player wins a pot with 7-2 then he earns an additional $10,000. This led to one of the most memorable bluffs in television poker when Dwan won a pot of $641,500 when he moved all-in on the river with 7-2 against George’s two pair (aces and sixes). George folded his two pair after much consideration even though Dwan when making a 6x pre-flop raise had commented he had 7-2 and just wanted the blinds. George, clearly on tilt, after being bluffed out of such a huge pot went on to lose $750,000.

Dwan made a final profit of $795,500 after winning 2 of the 3 matches.

Notes

External links

Official site

Players TV interview

Category:1986 births Category:Living people Category:American poker players Category:People from Edison, New Jersey