Recently, Marc Goone of the Hungry Horse Poker channel released a video with a highly critical analysis of Phil Hellmuth's skills. The 17-time WSOP bracelet winner was so offended that he offered the "haters" on Twitter a $500,000 bet (we mentioned this in our social media review).
Phil didn't address Mark specifically in his tweet, but the source of his anger was obvious. We decided to see for ourselves what Goone had said, and we weren't disappointed.
17 World Series of Poker bracelets. Over $30 million in tournament earnings. And the same giant leak as the biggest fish at your local $2/$5 game.
I watched over 100 hours of Hellmuth in cash games, and this leak bleeds money in today’s lineups. I'm going to reveal what it is, because I see players with this same symptom at $2/$5 and $5/$10 every single day, wondering why they can’t move up.
I’ll be honest — when it comes to tournaments, I know nothing. Check my Hendon Mob. Cash games are what I live and breathe.
So today, I’ll break down Hellmuth’s huge leak in cash, show you how to strip it from your own game, and most importantly, how to exploit it when you spot it in your player pool.
So what’s the leak?
Fear.
Are you saying Hellmuth plays scared?
Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
I’m going to show you how fear manifests in his game in five different ways.
1. Fear of Tough Decisions Preflop
1st Hand: We’re playing $100/$200. Hellmuth opens under the gun with to $800. Keating is on the button with any two. Chamath calls from the small blind.
And now Stanley Choi, one of the biggest boys, squeezes from the big blind to $5,200.
Watch how fast Hellmuth calls. It’s an instant snap call. He doesn’t even consider the 4-bet — not for a second. In a vacuum, under the gun versus big blind, sure, pocket kings is supposed to flat some of the time. But this isn’t equilibrium play. We’re playing against Stanley, who’s aggressive. We’re on stream, where players 3-bet much wider.
The shocking part is there’s zero thought from Hellmuth about a 4-bet in any world. Why? Because if he 4-bets and gets jammed on, it’s a tough decision. And he just wants to avoid tough decisions. That’s fear.
2nd Hand: Keating opens from the cutoff at $100/$200, probably opening 100% of hands. Lex Veldhuis calls in the small blind. Hellmuth peels in the big blind — and flats. No 3-bet.
He’s facing a super wide open, and a strong player in the small blind who could easily 3-bet. So why no aggression with Ace-King? He’s deep — 500 big blinds. If he 3-bets and gets 4-bet, or has to play a deep pot out of position, he’s in a tough spot. He avoids it. Again, fear.
3rd Hand: $100/$200/$400. Hellmuth opens from the hijack to $1,100. Barry’s in the small blind. Ben, in the third blind, puts in the squeeze.
And Hellmuth folds. He folds Ace-King. 130 big blinds deep.
If we were 300, 500, 700 bigs deep — maybe. But at 130 BB? Folding to a squeeze? That’s just not right. The reveal: Ben had 4-2 offsuit. But that’s not the point. The point is, Hellmuth is letting fear guide his decision. Avoiding another tough spot.
4th Hand: $100/$200/$400 again. Jungleman opens from early position. Mike X 3-bets the cutoff — great guy, strong reg. Hellmuth is in the straddle with . He cold calls.
They’re 60 big blinds deep, and Hellmuth cold calls a 3-bet with jacks. You guys know I’m not a fan of this play. You lose initiative. You turn your hand face up. If you cold call with jacks, queens, Ace-King, that means when you cold 4-bet, you pretty much only have aces or kings. Maybe only aces.
So what happens? Jungleman — an aggressive pro — sees the cold call and knows you don’t have top of range. You’ve basically told him to go ahead and 4-bet.
Don’t love it. And again, the likely reason: Hellmuth just doesn’t want to face a tough decision. If he 4-bets and gets shoved on, he has to think. And he doesn’t trust himself to do the thinking.
5th Hand: Phora limps from early position. Mikki limps behind. He’s still figuring out how to peel his cards, apparently.
Hellmuth looks down at Ace-King and limps behind.
