With poker pros deploying Game Theory Optimal (GTO poker) strategies at the table and using solvers at home, the game can seem like a competition for who is best at maths. In other words, it can get a little dry.
Phil Hellmuth flips the script when playing poker games. He wears his emotions on his sleeve and delivers the kinds of scathing and entertaining commentary that rightfully earned him his Poker Brat nickname.
While Hellmuth, in classic Hellmuth form, embraces the moniker, he’s recently learned to tuck things in a little bit. Maybe he’s won enough World Series of Poker bracelets – 17 and still counting – to earn a certain degree of security.
Or else it’s a matter of maturing as middle age settles in. While the classic blowups are in no danger of extinction, they’ve also become less frequent.
Hence, this past year, some of Hellmuth’s best TV moments are stripped of the classic aggro.
With that in mind, here are Phil Hellmuth’s greatest poker hits – encompassing the good, the bad and the ugly – of 2025.
Rock Star Moment
Not exactly shy and retiring, Phil Hellmuth has made it a point to engineer spectacle-worthy entrances to the World Series of Poker. In seasons past, he came in as Gandalf the White and a chopper-riding badass.
But this year might have topped it all when he entered the Rio tournament room in full-on rock star mode, with a shaggy back wig and a leather jacket.
The jacket was emblazoned with the Bet Rivers logo, as he never misses a chance to promote a sponsor, with “Highway to Hell” blasting.
Accompanying Hellmuth, wielding guitars and wearing rugs that matched his own: his son Phillip Hellmuth III and Daniel “Jungleman” Cates.
Love it or hate it, you won’t forget it – and that’s kind of the point. Once again, Hellmuth wins.
Quads Man
Typically, Phil Hellmuth flips out when people hit lucky cards and beat his premium hands. But on day two of the World Series of Poker Main Event, Hellmuth experienced the other side of it.
He caught two 4s on the flop to match the pair he had in his poker hand. Luckily for him, clubs came with the 4s. Smartly, he slow played to the river when a third club dropped, and Kasparas Klezys made his nut flush. Klezys checked, aiming to set up Hellmuth (who, of course, was anything but trapped).
Hellmuth bet 5,000 chips, Klezys shoved, Hellmuth called, and he coolly said, “I’ve got quads.”
It was followed with no gloating or griping as a stunned Klezys walked away.
Classic Hellmuth and classy Hellmuth all the way.
H2: There’s Blowing Up, and Then There’s Phil Blowing Up
On an episode of Poker Night in America, Phil Hellmuth and his son Phillip Helmuth III were playing in a cash game with a lineup that included Randy “3Coin” Sadler and Mike “The Mouth” Matusow.
For starters, 3Coin bluffed both Hellmuths out of a pot.
Obviously, Phil did not like it, and he made his feelings abundantly clear after 3Coin showed the poker bluff.
“This is so fucking tilting for me,” complained Hellmuth. “I knew you were bluffing, but I had Phillip behind me, and I knew he had a better hand” – which he did.
But Hellmuth still would not tamp down his emotions.
In another hand, he made trip 6s on the turn, leaving him with the winning cards against 3Coin’s two pair. Phil was contemplating what to do in the face of 3Coin’s bet, and Matusow started whispering to the player next to him.
Hellmuth, in deep concentration, snapped, “Mike, can you just shut the fuck up for a minute. Jesus Christ.”
Meanwhile, Hellmuth convinced himself that 3Coin had a full house. That was when 3Coin asked Matusow to film the hand on his phone – even though the show was being recorded for TV.
- Matusow began filming and speaking like a commentator.
- He and Hellmuth exchanged obscenities.
- Then Hellmuth knocked Matusow’s phone out of his hand, nearly whacking the dealer with it.
Finally, Hellmuth proceeded to fold the winning hand. 3Coin showed his inferior cards.
Hellmuth announced that Matusow would have “just called it off.” Matusow said, “No, I would have called eight minutes ago and said, ‘Nice hand.’”
Hellmuth said the whole thing was nothing personal.
“He got the response out of me that he wanted,” Hellmuth said, remembering that they went out for dinner soon after. “We were in Reno. So, we went to Chickie’s & Pete’s.”
Like Father Like Son
On Hellmuth’s Home Game via Poker in America, Phil Hellmuth got felted on the first hand of the night when he trapped Randy “3Coin” Sadler. His three Queens lost to the straight of 3Coin, who was all but giddy over the outcome.
Hellmuth muttered profanities and wondered, “What the **** is going on. 3Coin has bludgeoned me on every hand … It’s stunning.”
Maybe because Hellmuth was essentially hosting the game, he laughed about being tilted and rebought.
Hellmuth folded the next hand preflop. But Phillip III stayed in and flopped a straight. He shoved with three diamonds showing on the turn and lost to a flush.
Now, two hands in, both Hellmuths got busted.
Phil offered fatherly advice to his disappointed offspring: “There’s nothing you can do, my son.”
Phil Hellmuth Gets Huggy
Phil Hellmuth showed his gentle side on Hellmuth’s Home Game. It happened after Randy “3Coin” Satler accused the Poker Brat of ragging on him.
Instead of unleashing his usual vitriol, Hellmuth approached 3Coin and said he had something for him. It briefly looked like Hellmuth might strangle his table nemesis, but instead, he said:
“This is what I have for you. It’s called love,” – though he pronounced it luuuuv.
Then he hugged 3Coin.
Daniel “Jungleman” Cates, looking awkward, received the next hug. Hellmuth – for fear of getting cancelled if he embraced a female without permission – asked Xuan Liu (the Canadian pro who ranks as the first woman champion of a Triton Poker Series) if he could hug her.
She said yes, and he did it.
Then everyone else at the table, including Hellmuth’s son, got the close-up treatment.
Xuan Liu jokingly asked, “Are we [playing with] Molly?”
Jungleman dryly responded, “It’s the new Molly’s game.”
