Phil Hellmuth is famous for winning 14 WSOP bracelets so far and has over $22 million in live tournament earnings under his belt, but one Uber driver thinks he's obnoxious and cheap.
It was during the weekend when a certain screengrab of an Uber driver took the poker community's attention. You would normally expect a happy story based on a smiley shot, but instead it details the driver's horrible experience regarding Phil Hellmuth.
You would always notice the phrase #POSITIVITY when you browse through the 14-time WSOP winner Phil Hellmuth's social media accounts lately, since he's been using this particular hashtag in almost every post he recently makes, and it's also actually the title of his latest book that mainly focuses on having an optimistic mindset.
However, during the past weekend, the Poker Brat (who earned this nickname from always having a meltdown at the poker tables especially when he loses a pot) attracted the attention of the online poker community for something quite interesting - somebody took a screengrab of a female Uber driver named Danielle who complained about Hellmuth as a passenger, claiming that the 53-year-old poker star ordered an XL car exclusively for himself, left trash in her car and did not even bother to tip her at all!
The female driver took a selfie with the poker pro and posted it to a Facebook group named "Uber and Lyft Drivers Breakroom". The group is a closed group with 25,000+ members, with whom she shared a short story about their trip to the airport in an undisclosed city.
Since Uber drivers do not carry or accept cash payments, customers can send their driver a tip using the Uber app up to 30 days after their journey. However, Uber does not condone tip shaming either, so that could result to bigger problems for the driver if the Poker Brat decides to make it an issue.
The incident generated a mix of opinions amongst the poker community. Doug Polk shared the screengrab via his Facebook fan page, and pointed out the conflicting contrast between Hellmuth's positivity campaign and his alleged bad behavior with the Uber driver.
On the other hand, PokerStars pro Daniel Negreanu stepped up to defend him on Twitter.
Former WSOP tournament director Matt Savage also Tweeted what he thinks about what the Poker Brat is like in person.
Hellmuth responded to Negreanu's kind words by calling him a "huge asset for poker" on Twitter, which is kind of like a clear response to Polk's comments he made last week on his Youtube live stream with Joe Ingram, where Polk called Negreanu an "embarrassment to the game" and "a little bitch".
As for others, the situation amused them more than anything else. Some even think that this could be a bluff act designed to get some well-timed exposure for his new book about #POSITIVITY.
The tagline of his latest book release says, "you are always at the right place at the right time", and as some people in the news industry say "bad publicity is still publicity" so we can also assume that Hellmuth will be more than happy to capitalize on this most recent public Uber mishap of his.
Source:
https://www.highstakesdb.com/8504-phil-hellmuths-positivity-campaign-takes-a-hit.aspx
