Making Mobney

READ MORE: Jopke, Mobney, Online Poker, Paul Phillips, Phil Hellmuth, Poker

I think we’d all agree that Phil Hellmuth is a tireless and enthusiastic self-promoter. So you’d think by now he’d be a little bit better at the job. As discovered by Paul Phillips, winner on the World Poker Tour and the patient chronicaler of many bizarre Hellmuthian episodes, this is sadly not the case:

A reader alerts me of the content presently at phil hellmuth’s web site:

“For a second year in a row, Phil Hellmuth makes it to the Tournament of Champions final table.”

Talk about your back-to-back performances!

Year One: Ten (invited) players total. Phil surprisingly manages not to go out 11th. ONE FINAL TABLE IN A ROW.
Year Two: Phil fails to qualify for the event. A lifetime of acting like an idiot makes him sufficiently attractive to a sponsor that he is allowed to play anyway at a direct EV cost to everyone else in the tourney. But it’s not enough to acquire $250,000 at the expense of others who qualified fairly. No, let’s brag about it. TWO FINAL TABLES IN A ROW.

You’d also think that after all those columns bemoaning the beats he’s suffered Phil would be a bit more skilled with the keyboard, but, again, nope. Thanks to Paul we all know that Phil is a total JOPKE, and now we know that Phil’s creative spelling doesn’t end there:

We’re almost loathe to mention this, because Phil might think it’s a great idea. But Hellmuth really should have a webcam on himself when he plays online. We’d watch the car wreck, wouldn’t we?

TWO YEARS IN A ROW [Paul Phillips]
JOPKE JOKE JOPKE JOKE [Paul Phillips]

ESPN Poker Coverage Is Rigged?

READ MORE: 2005 WSOP, ESPN, Paul Phillips, Poker

Professional poker player Paul Phillips examines a hand from ESPN’s Tuesday night telecast of the Lake Tahoe WSOP Circuit Event, and comes away a little more than skeptical:

…on the first hand they show jeff lisandro raise with TT and ivey call with 99. The flop comes 444, lisandro bets and is called. The turn is a 5, lisandro bets, ivey goes all-in, and lisandro folds. There is not one chance in a million lisandro held TT on that hand.

…people often misunderstand what’s going on here. It’s not that they set out to invent alternate holdings because they think it’ll make more exciting television, it’s that the information is not recorded but for whatever reason they wind up broadcasting the hand anyway. So they wing it, asking the players what they had or just taking a guess if necessary. After 2003 I got the impression they had come to understand why this is completely lame and that if they want any respect from knowledgeable players they must stick to the facts, but the lisandro/ivey hand smacks of a return to old habits.

Wait… Reality TV sometimes fakes it? Color us irretrievably disillusioned. We’ll never watch poker on TV again, at least not until next Tuesday’s WSOP telecast.

ESPN almost certainly inventing hole cards again [Paul Phillips]