Hellmuth Passes Chan and Brunson

Filed in archive Tournament News on June 29, 2007

First it was Doyle Brunson to surpass the ten World Series of Poker bracelet mark. Then Johnny Chan said anything you can do, I can match by taking down Phil Laak in a Pot Limit Hold Em' heads up match for his tenth bracelet.

That was 2005.

2006 marked Phil Hellmuth's rise to the exclusive ten bracelet winner's club. Sure he gets knocks for having won all those bracelets in one poker discipline (Texas Hold Em') but you can't deny the sixty plus cashes and now standing alone with eleven WSOP bracelets. Event number fifteen, a $1,500 No Limit Hold Em' event, showed the world once again that the "Poker Brat" puts some bite behind his bark in taking down the $637,254 first prize.

Earl Burton was at the Bluff Poker Tent with the record breaking final table win for Hellmuth:

With Machina all in, the remaining players checked the 3-8-A flop. On the Jack of clubs turn, Philacheck fired a bet and pushed both Hellmuth and Fuller from the pot. The deuce on the river finished the winning hand for Philacheck, but Hellmuth would have made a set and potentially busted Philacheck along with Machina. As it was, Morgan Machina was ushered out of the Bluff Tent in fourth place, worth $161,425.

Hellmuth eliminated Fuller a few moments later when he flopped top pair of Kings against Fuller's second pair of sevens and it was pretty much all over. Hellmuth held a 6-1 lead over Philacheck and it didn't take very long for the twosome to get the chips in the center. Philacheck moved in with A-10 and Hellmuth made the call with his A-3. The 9-3-4 flop brought all the help that Hellmuth would need and, after the turn and river blanked for Philacheck, Phil Hellmuth made World Series history by becoming the first man to win eleven WSOP Gold Bracelets.

PLAYERS -- EARNINGS

1. Phil Hellmuth - $637,254
2. Andy Philacheck - $394,594
3. Rick Fuller - $247,518
4. Morgan Machina - $161,425
5. Scott Clements - $112,997
6. David Simon - $82,506
7. Fabrice Soulier - $64,570
8. Ut Nguyen - $48,427
9. Taylor Douglas - $38,025

As the record crowning bracelet was brought to Hellmuth, the two men he had been battling for so many years were there to share the victory with him. Both Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson personally awarded Phil the bracelet, bringing a momentary humbleness to the normally quite vocal Hellmuth. It was a magic moment as Phil Hellmuth captured his eleventh bracelet and, with Chan and Brunson there for the awards ceremony, gives them a goal to shoot at for the remainder of the 2007 World Series of Poker.