Phil Hellmuth

He is ranked 21st on the all-time money list.

He holds the records for most WSOP cashes (154) and most WSOP final tables (64), overtaking T. J. Cloutier.

Hellmuth is known for usually taking his seat at poker tournaments long after they begin.

As of July 2023, his live tournament winnings exceed $29,000,000.

After a private meeting with WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack, the penalty was overruled, and Hellmuth finished the tournament in 45th place.

Phillip Jerome Hellmuth Jr. (born July 16, 1964) is an American professional poker player who has won a record seventeen World Series of Poker bracelets.

This is the first bracelet Hellmuth has won in a non-hold'em event, and made him the first player to win at least one bracelet in each of the last four decades, and only the third player in WSOP history to win a bracelet in four decades (Jay Heimowitz won 6 bracelets, spanning the 1970s through the 2000s, and Billy Baxter won 7 bracelets, also spanning the 1970s through the 2000s).

Hellmuth also collected $2,645,333 for his fourth-place finish in the $1,000,000 buy-in "Big One for One Drop" tournament, by far the largest single tournament cash of his career.

(Walter "Puggy" Pearson was the first to do so in 1973; one of those bracelets was for winning the Main Event.) Hellmuth's three victories came in three consecutive days.

In the 1988 World Series of Poker, Hellmuth had his first in-the-money finish at the $1,500 Seven Card Stud Split, a fifth-place finish.

In the 1988 WSOP, he came in 33rd after being eliminated by eventual champion Johnny Chan.

Hellmuth also was fifth all time in number of times cashed in the WSOP Main Event with eight (1988, 1989, 1997, 2001, 2003, 2008, 2009, and 2015), placing him behind Berry Johnston (ten), and Humberto Brenes, Doyle Brunson, and Bobby Baldwin (nine).

Fourteen of Hellmuth's 17 bracelets have been in Texas hold'em, though he has had some success in non-hold'em events.

He is the winner of the Main Event of the 1989 World Series of Poker (WSOP) and the Main Event of the 2012 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE), and he is a 2007 inductee of the WSOP's Poker Hall of Fame.

He is widely regarded as one of the greatest tournament players of all time.

Hellmuth was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and attended Madison West High School.

He had trouble with grades and friends during school and said at the time he was the "ugly duckling" of his family.

He moved on to the University of Wisconsin–Madison for three years, where he dropped out to become a full-time poker player.

In 1989, the 24-year-old Hellmuth became the youngest player to win the Main Event of the WSOP by defeating the two-time defending champion Johnny Chan in heads-up play; Hellmuth's record was broken by Peter Eastgate (22) in 2008.

His third-ever WSOP final table (and fifth-ever WSOP cash) was his Main Event victory in 1989.) Of those 22 events, Hellmuth has finished runner-up six times.

Zewin had finished third to Chan and Hellmuth when Hellmuth won his first bracelet in 1989.

Since 1992, he has lived in Palo Alto, California, with his wife, Katherine Sanborn, who is a psychiatrist at Stanford University, and their two sons, Phillip III and Nicholas.

At the 1993 World Series of Poker, Hellmuth became the second player in WSOP history to win three bracelets in one WSOP.

(Ted Forrest also won three bracelets in three consecutive days at the 1993 WSOP to become the third player to win three bracelets in one WSOP.)

This win also made Hellmuth the first player in WSOP history to win multiple bracelets in three decades (1993 (3), 2003 (2), and 2012 (2)).

At the 1997 World Series of Poker, Hellmuth won his 5th bracelet of the decade, the most of any player in the 1990s.

At the 2006 World Series of Poker, Hellmuth captured his 10th World Series of Poker bracelet in the $1,000 No Limit Hold'em with rebuys event.

At the time, it tied him with Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan for most bracelets.

Also, Hellmuth finished runner-up in the WSOP Player of the Year race for a record third time (2006, 2011, and 2012).

At the 2007 World Series of Poker, Hellmuth won his record-breaking 11th bracelet in the $1,500 No Limit Hold'em Event.

Hellmuth's sponsor arranged for him to arrive at the 2007 WSOP Main Event in a race car.

Hellmuth lost control of the car in the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino parking lot and hit a light fixture.

He gave up the car for a limo, arriving at the Main Event two hours late.

At the 2008 WSOP Main Event, Hellmuth verbally abused another player and received a one-round penalty.

In the 2011 World Series of Poker, Phil finished second in three tournaments, in the 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship, the Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split-8 or Better Championship, and The Poker Player's Championship eight-game mix.

On June 11, 2012, Hellmuth won his 12th World Series of Poker bracelet in the $2,500 Seven-Card Razz event, defeating Don Zewin and earning $182,793.

On October 4, 2012, Hellmuth won his 13th World Series of Poker bracelet in the €10,450 WSOPE No Limit Hold'em Main Event, earning €1,022,376 ($1,333,841) and becoming the first player to ever win both the WSOP and WSOPE Main Events.

As of the start of the 2015 World Series, 22 of Hellmuth's 52 final tables are for a variety of games, including 2-7 Lowball, Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo, Seven Card Razz, and Omaha hold'em (Pot Limit, Limit, and Hi-Lo), as well as mixed games like H.O.R.S.E and the $50,000 Poker Player's Championship; his first-ever WSOP final table (and first-ever WSOP cash) was in Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo in 1988, and his second-ever WSOP final table (and third-ever WSOP cash) was in Pot Limit Omaha hold'em w/Rebuys in 1989.

On June 8, 2015, Hellmuth won his 14th World Series of Poker bracelet in the $10,000 Seven-Card Razz event, earning $271,105.

As of September 2020, Hellmuth had won over $15,000,000 at the WSOP and ranked fourth on the WSOP All Time Money List, behind Antonio Esfandiari, Daniel Colman, and Daniel Negreanu.