Phil Hellmuth plays Santa Claus
Posted: 2008-01-03 20:23:14By: P0ker H0
Every Year around Christmas, Phil Hellmuth comes back to his hometown of Madison, Wisconsin to spend time with his friends and family. When its time with friends, take one guess what we might do? You got it. Poker. We always have a Christmas game when phil comes home. This year was no different.
A lot of the guys who play in the game are friends of Phil's even before he won his first bracelet. Guys like Wayne Tyler, Jon Green, Larry Bielfuss, "Bald Headed" Gary, Paul Clements, are all regulars in the game every year along with myself. The last few years, weve seen guys like Jimmy "pizza", and Jimmy "duece", "Spaman", all who got there names from the respective businesses they own.
The game was held in Milwaukee which was an hour from Madison. Normally we would have it in Madison, but Jon Ferraro, who owns "Silk", (the most upscale gentlemens club in Wisconsin.) offered to have the game at his house. He would bring girls to bartend and give massages at the table, so who was I to argue.
We started at around 12pm, and to keep things moving we brought WiscoMurray as our dealer. The game is 5-5PL Holdem. Straddling, and Mississippi Stradle are always allowed, so even though its a 5-5-pl game the pots can still reach 10k at times. We played for about 20 hours, so to write up everything that happened would take a book. I will however highlight a few memorable hands
The very first hand of the night I found myself bluffing with 97 on the river against Phil who had A7. We both had nothing but, but Phil had ace high. The board was Q,J,8,5,2,. I bet the turn and river, and he called me with ace high. I think I even bet 700 on the river. To me that was a pretty impressive call. This next hand will go down as one of the greatest hands in our Christmas game ever.
In the begginning of this hand, Phil was in the big blind and "Spaman" was in the small blind. Before the hand started "spaman" Mississippi straddled. This means that he can raise to what ever he wants out of position, and buy position preflop. After the action ended preflop, there was about 700 in the pot. The flop comes A,K,9. Spaman checks and Pill bets 700. Spaman flips over his hand and shows J9 offsuit. After awhile he calls. The turn comes a 5. Spaman bets out 400, and Phil raises to 2100. Spaman thinks forever and still makes the call. River comes a 4. Spaman checks and phil bets 3300. Spaman folds, and phil flips over 36 offsuit. Keep in mind Spaman had flipped over his cards for everyone to see, and he had the best hand the whole way, but as Phil put it, "he forgot to call on the river". Whats even more amazing is Phil was bluffing like that because he knew the guy just couldnt call. Even though he almost did.
I look forward to this game every year, and cant wait til the next one.
A couple days after the Xmas game, Phil was kind enough to come down to my bar, Players Bar and Grill. Every Saturday I host a $75 buy in tournament and Phil played in it. Everyone was so excited to have the chance to sit and talk with him. Some people got to sit and play with him. He ended up finishing 3rd and donating the money to the bartender. Phil really is a nice guy away from the camera:)
After the tournament wrapped up we got a game of chinese poker going. This is becoming one of my favorite games. Everytime Phil had a free moment, he would ask to play chinese. I cant say i minded. This game is mostly luck, but its just to much fun. At $100 a point you can either win a lot or lose a lot, and this Christmas I must of been good, because I won a lot. As Phil would say
"8 dimessssssss babyyyyyyyyyyyyy"
