User:Chzz/cardtest

From World Series of Poker
Test

Personality and controversy
Hellmuth is known for making disrespectful 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."

On one occasion, Hellmuth, who is frequently very talkative during matches, so infuriated veteran poker professional 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 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 a hand to Cristian Dragomir. Asked by the table to show his hand, Dragomir revealed that he had called Hellmuth's pre-flop re-raise with (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 is 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.