This is $100/$200/$400. He’s deep. He has a premium hand. Some people might argue he's setting a trap — but that’s not it. What’s really going on is that he doesn’t want to get raised. He doesn’t want to play a big pot. He wants to avoid the aggression. So he limps. Hides. Shrinks from the moment.
I’m not sure if Mikki can even decipher what’s on the cards yet, but he’s figured out how to peel them.
He raises to $450 and we see Phil jam for $6.8K.
Why? “I don’t want to have to make a decision. I don’t want to play postflop. I’m just going to put the money in, because I’m terrified to make decisions and I don’t trust my decision-making process.”
Let’s be clear — this is against Mikki, a professional gambler who probably couldn’t spell the word "poker" correctly. This is the type of player who’s going to make egregious mistakes postflop. And Phil just lets him off the hook.
This is exactly the kind of player you want to 3-bet to a reasonable size and induce chaos from. You don’t jam and shut him out. He’s going to punt in every possible situation — that’s where the money is.
We see Mikki had offsuit.
2. Fear of Tough Decisions Postflop
$100/$200/$400. Phil opens to $1,100 with . Bord calls. That’s a name. Doug Polk is in the third blind.
Phil flops the nuts on . He checks.
Bord stabs at it — because, let’s be real, poker players over-stab all the time and telegraph their strength based on sizing.
Polk now check-raises. And look at this — Phil responds to a $7K check-raise by...
...by jamming for $97K.
Polk makes it $7K. Phil check-bet-three-bets to $97,000.
This isn’t a bluff. He checked the flop as the preflop raiser, then overbet jams. The only explanation: He doesn’t want to see a turn. He doesn’t want to see a river. He doesn’t want to see a spade or the board pair and be forced to think. So he punts his equity to avoid having to make a real decision later.
And who is this against? Doug Polk.
Great player. Balanced. Solver-focused. He’s never made an exploit in his life. He’s not the guy you’re trapping — he’s the guy you get value from when you play the hand properly.
Polk has for the second nuts.
He finds the fold — because the line is so absurd.
Once again, Hellmuth lets fear override a +EV line.
Editor note – Alex Duvall even focused on this hand for one of his latest videos.
3. Fear Creates Messy Spots — and He Walks Right Into Them
1st Hand: We believe the $3,200 straddle is on in this next hand. Hellmuth opens to $15K over the straddle with .
Stanley calls in the first straddle. Keating comes along from the second straddle — guy’s never met two cards he didn’t like. Chamath is in from the third straddle. The fourth straddler snap-folds.
Four ways to a flop, $63,000 in the pot.
Flop comes .
Checks to Hellmuth on the button, and with pocket tens (under-pair to the top card, four ways), he c-bets for $25K.
I don’t understand this.
This is the literal definition of a monkey bet. What’s a monkey bet? It’s when you don’t know what to do — so you just shove chips into the pot. Default to aggression without thinking. It’s panic betting.
Why is this fear?
Because if he checks back and someone bets on the turn, he doesn’t trust himself to handle the spot. He doesn’t want to play turns. He doesn’t want to read river sizings. So he bets now, trying to “take it down.” This isn’t high-EV play. This is emotional safety net play.
We see Stanley Tang check-jam.
He only started the hand with about $46K effective. Phil already put in $25K — so it’s only $20K more to call. Stanley has pocket Aces. And actually, trapping here makes a lot of sense — he’s short and has several aggressive players behind him.
Phil, after hemming and hawing, begrudgingly calls. He tried to avoid a tough situation, and somehow put himself in the worst one.
The board runs out in Stanley's favor.
Scooped, because he let fear dictate the play.
2nd Hand: Phora and Mikki both limp.
Phil isolates to $500 with pocket Queens. Ben calls. Mikki still trying to figure out what the chips mean.
Flop comes Ace–King–rag. Checks to Phil.
And, once again, he just monkey bets. Why? Because he doesn’t want to face a tough decision on the turn. He just wants to take it down now. If he gets called, I’d bet he checks back the turn. It’s always the same pattern.
Why is he betting? Not because it’s profitable. Not because it applies pressure. Because he doesn’t want to make a decision.
