Was Daniel Colman right about Phil Hellmuth?
Has Phil Hellmuth helped the poker community, or did his role as an ambassador of UB undo any positive impact he may have had?
Last week two of poker’s biggest anti-heroes became embroiled in a war of words. Daniel Colman called Phil Hellmuth a cancer on poker. Citing both his roll as an Ultimate Bet ambassador and his manner at the tables, as examples of how he has damaged the game.
As you can imagine, half the poker community agreed with Colman, and the other half stepped in to say Hellmuth has done more for poker than anyone else.
Hellmuth certainly has not made his name as a ‘nice guy’, as his moniker suggests the ‘Poker Brat’ has always been a ‘villain’ character of poker. The guy you want to beat. His rudeness and arrogance at the tables only matched by his record-breaking bracelet accomplishments. Hellmuth is not the Rocky of poker, he is the Apollo Creed (Or the John McEnroe, or Floyd Mayweather).
I actually have no problem with Hellmuth’s rude shenanigans; I do genuinely think they have helped make poker entertaining and attracted people to the game. It won’t come as a surprise to any of you, but controversy goes viral. We are more likely to click on headlines, share content and leave comments on stories that make us angry or laugh, and Hellmuth tends to elicit one (Or both) of those responses. We want to see him act like a jerk, or we want to see him get his comeuppance, but either way we watch.
Choosing to be ignorant?
His exploits at the table alone do not make him a bad person, it is a competitive game after all, not a walk in the park. However, the thing he is being called out on (and has been for many years) was the fact that he was the face of Ultimate Bet, the shadiest site in poker history. You could argue the downfall of Lock Poker and the (pre-Black Friday) Full Tilt were mostly because of incompetence, but the UB scandal was pure cheating in the most evil sense of the word.
Nobody is saying that Hellmuth played a direct part in the cheating, and he could well have had no knowledge of it. The problem is that as one of poker’s biggest names, he never really addressed it, and still hasn’t even though he is no longer a part of the site. He also continued to represent UB after the cheating scandals became public. Not only should he have left at that time, as his own personal brand was arguably bigger than the sites, he almost certainly could have left and signed a major deal with another room (Before Black Friday). For whatever reason, he chose to continue representing the site, and people want to know why.
I don’t think it is realistic to expect sponsored players to speak out against their poker room at the first sign or shadiness, or even if they leave the site. They were just employees after all. It’s likely the Lock Pros or the pre-Black Friday FTP Pros knew nothing of what was going on behind closed doors. But when you continue to represent an online poker room after a scandal, and especially when you are one of the sites biggest benefactors, you need to be transparent. He is either completely ignorant about how damaging the scandal was to the poker community, or he is choosing to be ignorant about it.
Time to speak out on UB?
But to go back to the original question, have his antics at the table created enough positive attention for poker that they outweigh his association with UB? I must admit, this is an area where I have quite a bit of cognitive dissonance, because I love writing about him and watching him on TV, but I also think the UB scandal was the worst thing ever in poker (Black Friday was bigger in scale, but UB was more reprehensible).
Sadly, people have short memories these days. Not only do people forget things like the UB scandal quickly, there will be a lot of people who come into poker who will never know about it. Thankfully, people also have Google these days. As much as he ignores it, the UB scandal will never completely disappear.
I genuinely think in the early days of poker Phil Hellmuth helped market the game in a very big way. However, with multiple scandals behind us and the legality of the game always a hot topic, poker has had a reality check in recent years. I'm a big fan of his and personally don't think he had any direct involvement with the UB scandal, but it still leaves a sour taste in the mouth that he has never really discussed it at length. If Phil Hellmuth really is proud of the man he is, like he has said, I think it is time he cleared the air on the UB scandal once and for all.
Has the Poker Brat been good for the game or not? Let us know in the comments.
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