Hellmuth obviously the record for number of WSOP bracelets, yet when you watch him on poker after dark he gets rolled over by the likes of dwan. He just plays like a total nit and rarely steps out of his comfort zone and gets destroyed.

On the other hand Dwan crushes the cash games even against the top players, but his tournament record is non existent.

What's the reasoning behind this?

why was michael jordan the GOAT at basketball but mediocre at baseball?

Even at the time Dwan was crushing, Hellmuth was not a good fundamental player. Nowadays, it is unlikely that Dwan is a good fundamental player (relatively speaking). Hellmuth is a large fish at big high stake games. He does do a good job against recreational players who have no clue; that is his thing now plus the name recognition.

They're different games. It's pretty easy to see the difference between basketball and baseball or running and swimming but tournies or cash games, it's still poker. What are the fundamental differences that makes hellmuth do well in tournaments but badly in cash games?

So Phil is good at exploiting fish, there are plenty at tournaments and this is how he does well?

Is Dwan not crushing in Macau right now?

turnaments and cash games are diffrent, in turnaments are more psychology factors but incash games is more pure math

This is a terrible metaphor and I'm not even sure what you mean by it.





And hell, even outside all that:

Just deciding to go play pro baseball around age 30 and being good enough to immediately hit .250 in AA is actually kinda ridiculous.

Phil seems good at exploiting fish; he gets on TV a lot; he is good at selling.

I have no idea what Dwan is doing now.

they're such different types of poker that they're essentially different games

Idk of any graph for Phil or any track of his play. He's plays or played a **** ton of tourneys and he's a monster nit. I would guess if it wasn't for sponsors he would be losing money. He's a monster nit so he's going to make some final tables. Tourneys are a joke so there is no goat. That's like saying theirs a goat lottery winner.

Cmon, he's won the most WSOP bracelets. Give credit where it's due.

I'd imagine a big difference is that Phil isn't all that used to playing the stack sizes that are common in cash games

hellmuth is a fish in a sense that he has no fundamentals and would get crushed online in almost every stakes, but in live poker things are not so black and white. Dude has tons of experience and fundamentals are not that important if u have crazy amounts of experience and you have learned from that experience. Live tournaments and live poker in general is not pure poker in a way, because there are way more variables than just ur strategy. And hellmuth can prolly read and feel all those other live variables very good and therefore be successful even if he plays bad strategy game theory wise. In live cash many tournament variables go out the window and also in tv cash games he has always had to play players better than him. I remember when after some donkament PH said that he played perfectly and is the best or smth and i believe that he believes that himself and its not hard to believe it if ur in the zone and use all that "white magic" to read a live game, while as spectator many of his plays seemed bad to me even basic theory wise.

Here's a record of someone I knew who played with PH directly.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=132

There's a lot more to poker than technical skill.

Hellmuth uses white magic to beat lolbad casual players at the WSOP.
Dwan uses Triad magic to lose $10 million in one hand with an underset in Manila.

True dat...esp live

So that's how you make final tables, wish I had known that.

It's a pretty fair analogy, just because you're skilled enough to do well in one poker format doesn't mean the skills will transition to a different format. He worked up to a .202 average in 436 ABs, dude was pretty bad. Not as bad as an average random 30 year old would be obviously but it's a good example of how skills in one game might help you in another but won't completely bridge the skill gap between the two.

there is a massive difference between 30bb poker and 200+bb poker

now you do.

What did kurt end up having? Cliffhanger?

phil can beat any game but doesnt put himself into it for cash games. tournaments is his thing. first time i met phil was in reno in the 1980,s i think. he was like a kid still and must have been one of his first bigger tournaments. it came down to him and i and he got it. i remember telling him he would be a great player some day. i saw it in him right away. i guess i was right.

cash and tournament takes two different skills. and it is easier for a high cash player to move to tournaments than the other way.

and the way to make money in poker is to get it from the weak players. and phil does it well. my hat is off to him, and he is a great guy off the table and when not in a pot he is losing.

who is to say that the premise of OP's question is true. he could also be bad at tournaments or good at cash games.

Lol at all these people saying PH is terrible at poker.

I've never played with him but from all accounts I've heard (and from what I've seen) that doesn't seem to be the case. He likes to project a nit image but doesn't seem to actually be a nit and has multiple gears which is useful in tournaments.

Tournament and cash games are different and most tournament players aren't that good at cash games. However, a lot can be said for the money not meaning much. It's common for players not to take it seriously when playing a small buyin cash game. I noticed this with Daniel Negreanu on the latest episode of Poker Night in America. It was a 25/50 game and he bought in for $20k. The first hand was double straddle so he was 100bbs deep and he decided to bluff get it in with K6ss. It looked like he was just having the time of his life (possibly drunk) and obviously I would not expect him to play like that in the WSOP Main Event.

Phil Hellmuth has super deep pockets such that none of the poker he regularly plays should mean much to him. However, he cares about winning bracelets which is why he takes bracelet events seriously regardless of the payouts.