World poker king insists anyone can become an ace
LONDON (AFP) — Want to outwit the planet and win millions of dollars on the poker table? Phil Hellmuth, the world's greatest poker player, insists you can, and will tell you how.
The 43-year-old American, dubbed the Poker Brat, is a global casino legend, having won an unparalleled 11 bracelets or World Series of Poker championships.
Poker has exploded in popularity since the turn of the century due to a huge growth in online playing and under-table camera shots which have turned it into popular television.
Hellmuth believes casinos and online poker dens are brimming with potential champions -- and reckons the excitement of the game is in never knowing who the next hot-shot is.
"Almost anybody on this planet can be the next world champion -- and people know that," Hellmuth told AFP in the Betfair players' lounge of The Casino at The Empire in London's Leicester Square.
The poker legend reckons five of the six billion people on Earth could make it if they put their minds to it -- the rest "probably just don't have the skills."
But any challenger beware: "If they play poker with me, they might get lucky for three days but then what I've taken a lifetime to learn is going to kick in, and I'm going to beat them all," Hellmuth says, his fixed gaze never wavering.
"Maybe there's 100 people who are better than me. But they haven't found the game yet. The fame and fortune is all there for anyone to grab.
"You know who the next great athlete's going to be; in poker, you never know."
Almost all the planet's top 30 players gathered in London for the inaugural World Series of Poker Europe event -- the most prestigious tournament ever to take place outside Las Vegas and a measure of the game's expanding popularity.
As if to prove Hellmuth's point, Norwegian prodigy Annette Obrestad, 18, won the main event diamond-studded bracelet and the one-million-pound (two-million-dollar, 1.45-million euro) pot on Sunday.
Top players insist it is a game of skill -- strategy, reading other players, patience and self-control -- but with a dose of luck which gives poker an edge of excitement.
To go from being an aspiring player to a casino hero takes "a lot of work," Hellmuth warns.
"I can read people and tell whether they're lying or not. But you have to keep improving, you have to keep trying.
"I did have to work on my poker face," he admits.
"I'd just stare at the middle of the table. Now I'm looking at them through my sunglasses. I am looking at someone as if there was no time.
"The poker world is afraid of me because I've done so much. I stare into people's souls! If you're great at reading people it does scare people.
"I just trust my instincts. I just look and something clicks."
Hellmuth reckons his success is down to his patience and sheer focus on success.
"Some of the great players say the reason I'm set apart from them is my desire to win. 'He is just a little bit better because he refuses to lose. He hates losing so much.'
"Poker players are really good at managing money, managing people and managing themselves. Business is a lot easier than poker," he surmises.
Hellmuth's poker skills have made him an astute businessman -- "I do not have hundreds of millions of dollars; not yet" -- and he is now only interested in poker to win more bracelets.
"If I'm going out to play poker, it's not for the money: I could make real money in business. It has to be to create history. I want to be the best of all time."
Hellmuth has given away 10 of his 11 bracelets and wears just the one: his first, that of the 1989 World Championship.
A tall and imposing figure in his all-black outfits topped with sunglasses and a baseball cap, the Poker Brat is now recognised everywhere he goes.
But he is not a man for living the Las Vegas lifestyle permanently. Born in Madison, Wisconsin, he lives in Palo Alto, California and flies in for occasional tournaments.
Both business and poker come second to his family life, which he says stops his ego exploding amid the limousines, champagne, fame, celebrity mates and hangers-on.
"I rock around the poker world. It makes you think you're cool. My life is like a movie," he said.
"But I go home and my wife tells me to take out the garbage, and I make a statement and my kids look at me and say 'that's the lamest thing I've ever heard!' No-one thinks their father is cool."
"It brings me down to earth."