He shows the hand like it’s some magical bluff or value bet. Which is it? No one knows.
Not even Phil.
3rd Hand: Sunny opens from the cutoff. Phil defends the big blind with .
Flop comes . Check–check. Turn is a . And look at this — Phil leads out with Deuces.
Why? Who knows.
River is a , completing the front-door flush, and Phil leads again.
And… gets called by Ace high. So, hey — he gets value. Two streets. From Ace high.
Is this profitable in the long term? Probably not. The flop went check–check. He could check the turn, let Sunny bluff on this wet, dynamic board. Use the hand as a bluff catcher. Or check the turn, and if Sunny bets, turn the Deuces into a bluff — rep something strong and get folds.
But no. Phil doesn’t take either of those lines.
He just bets. Because he doesn’t want a tough decision. He doesn’t trust himself.
3. Fear of Looking Foolish
1st Hand: We’re at a table with Mikki (still learning how to use crayons), and a bunch of other characters who are not exactly trying their hardest to win.
Phil buys in for $5,000 at a $25/$50/$100 game. That’s 50 big blinds, in a lineup where no one knows how to play.
He’s supposed to be the professional. He’s the one who should be pressing every edge.
But he buys in super short.
Why? Because he’s afraid of making a big mistake when deep. He doesn’t want to make a bad decision and look dumb. So, instead of maximizing his EV against weak opponents, he clips himself before the hand even starts.
He plays scared. Scared of looking foolish.
2nd Hand: Tom Dwan opens the button. Phil flats in the small blind with .
And if you look at the stack, he’s in for $12,000. But we’ve got the $800 straddle on. That’s 15 big blinds effective.
In a game with MrBeast, Ninja, and a bunch of YouTube characters — none of whom are there to win.
12,000! In a game where every hand featured at least $800 straddles, and where bloggers with no connection to poker were playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars. So he doesn't buy a decent stack for fear of looking like an idiot, and that's precisely why he ends up looking like one.
Now, sure — I often say it’s good to flat your strong hands when a pro opens, to keep in the recs behind you.
But not when you’re 15bb deep with a suited connector from the small blind. Not in this spot.
Once again — it’s fear. He buys in shallow so he can’t make a big mistake. But by trying not to look like a big idiot…He ends up looking like a big idiot.
3rd Hand: So, we’ve seen Phil monkey bet with Queens on an Ace–King–X board. We’ve seen him monkey bet Tens on a Queen–Jack–X board — and that one was four-way, too.
But here?
It’s a three-way pot. He has more fold equity, more equity in hand, a gutter to the nuts, and the Ace of clubs for the backdoor nut flush.
This is an amazing spot to run it. He’s been called by two players in the blinds — players who are going to be calling super wide. He gets a ton of credit, and he can barrel a ton of turns:
- Any club improves his story
- A King gives him the nuts
- An Ace gives him top pair with nut kicker
He has every reason to apply pressure here.
But I’m guessing his thought process is this: “Well, I have a hand that can easily call if someone bets the turn. So I’ll just check now.”
Why doesn’t he bet?
- Because he doesn’t want to get check-raised.
- He doesn’t want to look foolish.
- He doesn’t want to make a tough decision.
So again — he chooses a much lower EV line just to avoid discomfort.
Fear #4: The Fear of Not Getting Paid
1st Hand: We’re playing $200/$400. Phil limps from the hijack. J.R. raises, and Phil pulls the old limp re-raise with .
Why? Not sure, but okay.
J.R. folds. Keating calls. We go heads-up.
Phil, as the limp-raiser, has position. He flops middle pair on and decides to check it back — which is reasonable.
Turn brings him two pair , and look how fast he checks back again.
Why?
He’s got this tight image. He thinks, “If I bet, they’ll just fold. I finally made a big hand. I need to give them rope.”
So he checks, but it’s egregious. This is what I see struggling 1/2 and 2/5 players do all the time:
They finally make a strong hand and just refuse to put money in the pot. Check. Check. Hope. They cross their fingers. They pray.
