Phil Hellmuth has never been one to stay quiet about a bad beat. He is still less likely to let another player breach etiquette without comment.
Yesterday, he got to complain about both happening at once. An unnamed "famous player" caught him overplaying a pair of aces, slow-rolling him brutally with the stone-cold nuts on the river.
Hellmuth was playing in a WSOP Online bracelet event at the time.
"In @WSOP NOW, a famous player calls my BIG reraise w Kd-6d: K-6-4," Hellmuth began. "I bet my A-J, he smooths, turn A, I bet 9K, 7K behind, he calls. River K, I move in for 6k into 60k. He uses all his time before calling, trying to tilt me! But, he can only have nuts to take that long."
This was clearly a test of Hellmuth's positivity. Especially when the player did more or less the same thing a few hands later with pocket aces. The second time around ended Phil's run in the tourney.
This insult comes shortly after the injury of busting all three day ones at the World Poker Tour event the Venetian this weekend.
Second time's the charm
Phil's capacity for tantrums has vastly lowered as he's grown older. His outbursts always seemed somewhat stage-managed in the past, and now that he doesn't need to maintain the Poker Brat image to get booked for shows, he doesn't work the room the way he used to. His cries for attention tend to take a different form now.
But every now and again, something sets him off. What really seemed to do it was that second time the unnamed player slow-rolled him.
"He wasted his time banks for nothing!" Hellmuth wrote. "I limp UTG A-K, same guy has AA (can’t make this up), he raises, I’m all in, he burns the rest of his time banks before calling! I worked out hard for 45 mins, how they gonna tilt me?!?"
This post was accompanied by a photo of his forced smile, belying the obvious tilt underneath.
Backlash all the way down
In a surprisingly classy move, Hellmuth maintains the anonymity of the perpetrator. Though he offers one small clue. It is a pro he likes.
Two possible candidates put forward by the comment section were Benjamin Spragg and Shaun Deeb.
"Weird thing is, I really like the pro who slow-rolled me," he wrote. "Esp after finding out what he went through w another pro…Oh well, on to the @WPT at Venetian, my last chance to make Day 2 tomorrow! Staying positive."
Naturally, the comments section is full of commiserations and mockery.
Among the latter category, the most hilariously un-self-aware comment came from an alleged doctor named Luke: "I know you think this reads like a Greek tragedy, but it doesn’t. I work in a hospital. Go hang out in one for five minutes sometime. You’ll see what’s actually worth bitching and crying about."
It is not uncommon for players to use Twitter to blow off some steam about other players cheeking them. Putting them all in their place would be a full-time job. I'm surprised a doctor has the time.
Featured image source: Twitter
