I won $29 million on the World Series of Poker and counting – I struggled in school and was the “ugly duckling” of the family
POKER legend Phil Hellmuth has proved his doubters wrong.
The 58-year-old Wisconsin native is considered one of the greatest poker players of all time.
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Hellmuth’s seventeen World Series of Poker bracelets are the most in the history of a single competitor, and his wins have netted him over $29 million a year throughout his career The Hendon mob.
As a child, however, this success did not seem to have been possible.
In an interview with So much pokerHellmuth explained that growing up, I was “more of the ugly duckling, doing pretty badly at school and not giving a damn about sports.”
“My brothers and sisters, on the contrary, everything they undertook was successful.”
As a result, Hellmuth admitted that his teenage years were “not a great time for me.”
He explained that he had a low opinion of himself and that he had “a lot of problems in high school, not a lot of friends, not very good grades … they laughed at me a little bit.”
But Poker came to Hellmuth’s aid.
But his sudden fame is admittedly “rather complicated to deal with” given his “low self-confidence”.
Hellmuth owed this to some of his famously courageous and outspoken personalities.
For example, in 2021 during the World Series of Poker tournament, he said that if he “didn’t win that damn tournament,” he would “burn that damn place down if,” per card player magazine.
And while he’s known for these glitches, Hellmuth himself has admitted to regretting some of his past actions.
He told So Much Poker, “I knew (early on in his career) that my attitude wasn’t good for poker’s image, so I tried to improve it because it’s something that’s really important to me.”
Hellmuth added: “Very often I apologized after shaking hands with my opponents.
“However, that’s something the camera never filmed. There’s just a moment between all the show and all the trash talk, so people don’t see what’s really happening.”
But Hellmuth is not only a success in the poker world, but also as an author.
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