Alternatively, someone other than Botez was somehow able to find a picture of her online (someway) and used it to troll.

Since Hellmuth got crushed he was the perfect addition to the stream. Seems like he didn’t angle like I initially thought from the clip I saw. Still ridiculous of him to ask for $5k. He looked about ready to fold and prob would’ve judging by how tight he played the rest of the stream.

Tony G would’ve been an amazing choice for Hellmuth’s spot. But maybe he works best against pros…idk.

That’s not true about nut peddling.
I bet u can’t find one specific hand to make your point.

He was card dead, still remember him making very wide calls preflop. Not folding any suited cards to 3bets etc.

Sure he seemed tight compared to mr beast and keating, but he gave as much action as u can expect any pro to considering the cards he was dealt.

This young generation were fun to watch, very smart and well behaving. They weren't even running to restroom every hour, are kids even doing blow anymore?

On the other hand Phil Hellmuth, what a disgrace. This clown is pushing 60's and thinks yelling the F word makes him cool w/ the kids. I'm glad they called him out as the gringe dad. What a terrible idea to bring him to this show. At one point Phil said "man, if I could buy in for more..." and someone said "why can't you". I don't think Phil answered but is he really that broke or does he have some stupid 100k spending limit on a day. I don't know but you shouldn't bring guys like that to a big game like this. I mean, kiddie games down the street.

put 20k pre flop with Q7s, the new 2022 nut peddling

The most impressive thing is how chill Alan while down a fortune.

Ludwig about poker stream

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGKM5WTAjaY

What a great stream. Being a big twitch watcher, I was so excited for this event and it did not disappoint. Sure it had some degen all ins but content is content. xqcL

lol I was just thinking the same thing. And he got it all in on a Q high flop against someone who hadn't really made any big bluffs and surely had a very narrow range.

People still don't understand Phil's meta game?

What's the advantage of playing wild during televised games?

If he were to 3-bet or 4-bet light, what do you think would happens when he plays recs in tourneys and untelevised games?

To think Phil is an idiot means you don't understand where his advantage in games lies.

That is, he knows how to manipulate and read players.

Sure he played like a Nit in a televised game and lost $100k.

Tomorrow he plays in an untelevised game and his raises get respect and he makes $500k.

If he assumed the table captain role and consistently raised crappy hands ... in a televised game; what do you think would happen?

He would definitely face more pressure and people wouldn't respect his actions in all of his games.

Pokernews has picked up on Hellmuth cheating story.
They have a poll at the end of the story.
Not surprisingly 4 out of 5 people think Hellmuth cheated.

https://www.pokernews.com/news/2022/...oker-41115.htm

"The Muck: Did "Poker Brat" Phil Hellmuth Angle-Shoot vs. Slime on Hustler Casino Live?"

Asana, Phil’s not that Machiavellian. He’s just not a cash game player and isn’t used to playing deep. He was clearly out of his comfort zone against this lineup, and his play wasn’t some master plan to win more money in the long run.

You’re giving him way too much credit.

Facts here. Dwan was consistently limping or just flatting opens preflop with junk. There was never a point where he was “nut peddling”. Also him and Ludwig were clearly hitting it off. I would be completely surprised if anyone who was actually in the game had an issue with Tom.

If he was that bad, how does he survive 1 year ... let alone the 35 years he has in poker?

I will disagree and say that Phil is focused on the long game.

Being a Nit in televised games helps him elsewhere.

Uhhh, it's called sponsorship money. He's been one of the most heavily sponsored pros for like the last 2 decades. There are some things to like about Hellmuth's game but he played poorly last night and is a very bad cash game player in general. That really can't be disputed.

Being a discourteous nit is def +lifetime EV moneywise for Phil but it makes him kind of a garbage human IMO..

Phil is doing some major excuse-peddling on Twitter, retweeting a few pros/streamers that agree with him and crying about everyone else

i hate to say this but i dont think the game was real. i find it hard to believe none of them had any real emotional reactions for the most part to winning or losing pots and some of them aren't mega rich (the chess chick has a sub 1mm networth according to google and is yawning and disinterested while up 500k and loaning 6 figures to poker pros shes never met before?). it feels like a way for all parties involved to grow their brands including hcl. even helmuths outbursts look feigned to me

interweb "net worth" guesses are less accurate than guesses

Making poker a reality TV / soap opera is so attractive from a video view / ad monetization perspective, one has to wonder where to draw the line.

Is it ok for all players to share bankroll or backed by same corporation and not disclose? Is it ok for the players to play with "play money", but pretend it's "real money"? To build on a script / narrative, is it ok to stack the deck and set up hands?

There seems to be a large risk of soap opera storylines completely relegating the strategy aspect of poker and wins / losses that truly matter to players to the backseat.

No matter how successful HCL has been so far, I miss some of the intriguing matchups that Ryan was able to put together at LATB a couple of years ago. When there was a true clash of strategies and styles -- Gman fighting with Gary, Dan Zack and Art; Doug, Fee and Jungleman joining the fun during the Doug Polk week -- and there were true joys and heartbreaking pain.

I suppose the market for that type of content is 10% of what youtube influencers command. But this is an opportunity for the Lodge stream.

just went on a walk with my tinfoil hat on and realized: what if the organizers pooled money together to make Keaton splash like he did, to make sure alot of the streamers will win money?
At first, they wanted to have Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey on the show and pay them off to not go too hard after the amateurs. But spending costs for Keaton would be high already, so they decided to replace Phil Ivey with Helmuth to save half the payoff budget

This hand is proof it wasn't staged:


https://twitter.com/HCLPokerShow/sta...39981686321152

Dude was extatic to chop and claimed he was leaving if he didn't. The chess girl locked up her win after going up $500k and actually quit midway through. If it were staged she would have kept splashing. A bunch more examples. Some of the players were more wealthy than others and obviously didn't care about the money, Mr beast and keating specifically and Ludwig to an extent.

lol at thinking that was staged and lol at someone going out of their way to explain it wasn't staged..

Alexandra’s initial buy-in was staked by WPT.

It felt like Beast/Slime/Ludwig might have been staking/swapping action in some combination with each other.

Yeah i feel dumber for explaining it, but felt like it had to before the tin foil wearing hats in america derailed the thread.

Lol no chance they even know that swapping action is a thing.

They are just that rich…

MrBeast has YouTube videos with titles like "Last To Leave $800,000 Island Keeps It" and "I Gave My 40,000,000th Subscriber 40 Cars." I doubt he was really looking to swap action in this piddly little poker game.