What is GREAT ?

I don’t know but what do you think ?

Is it just lucky or proves better skills ,winning 16 bracelets after playing 4000 events. One and only Phil Hellmuth ( or Numbers Game ? ).

Or.

Winning 2 or more WSOP ME titles Johnny Moss,Doyle Brunson , Stu Ungar , Johnny Chan( or Image mesmerizes/ scares opponents).

Or.

Winnings same championship title 3 year in a raw .Adam Friedman 2018,2019,2021
Dealers Choice 6-Handed Championship .(or 1st time fluke , 2nd time lucky, 3rd time Luck Box ! ? )

he has amazing reads and a nice style suiting that so ye hes pretty good in those live environments

GOAT poker player ? nope.

GOAT WSOP player ? without question, absolutely for sure, yes The Poker Brat.

GOAT Poker Player ? Siedel or Ivey

GOAT Cash ? Chip Reese

GOAT Online? Dwan? Isildur? dunno that would be a long list.

GOAT Poker Monetizer? Dnegs

GOAT NVG Poster? Well Read Ted

What Hellmuth is doing is pretty absurd tbh. Half a standard deviation more of luck and he would have won like 3 or 4 bracelets so far this WSOP, it's bizarre

lol, funny

PTLou's 2+2 version of Norm MacDonald's Russian Lit Moth Joke.

Agreed. He's doing even better than 2011 when people who were jumping on the "don't listen to Phil Hellmuth" bandwagon to justify their losing but "optimal" play were all of a sudden saying wow he can play so unlucky.

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Always room for another Phil Hellmuth thread

hellmuth genius for sure

When was Phil one of the best at the highest levels of any poker variant live or online?

It's impressive what he has done and some of the unorthodox skills he seems to have, but you can't claim someone is the GOAT when they haven't really displayed a willingness or ability to compete at the highest levels of the game.

Actually this thread is to celebrate Adam Friedman’s “three-peat”
And his supremacy over Phill 2 years in running.

Probably never. Kinda irrelvant though.

What exacrly is "the highest levels of the game"?

The literal highest levels... What kind of question is this? Rail heaven, Bobby's room, high roller tournaments.

Youre being deliberately dense. The games where the best guys play is not only relevant it's what counts more than anything else. If pat mahomes decided he was just going to dominate the CFL and walked away from the cheifs he no longer gets any consideration for goat of football no matter how well he does in canada

All that being said Phil is obv the wsop goat. But goat of poker? Come on

Nobody is better than GTO players.

Whom do you consider as GTO players ?

Playing nose bleed stakes just makes you a nose bleeder, either a winning one or a losing one. It's not sustainable (because the mob playing it today is 100% different to the mob playing it 10 or 20 years ago) and is a place for players in the money to swing their dicks. It is not, and never will be, the highest levels of the game in the way that "level" appplies to, erm, level in any other sport or game.

Nah, not at all. Playing at the "best guys club" does not make anyone a great player by self reference. It just means they have a big bankroll. The irony, that I think might be lost on you, is that the most successful players in these situations succeed partly because they are good at milking these situations.

Does anybody have a reasonable estimate of how many events PH has played in? Quick addition from the WSOP Wikipedia page shows 1,710 events since 1989 (not sure if that was his first year), including all the Europe, Asia and online events.

No idea what percentage of these he played, I'd guess not much more than 1,000, but that's a total guess.

I know, it's not completely on topic, but it still is, stay with me for a while:
GOAT, what does that mean?

Now read this interview with Addamo after his 50K win.
https://www.pokernews.com/tours/wsop...ips.451420.htm

That is humble, that is genius, that is a GOAT imho.
Quote:
"Obviously there's some skill involved, but winning this much is really attributed to luck in the end, so it's very fortunate. I play a strategy where I put a lot of big bets in. That's no secret. Sometimes you're going to be out in the first level and sometimes you're gonna build up a big stack."

See where i'm getting at?
Not in a million lifetimes you would hear Helmuth say something like that, he'd just brag about how good he is ;-)))

He doesn't play as many as people think. His autobiography stated he was really cash poor the first decade or so and there was a year or two where he played more side games.

He might be tbh, but we dont be able to determine that for certain until we have atleast 5 more NVG threads discussing it.

He's very good at exploiting weaker players. Which is what tournament fields mostly consist of.

Just look at the way he acts on the table and you have your answer.

Ivey could have been the WSOP GOAT. Was well on his way but the he burned out, moved on or whatever. Since he basically quit the WSOP IMO he dq’d himself

I tend to agree with this. Has he even won a high roller with a small field? He won a lot of WSOP bracelets when the fields were weak and very small compared to what they are now. He’s also winning events now that are super small fields so I feel that kinda skews his accomplishments. You can put a complete random solid poker player in 100 player fields and they will win if they play enough.

Phil was probably one of the best during the dinosaur days of poker. Now, put him against players like fedor holz, bonomo, Shaun deeb, David peters, Ivey, Dan Colman, Chadwick, etc….. he’s 7/8 or 8/8 in that list.

He’s great at being an ******* though. Maybe the goat. Guy has numerous bracelets and he complains over a bad beat like it’s the end of the world. That is part of the game you play. No reason to get mad at what happens everyday in tournament poker.