But here’s the thing: If you think your opponents are folding every time you bet, then you should be bluffing 10x more often.
But Phil isn’t bluffing. The guy in your local 2/5 game isn’t bluffing. They just don’t trust either story — not their bluff story or their value story.
So what happens?
- They miss value.
- They let opponents off the hook.
- They give up massive EV.
River comes a , putting a one-liner to a straight on the board. Keating leads out big — $50,000 — an overbet. And credit where it’s due — Phil actually finds a nice fold here.
Even a scared mouse finds the cheese once in a while, right?
2nd Hand: JBoogs raises to $400. We’re playing $50/$100. BrazilGod calls. Stanley calls. Phil, in the small blind with . comes along. Nikos calls in the big blind. We’re going five ways.
Flop is and Phil flops trip tens with a King kicker.
JBoogs, the preflop raiser, checks. BrazilGod stabs — $200 into $2,100.
Stanley calls. Phil now puts in a check-raise — and I like this. Let’s go. Let’s build the pot when we have a real hand.
And now, back to JBoogs. He decides to cold call the check-raise.
The original raiser bet $1,200. Turn is the blankest of blanks ( ). Phil snap-checks.
Why? Yes, JBoogs could have a boat. Sure. But the odds are so much higher that he just has something like Ace–Nine, King–Nine suited, or an overpair. Phil still beats the majority of that range.
Phil checks. It goes check–check.
Now to the river — a . Phil bets 1,800 into a pot that's much larger.
Why are we betting 35–40% pot when JBoogs cold-called a raise on the flop as the preflop raiser and then checked back the turn?
He’s not going to have a boat. He's not going to have busted draws like Queen–Jack or Seven–Eight either. Those hands usually bet the flop or take a stab when checked to on the turn.
Even if he somehow had a busted draw, betting small isn't going to get Queen–Jack to call.
So what are we targeting? We’re targeting strong showdown value.
Players check back the turn because they plan to call the river. So, if that’s our target, why are we going small? We should be going massive.
But again — Helmuth plays it safe. This is the fear I see all the time. Fear of not getting paid. “If I bet too big, they’ll fold.” He doesn’t even stop to consider what JBoogs' actual range is.
JBoogs snap-calls — and turns over .
Phil wins the absolute minimum.
And this is the mistake I see constantly. Players prioritize the dopamine hit of getting called.
“If I bet small or medium, I’ll get called more often — and that feels good.” Yeah, it does. But just because a bigger bet gets called less often doesn’t mean it's worse.
In fact, it's usually the opposite.
Phil could have gone 3x or 4x his actual river size. Even if JBoogs only calls 30% or 25% of the time, it’s still more profitable.
Final Fear: Fear of Getting Pushed Around
1st Hand: Phil limps with from the hijack. We’re playing $100/$200.
JR bumps it up on the button. Now to Alan Keating in the big blind — and Keating has never met a hand in the blinds he didn’t love.
Flop comes .
Phil has a gutter and checks to the preflop raiser. J.R. c-bets.
Keating calls. Phil calls with , holding a gutter and backdoor flush potential.
No problem so far.
Turn is a . Keating checks, and now it gets weird.
Phil donks. Why are we donking here?
J.R. c-bet into multiple people on an Ace–high, double–Broadway board, and Keating called. There is no fold equity in this spot. Donking here minimizes fold equity.
If we thought J.R. was weak, why not just check, let him bet, and then go for the check–raise? That’s how you maximize fold equity. Instead, it goes way off the rails.
J.R. raises to 19,000, and Phil? He calls.
If he thinks King High is best, why is he donking on the turn? Why not use it as a bluff catcher?
River is a and it checks through. J.R. bets 22,000.
Phil snap-calls with King High, and of course, J.R. shows Pocket Queens. It’s the fear of getting pushed around.
2nd Hand: We’re playing $100/$200. Slime bumps it up from the hijack.
Mr. Beast is in there in the cutoff. XQC going to put in a little baby three-bet. And Phil just snap cold-calling the three-bet. Doesn’t consider any other option. That’s going to bring along Keating. Going to bring along Slime. Going to bring along Mr. Beast.
