Models are interested in me, mostly because of my 'bad boy of poker' image.
Phil Hellmuth
Poker is about understanding human behavior and managing emotions - yours and the other guy's. That's huge in poker, and it's huge in business.
Some people know me as the bad boy of professional poker and call me The Poker Brat. Sometimes I deserve that nickname, but not always.
There's more luck in poker. Getting good at golf requires a certain amount of physical aptitude. Both take a lot of patience. Both require knowing when to gamble - either with a big bluff or a high-risk shot. Both can be infuriating.
The benefit of fast play is that you'll get players to commit their chips with relatively weak hands since it will be hard for them to believe that you have a strong hand every single time. The downside is that your opponents will raise weak when you have nothing at all, forcing you to fold.
I guess if there weren't luck involved, I'd win 'em all.
Players talk about pot odds all the time, especially when they try to justify a call that they made. Whenever I hear this line of reasoning, though, I can't help but wonder if they properly thought through the consequences of their call.
In 1987, I wrote a goal sheet. I didn't want to waste my life. I'd dropped out of college, and there was a lot of pressure from my parents. I decided, 'If you're going to do this, you're going to become the best in the world at this.'
There are times when success doesn't make sense on a purely mathematical basis. I've played absolutely perfectly before, put in a masterful performance, and then my perfect play evaporated because one guy lost his mind and got lucky. Of course, I've also won that way.
Look, I never enjoy risking my tournament life with a marginal hand, but if you want to be a poker champion, that's exactly what needs to be done. Just don't do it too often!
I'm trying to make history. I've always put history above money.
I've been an idiot at the poker table for a long time.
When my reading ability is sharp, I can dodge bullets, baby! I have no problem folding super-strong hands and that saves me a ton of chips.
Playing fast and aggressive poker can help manufacture chips out of thin air and is one element of the game that separates the great players from the merely very good. But beware; it can be risky.
One or two great lay downs per tournament will give you a few extra lives while a few well-timed bluffs will give you a ton of extra chips.
I've met some of the most famous celebrities in the world but Michael Phelps was the first person I've ever met with whom I was totally star-struck.
There are two ways that lack of sleep affects my play: I'll play too many hands and I'll lose the ability to effectively read my opponents.
Poker is really about reading people. What happens when you bluff? What does it look like when the other guy bluffs? Does he look right, does he look left? Under what circumstances does he fold or call?
Here's a news flash: I hate to lose! Just watch any televised poker broadcast and you can see that's the case.
I guess I'm the happiest when I'm picking up my kids from school. The most important things on my list are my wife and kids and my health. Happiness is having a family you love.
Mental and physical preparation is critical in tournament poker events like the WSOP.
Keeping my emotions in check translates to me playing a lot better.
By folding often, I give other players the false impression that I'm a weak player - a player who can be easily bluffed. Trust me; I'm not a weak player.
Some players like to add a little more spice to their no-limit Hold 'em game. They add a live blind, also known as a straddle, where the player to the left of the big blind voluntarily puts up twice the big blind before looking at his hole cards. The player in the straddle then has the option to raise it up when the action returns to him.
Trust me when I tell you that Andy Roddick has the game to win a major poker tournament. I've played Hold 'em with him several times and he consistently demonstrates the kind of playing style and competitive drive that gives him a legitimate chance to win.
I used to have a routine where I would eat a meal during the World Series of Poker. I would play, they would call it a day and I would go work out. I would always order poached salmon with mushrooms and I would dip the salmon into a side of ranch dressing.
Look, for some players, pot odds should guide your decision making.
If you play professionally, you can expect to go broke at some point.
Shoving with K-Q is a tactic that does work well for Internet players and weak players. In the old days, though, grizzled pros would have eaten up those guys by utilizing the traditional, more conservative style of poker that emphasizes play on the flop.
The flop bet is a useful tactic for both old-school and new-school players because it can be effective if you are strong, weak, or somewhere in between. Betting out weak on a bluff can allow you to pick up an uncontested pot while betting out strong gives you the opportunity to control the size of the pot.
What gets lost is that half of poker is reading people. When you're reading well and you're making counterintuitive plays, a strictly math player will get scared and start making fewer moves, and then the person is even easier to read.
I'm so much better off when I trust my instincts. But they're not perfect.
Every poker player has ups and downs because luck is also involved. When a great poker player smashes, he's making the right moves and making the right reads and he's getting lucky.
If you are too into the fans and adoration and the world thinking you are the greatest, then you do not perform well.
The more records you put up, the longer they talk about you.
For five or six years, I didn't play in some of the good games leading up to the World Series of Poker, because with so many below-average players there, I reasoned it messed up my game.
It wasn't a popular thing to be a professional poker player in the '80s.
I'm pretty tall, and I'm always dressed in black.
What you see on a lot of televised poker is highlight-reel poker. That's why I used to like 'Poker After Dark' so much. It used to catch us playing almost every single hand... It is more of a grind than people think.
I wanted to become good at golf because I saw a lot of really successful people being good at it - and I planned on being successful.
Most pro athletes are super competitive, super clutch, and they don't want to lose at anything.
When strangers walk up to me and want to play golf for money, I worry. I wonder why they're coming to me, and I begin asking questions: When did you start playing? What's your best score? Are you playing your best golf right now? Where do you play? Usually I can tell if they're lying.
I'm a big believer in the power of your own words.
I think the key to poker is being steady and giving yourself a chance to win every tournament.
When I started playing, I saw a lot of people who were 45 and unhappy. I told myself I'd never be in a position where I had to play all the time. And I haven't been.
If you're going to just play with patience, you're going to be at the mercy of the cards.
Sometimes when you look back, you think I wish I would have played this hand differently or that hand differently. But then you have to understand that you can't go back and to focus on the present. Whether or not you're applying the lessons you've learned from mistakes you've made in the past.
I bought a midnight blue Porsch with a whale tail when I was winning big one time in L.A. That car was fast, fast, fast!
We have hillbillies with third grade educations and 8th grade educations who have conquered the poker world. There is no telling why someone is great at reading other people. Some people just are.
Oakley's sunglasses are hot and I feel a little extra cool when I wear them.
