There are many that would agree Phil Hellmuth is the G.O.A.T. of the World Series of Poker (WSOP), but one person says otherwise.
Bryn Kenney, who holds the record for live tournament cashes at $67 million, appeared on the Digital Social Hour Podcast with Sean Kelly. The New York-based poker pro discussed a handful of topics, including losing $3.5 million, drama in the world of poker, and the Poker Hall of Fame.
The host also asked Kenney about the Poker Brat's stature within the poker world, and his harsh answer would trigger one of poker's most popular players ever.
Kenney disses the Poker Brat
Phil Hellmuth holds an impressive record with 17 WSOP bracelets. Phil Ivey is in a distant second place at 11, while Erik Seidel, Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson are the only others to have reached double digits. However, Kenney claims he doesn't appear to be all that impressed.
"A lot of people label Hellmuth as the ‘Tournament G.O.A.T.,' but I'd love to hear your opinion. Because he doesn't really play in the higher stakes tournaments like you do," Kelly said.
At first, Kenney said that Hellmuth is the "biggest winning WSOP player", which is hard to contest given that Hellmuth holds the record for the most WSOP bracelets won and final table appearances by a huge margin.
Kenney described Hellmuth's WSOP performance, "He has his career, which is impressive, too."
But that is where the compliments ended. He went on to bash the 1989 world champ's performance at the highest stakes.
Kenney argues, "He's played some high rollers and hasn't really fared very well in them, and you know, when I think about who are the best players in poker, if you're not competing at the highest level, you can't really be in contention for it."
Kenney then suggested that the Poker Brat could be "the head of some sub-category that exists somewhere else," strongly implying that Hellmuth may simply be the best WSOP player, but not an overall G.O.A.T. He then pointed out Hellmuth's supposed inability to thrive when competing in the "small fields with the best players."
"If you're playing against mostly amateur players at the World Series, you're great at beating the amateur players. It's like you could be the King of Triple A," Kenney said.
The highest level of pro baseball in the world is Major League Baseball (MLB), while the level one notch below is AAA Minor League Baseball (MiLB). Kenney is implying that Hellmuth is more suited for AAA, although the WSOP is poker's equivalent to baseball's World Series or the Super Bowl (NFL), at least in terms of prestige within the game.
Hellmuth fires Back
Hellmuth fired back at Kenney's criticism, and responded to a video clip from the Digital Social Hour Podcast.
"To me the @WSOP (World Series of Poker) is the "big leagues." Always has been, always will be. It's aggravating to me when people lie about me and my legacy. For the record, I am winning over $1.5M in "High Rollers." (Easy to confirm this on HendonMob).
You said I wouldn't play you heads up? Where were you I challenged the entire world to a $1.6M heads up challenge on "High Stakes Duel?" - Hellmuth tweeted.
Hellmuth dominated High Stakes Duel, a previous heads-up poker show on PokerGO, for a couple of years. He won his first six matches - three against Antonio Esfandiari and three against Daniel Negreanu - for a total of $700,000 in profit.
The Poker Hall of Famer then defeated Nick Wright in the first round of High Stakes Duel III before splitting matches against Tom Dwan. He then defeated Scott Seiver in the $800,000 round before losing to Jason Koon for $1.6 million. Hellmuth went 9-2 overall on the show, which used a sit-n-go style heads-up no-limit hold'em format.
Hellmuth also won the 64-player NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship in 2005, and in the show's final season finished runner-up to Mike Matusow in 2013. The poker icon has over $30 million in overall live tournament cashes, not even half of Kenney's results ($67 million). But of course, other than The Hendon Mob cashes, there are more things to consider when it comes to an overall evaluation of a poker player.
Where does Phil Hellmuth rank to you? Is he the G.O.A.T. because of his WSOP record, or is Bryn Kenney's views spot on? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
Source: https://www.pokernews.com/news/2024/10/bryn-kenney-disses-poker-great-phil-hellmuth-47082.htm
