Poker Ace
by Jon Bartels '76, '82
When Phil Hellmuth, Jr. x'86 accompanied a friend to the Memorial Union one night to play poker, he had no idea that it would become his life's career. Hellmuth quickly discovered that he had a talent for card strategy. He left school to join the professional poker tour at the age of twenty, and four years later, in 1989, he became the youngest-ever winner of the World Series of Poker (WSOP).
Going into the WSOP in Las Vegas this year, Hellmuth was the all-time leading money-winner in tournament history with more than $2.8 million. Although he didn't make the finals this time, he hasn't lost sight of his goal, which is to become the greatest poker player of all time. Because professionals still win titles into their sixties and seventies, Hellmuth, who is thirty-eight, believes he has time to earn his spot at the pinnacle of poker.
He considers his ace in the hole to be an uncanny ability to read other players. When players are bluffing, he says, some look to the left or right, some swallow, others move their hands, and some even jump out of their seats a little when they look at their cards.
When Phil Hellmuth, Jr. x'86 accompanied a friend to the Memorial Union one night to play poker, he had no idea that it would become his life's career. Hellmuth quickly discovered that he had a talent for card strategy. He left school to join the professional poker tour at the age of twenty, and four years later, in 1989, he became the youngest-ever winner of the World Series of Poker (WSOP).
Going into the WSOP in Las Vegas this year, Hellmuth was the all-time leading money-winner in tournament history with more than $2.8 million. Although he didn't make the finals this time, he hasn't lost sight of his goal, which is to become the greatest poker player of all time. Because professionals still win titles into their sixties and seventies, Hellmuth, who is thirty-eight, believes he has time to earn his spot at the pinnacle of poker.
He considers his ace in the hole to be an uncanny ability to read other players. When players are bluffing, he says, some look to the left or right, some swallow, others move their hands, and some even jump out of their seats a little when they look at their cards.
Hellmuth watches his competitors after he's been eliminated from their tables, and even during his regular stints as a television commentator for tournaments. "I have the innate ability to understand what people are doing at the poker table and away from the poker table, and I can tell if they're lying," he says. "I think that maybe I'm the best in the world at reading people in poker."
He's put those skills to work in a book due out in April from HarperCollins called Let's Play Poker. It will be the first such book, he says, to closely tie reading other players with each individual move of the game. It's dedicated to his parents, Phil Hellmuth, Sr. MBA'65, PhD'81 and Lynn Slattery Hellmuth '83, MFA'86, who he says "supported me even after they freaked out over my newfound occupation."
Phil's dad, who served as an associate dean at the College of Letters of Science and on the UW Athletic Board, says that he and Lynn were originally opposed to their son's occupation "because we value education so much in the family. . . . But how could anybody argue with what he's done?"
Hellmuth is married to the former Katherine Sanborn MD'93, and, despite a grueling travel schedule, he spends as much time as possible with his family at their Palo Alto, California, home. He drives his sons to school and coaches their basketball and soccer teams. "My family is definitely number one with me," he says.
He's put those skills to work in a book due out in April from HarperCollins called Let's Play Poker. It will be the first such book, he says, to closely tie reading other players with each individual move of the game. It's dedicated to his parents, Phil Hellmuth, Sr. MBA'65, PhD'81 and Lynn Slattery Hellmuth '83, MFA'86, who he says "supported me even after they freaked out over my newfound occupation."
Phil's dad, who served as an associate dean at the College of Letters of Science and on the UW Athletic Board, says that he and Lynn were originally opposed to their son's occupation "because we value education so much in the family. . . . But how could anybody argue with what he's done?"
Hellmuth is married to the former Katherine Sanborn MD'93, and, despite a grueling travel schedule, he spends as much time as possible with his family at their Palo Alto, California, home. He drives his sons to school and coaches their basketball and soccer teams. "My family is definitely number one with me," he says.
