Phil Hellmuth Takes a Beating During First Episode of High Stakes Poker Season 6

The poker player everyone loves to hate, Phil Hellmuth, gave his detractors more ammunition after the first episode of Season 6 of GSN’s High Stakes Poker show. Hellmuth, a tournament specialist, has struggled in his appearances on the show, which is played as a cash game, and season 6 kicked off for Phil the way many of his other appearances have gone: A little bit of whining and a whole lot of losing!

Hellmuth bought into the game for $200,000 and quickly found himself down $40k after folding pocket Queens to Phil Ivey’s “all-in” over the top raise -Ivey held AJ for those interested. However, the big blow came when Hellmuth’s second-nut flush lost to Antonio Esfandiari’s nut flush in the perfect example of a “cooler” hand. Poker fans will remember it was Antonio’s sheer domination in an early World Poker Tour tournament that launched “The Magician” into the poker spotlight, and highlighted Phil’s penchant for tilting and berating his opponents.

After losing to Antonio, the coup-de-gras came when Phil shipped his remaining $80k to Phil Ivey as a massive underdog. About the only thing Phil did right in the first episode was to quit at this point.

While nobody questions Phil’s ability in the No limit Holdem tournament arena, this is not the case when it comes to cash games. Phil’s struggles in cash games are legendary, and unfortunately his outsized ego doesn’t allow him to compete against competition he can actually beat. Instead Phil tries to plug away against the top 20-25 poker players on earth, and blames the losses that keep piling up on bad luck.

Another aspect that works against Hellmuth is how easily he can be put on tilt, and with the stakes these guys are playing at Phil tilts easier and it tends to last longer than usual. Like I alluded to above, if Phil were to just drop down a few levels where the competition is a bit softer, and the swings are not as violent, and I think “The Poker Brat” would do quite well for himself.

Also of interest to poker fans was Kara Scott’s debut as co-host of High Stakes Poker, but unlike AJ Benza, Scott stayed out of the broadcast booth, instead conducting interviews with the players. It’s still unclear whether the new dynamic will help or hurt the show, as former host Benza and current host Gabe Kaplan seemed to have a lot of chemistry together.