My Guilty Poker Pleasure
March 10, 2010I love poker. I love the fact that I learn something new every time I play and every time I watch others play. There is a lot to learn from watching the pros on tournaments and shows like Poker after Dark and High Stakes Poker.
I have players that I like to watch more than others, either because I learn a lot from them and/or because they are entertaining. And then there is my deep, dark poker secret…
I watch games Phil Hellmuth is in just for the opportunity to watch him blow up. I relish his immature explosions just to see him embarrassed and brought down a peg. I’m a big proponent of poker etiquette and showing respect at the table, so I don’t like Hellmuth. But boy, do I like it when he loses.
You can see the blow-ups coming, like tremors leading to an earthquake or a volcano letting off steam before a massive eruption. Head shakes and the cleaning of the sunglasses is level one. Level two is quiet muttering and long drawn out sighs. Level three is the muttering becoming louder and more coherent, and the throwing up of the arms and looking to the sky in wonderment of the poker gods.
Level three is where steam can almost be seen coming out of his ears. It is at Level three that Hellmuth teeters on the brink. All it takes is one bad beat and Mount Helluth erupts.
I love all of it. I love watching this grown man (whose wife is a psychologist, by the way. Talk about taking your work home with you.) whine and insult the people who just beat him. I love it when he ‘takes his ball and goes home’, storming off the set. I love the look on other player’s faces when Hellmuth has gone nuclear. I’m convinced Daniel Negreanu has a completely different smile for when Hellmuth goes postal than his normal smile.
So the next bad beat you lay out to someone on GR88.com, maybe making the person on the other end destroy some furniture or curse your screen name to the skies. Fun!
Who is your favorite blow-up artist? Sound off in the comments!
Ryan Smith is a contributing blog writer at GR88.com.
