The greatest poker stream of all time?
Record views, insane gambling, terrible behaviour from Phil Hellmuth and an instant classic meme all came out of the Hustler live stream.
We expected big things from the Hustler Casino live stream that featured Tom Dwan, Phil Hellmuth, Alexandra Botez, Ludwig, Mr Beast and Ninja. We were not disappointed.
The action was utterly insane and the viewing figures even more so. Over 2 million people have watched the combined streams with around 92,000 concurrent viewers when it actually went down.
Let's get the biggest talking point out of the way first. Once again, Phil Hellmuth came across less than perfectly on stream. The single most controversial moment came when he seemed to angle shoot the streamer known as Slime where Hellmuth appeared to muck his hand facing an all-in bet, at which point Slime turned his hand (which was behind) over. Hellmuth then claimed he had not folded.
Hellmuth than offered to let Slime take his bet back and to just pay $5,000 and Hellmuth was awarded the pot. The dealer ran out the turn and river and Slime would have won. Hellmuth claimed later he was not folding his cards, but showing them to Tom Dwan.
The streamers get their revenge
This was just the tip of the iceberg for Hellmuth who was up to some his usual tricks. He berated the streams biggest winner, Alexandra Botez, after she beat him in a pot and spent a lot of the stream complaining about the deck and the dealers.
Depending on your perspective on Hellmuth he was either making poker players look shady and cantankerous on a huge stage or being the 'villain the stream needed'. Whatever your thoughts on his usual antics, this was a rare, juicy game that was going to introduce a lot of new eyes to the game of poker. We could have had somebody more fun to watch represent the professionals.
His role as the 'villain' did produce one of the great viral poker hands of the year, however, as he somehow managed to split this pot where he was a huge favourite against legendary streamer Ninja, much to the enjoyment of the table and the fans at home, and creating an instant classic meme:
New meme template. Twitter do your thing pic.twitter.com/iUmxu79E4X
— Ninja (@Ninja) May 2, 2022
The stream poker needed
The game ended with Hellmuth down $96,400, Botez up $456,900 and Alan Keating down a staggering $1,132,700. Mr Beast, Ludwig and Ninja, three of the best known content creators online today, all finished up six figures.
Whatever your thoughts on Hellmuth, this was one of the great spectacles in broadcast live poker and a shot in the arm poker desperately needed. The poker world was unified in how much it enjoyed the stream almost as much as they wish somebody other than Hellmuth was there representing the professional players. Everyone in the industry really hopes this can happen again.
You can watch every second of the stream below:
Did you watch the stream? Let us know in the comments:
