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Phil Hellmuth played the loosest poker of his life on Thursday night as he logged nearly a 100% VPIP in an online poker tournament.
Hellmuth’s wild night of online poker took place during a streaming session on BetRivers Poker, an online poker site serving several US states. The 17-time bracelet winner is an ambassador for the site, which launched in 2024 in partnership with poker pro Phil Galfond.
Hellmuth first crushed two low-stakes poker cash games before never folding VPIP in a micro-stakes tournament, building up a towering stack before crashing out and letting his son take over the stream. And it all happened in under two hours.
Pennsylvania-based BetRivers Poker streamer Keith Becker was in the building for Hellmuth’s streaming session and provided PokerNews with photos of the all-time bracelet leader in action.
Low-Stakes Cash Game Crusher
The stream started out with Hellmuth firing up two $1/$2 no-limit Hold’em 6-max cash game tables, where he bought in for $200 on both tables and quickly began commenting on hands in real time.
“Ah, you tried to bluff me?!” he said at one point.
“This is a weird hand. He checked back for two streets! I mean, I was going to raise him all in.”
But Hellmuth seemed less focused on the single-digit swings of the poker game and instead had sweets on the mind.
He first told viewers about his preference of Jelly Belly flavor — “It’s very interesting. When it comes to Jelly Bellies, my wife says she doesn’t care which is which (flavor). So I choose my favorites and give her the rest. She doesn’t care.” — before revealing that Sour Patch Kinds once made him a custom “Poker Brat mix.”
“Everybody knows I was eating a lot of Sour Patch Kids during heads-up matches and it kind of became a meme,” he said. “Sour Patch actually made me a Phil Hellmuth mix.”
In between eating candy, Hellmuth built up more than $100 profit on each table in under an hour. He exited the first table up $101 and fired up a $1 buy-in tournament. He later left the second table up $134 for a total profit of $235 after winning a pot with Big Slick right before.
“Folks, I just decided to quit. Let’s see if this ace-king is bad timing here.”
Hellmuth Plays Every Hand
As Hellmuth grinded the $1 tournament, he widened his raising and calling range to include 100% of hands, a significant deviation from his normal snugness in tournaments.
At one point, he successfully stole the blinds by raising with jack-five, which he called the “Robbi Jade Lew deluxe.” The next hand, Hellmuth, who once complained about an opponent calling him with queen-ten, opened with queen-three offsuit and called a three-bet to go to a flop five ways.
“We still have raised 100% of hands, or called at least one raise with 100% of hands,” Hellmuth said. “I’m trying to give chips away, right?”
Hellmuth crashed and burned on his first bullet, earning the player who eliminated him a BetRivers Poker t-shirt, but he had better luck on his next entry as he tightened up to a 96% VPIP. He jammed with a gutshot against top pair and hit hit his draw, even after his opponent picked up a flush draw to kill some of his outs.
“I’m up to 30,000 playing every hand!” he cheered.
But Hellmuth couldn’t hold onto his chips for ever and lost the rest of his stack when he jammed with ten-seven offsuit. He then let his son Phillip Hellmuth III take over the stream after proving himself earlier this year by making a World Series of Poker (WSOP) Circuit final table in Las Vegas.
Spewed his stack off and eventually lost after jamming ten-seven offsuit.
The Poker Brat has other activities planned during his weekend trip to Pennsylvania. On Friday night, he will play with poker fans in a cash game at Delaware Park Casino and he’ll be back playing and streaming on BetRivers Poker on Saturday.
Head to Twitch to watch the full BetRivers Poker stream.
*Photos courtesy of Keith Becker
Senior Editor U.S.