We’re going to go five ways to the flop of . Three overcards to Phil’s here. And this one is going to check all the way around to the button—to Mr. Beast. Mr. Beast going to take a stab at it here.
We’re going to go $10,000 into $25K. That is going to knock out XQC.
Hellmuth quickly called this bet. Yes, on a flop with three overcards. But Phil doesn't care: he can't let an opponent he considers weak get the better of him.
And now we see Phil here again, not even thinking. Mr. Beast, I know this guy has never played poker before, but he just bet into four other people, five ways on this flop. And Phil is continuing with pocket nines.
What are we doing?
He doesn’t want to get pushed around. He doesn’t want to let a player who he deems as inferior in poker skill to him—which is up for debate—get one over. And so, he’s just going to call. He’s going to take a stand here.
We’re going to go to the turn ( ), which is a blank. It’s going to go check-check on the turn.
Now to the river ( ). Phil checks it over once again. Mr. Beast is going to bet on this river. Looks like $25K on this river.
Phil not even going to think. He’s going to put in the call here.
He makes Mr. Beast show first. And Mr. Beast has a here for second pair. Phil getting hot and heated here. He’s going to take off the jacket. Just paying off two streets with fourth pair here to Mr. Beast on a triple Broadway board.
3rd Hand: Phil going to overlimp from early position with .
Phil is going to flop top pair here. Going to check over to him. He is going to bet here in this limped pot. He’s going to go $700, and we are going to see Bill Klein go for the check-call here.
Candie just going to fold, and we’re going to go heads-up to a turn. Pot is $1,900. Bill Klein now just going to come out and donk for an overbetting size as a broadway card comes in. This guy is action. But this is just under-bluffed, right? He called with players still left to act behind him on the flop, so he’s got to have something. Now he’s coming out and donking for an overbet size on the turn .
Phil, of course, is going to call.
Now we’re going to go to a river, which is the innocuous .
Bill Klein going to come out again and overbet donk on the river. This time he goes $8K into $5.9. Phil doesn’t love it, but he doesn’t want to be pushed around, so he puts in the call and gets shown Bill Klein’s pocket nines.
Following Phil's angry reaction to Mark's video, journalists conducted a poll asking readers how they rated Hellmuth's cash game skills. They were unforgiving:
Only 2% of voters believed in Phil—though 40% credited his talent as a tournament player. Hellmuth reposted the poll and delivered a scathing sermon :
No respect (they have no clue)
I won a fortune in cash games since 2012 (many millions of dollars), much of it televised, and somehow, no one believes in my cash game prowess (in this poll)
Reminds me of my tourney play. As I climbed the ladder of WSOP wins since 2010, many top pros didn’t think I was very good (I kept winning, most of my doubters went broke)
Since 2020, I mostly only play WSOP tourneys, have made a ton of final tables, and folks don’t seem to believe in me!
Finally, I went 9-2 playing heads up vs the world’s best poker players, and somehow my opponents said, on the record, they were favorites over me before EVERY single match. Meanwhile, I knocked them off one-by-one
Poker is the only sport I know of, that you can crush the game, and folks think you are not a good player. How? You crush on tape, people then watch your hole cards, people then don’t understand what you’re doing, and then some idiot commentator (or smart commentator) evaluates your play based on their understanding of the game
No one understands what I do, or how I do it. This hurts from a “respect” point of view (my Ego hurts right now!), but is great for me. Thank goodness they don’t understand!!
I’ll win $10M more playing poker cash games ($25M total), I’ll win 7 more WSOP bracelets (24 total), and they will still not respect me. Ok, fine
At the end of the day, I’ll take my 24 WSOP bracelets and the $25M I won in cash games and call it a day
When I leave poker, I guess some will say, “Yes, we know he won everything in sight, but I don’t understand how.
Therefore, I believe that he was lucky.” Yep, I was “Lucky” for 60 straight years!!
According to High Roll Poker, Hellmuth has lost $825,000 in his career through streaming and TV shows.
