You can't even spell seven card stud buddy

June 21, 2011, Posted by Pokerfarm

The railbirds were flocking to the Rio earlier this morning as Phil Hellmuth made his second final table of this year's WSOP. The poker brat lost out heads up to John Juanda several days ago in the $10k 2-7NL championship so this time it looked like bracelet #12 was on the cards. The Pokerfarm's Jean Robert Bellande caught up with Phil only 3 days ago backstage at the Rio and it was plain for all to see that the poker brat was devastated at coming so close so we all expected him to go one better.

Unfortunately he couldn't quite get there again, losing key scoops to the eventual winner Eric Rodawig who won his first WSOP bracelet and $442,183. In fairness Rodawig never looked like losing once three handed, but again, all the talk is about Hellmuth.

Without sounding cocky, I'd like to quote the last paragraph from that article: 'watch out for Hellmuth at this year’s WSOP. There’s life in the old dog yet and the poker world would be a quieter place without him'. Well Phil has proved us right as he now sits at the top of the WSOP 2011 player of the year leaderboard. He's also broken another record for most top 3 finishes at the WSOP. This is turning out to be some year from him. 

Everyone must have thought that Hellmuth had gotten the monkey off his back - That monkey being no wins in a non-holdem WSOP event. However Phil has shown he can play the other games, with 2 runners up spots in $10K non-holdem events this year alone. 

Comisserations for the near miss but congratulations for another great showing Mr Hellmuth. This is turning out to be a fine year and it's not done yet.