Poker Brat: Phil Hellmuth's Autobiography

by Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu (Foreword)

If you know Phil Hellmuth then you either love him or hate him! His rants, tirades, and lines like -I can dodge bullets baby- and -If it weren't for luck, I'd win them all- are epic and have earned him the nickname the -Poker Brat.- However, whether you love him or hate him, he is undoubtedly the greatest poker player of our time. Phil is a global poker icon who holds every record at the World Series of Poker, including an extraordinary 14 world championships. In Poker Brat Phil paints a picture of his early Midwestern life, in which he struggled mightily in grade school and high school, but always had aspirations to do something great. Phil takes you from the low lows of his life to the high highs, and shows you how he developed an unhealthy ego along the way, which eventually turned into his -poker brat- persona. In Poker Brat, Phil shares his own powerful tips and techniques, the ones that he used to set his goals, and then he shows how he achieved those goals as he climbed to the summit of the poker world.

Genres: Biography, Sports

368 pages, Hardcover

Published August 1, 2017

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 1 out of 5]

This really needed a ghost writer or an editor. Toward the end, it was just name dropping. Sentences that don't make sense: "Kathy is more or less an only child." What does that even mean? Is she an only child? More or less.

Sentences are repeated ad naseum. Then the whole thing where he keeps referencing other chapters is fairly annoying. If I read something at the end of chapter 26, you don't need to bring it up again at the start of chapter 27 and tell me to see chapter 26.

It really needed more stories. Nothing mentioned about the popularity of poker allowing for huge payouts. Nothing about Tony G. There's a famous hand where he had the best hand against an amateur, and they ran it four times, and the amateur won three times. Very little mentioned about some of the top poker players.

[John-Michael Sedor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I say this with love, since I’m a fan of Phil Hellmuth, but this book desperately needed a ghost writer or editor. I appreciated his “own voice” but often times it just felt like a mess. Not to mention the constant reference of information from other chapters you literally just read. At a certain point I thought it was a bit. Towards the end, it got so bad that it was hard to focus on the actually story. The end of the book also felt like a giant ad. There are constant references to different sites he wants you to check out. The end of the book felt like he made a deal with some of his rich friends promising them he would “talk them up” in his book. There was also a lot of contradiction, which in a way made sense as it allowed you to see into the mind of a poker player. This book clearly shows you need a certain type of personality to be truly one of the best poker players. He definitely has an ego and is narcissistic, but isn’t that why he makes for such good TV and is one of the best?

[Jonathan Desimone · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was hoping for more big picture lessons from this book. He has been hugely successful but I found the audiobook to be a bit of an ego-trip and very hard to follow all the detailed poker hand descriptions. A bit like the acclaimed vanderbilt bio--why do people delve into so much detail in these books? Do I want him on my poker team or to teach me to play? Yes. Does this make me want to hang out with him? No.

[Santiago Mansilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phil is one of the most popular poker players and has almost every record in the World Series of Poker (WSOP).

It's interesting to read about his life outside the poker tables, his objectives in life and how he achieved those goals.

I loved the book and I think it's one of the best poker biographies I have ever read with "One of a Kind" (Stu Ungar) and "Life's a Gamble" (Mike Sexton).

[aleeshuschin · Rating 2 out of 5]

i know this is a weird choice but in the throes of winter depression i have become really fixated on poker. i have to say that although i think phil hellmuth is endearing and impressive this was absurdly boring and there were so many exclamation marks i started getting loopy. there's no shame in hiring a ghostwriter

[Cameron · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly enjoyable read, I think it gave me some more empathy for Phil who can be as the book is titled a brat at the poker table, he had a tough time in childhood and I believe that caused his ego issues and brattish behaviour at the table. The book is a bit too braggy and name droppy to be fully enjoyable, it would be good for Phil to be more self aware ( :

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Phil is an interesting guy to watch when he plays poker. On the plus side he makes some great reads. On the down side he gets very stroppy in a bad beat.

I enjoyed parts of his autobiography especially the more personal things. I didn't enjoy all the name-dropping - I'd not heard of 90% of them anyway so it was plain boring.

It needed a good edit to remove the repetition and exclamation marks.

[Ian · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you want a transcript of Phil’s results and a breakdown of all the famous people he knows, with some endorsements thrown in, then this is the book for you. An incredibly successful player does not translate to being an interesting read.

[Marcel Heijink · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was expecting a lot from this book. But eventually not that much is being told about his personal life. Maybe such will be written when he is retired or something like that.

Nevertheless worth to read, but do not expect to much of it.

[Gabriel Yacso · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Really just a rich kid with rich kid problems. Nothing inspiring here, nothing heroic. Name dropping and ego boosting, I just skipped through the end. Is he a good poker player? Yes. A good person? Possibly. Inspiring? Not really. I believe everyone has a story, some are just boring.

[M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

It reads like he actually wrote this book himself. Full of interesting poker lifestyle details and transactions. A recommended read.

[Dale Stangoe · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you want to read about Phil Hellmuth's warty hands this is the book for you!

[Veronica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly... just couldn't bring myself to finish it.

[Tim Duggan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read to a poker player or people who have to think about risk a lot in their work. The middle of the last third could have been a bit shorter as their was a lot of anecdotes about certain tournaments that could be repetitive, but was interesting overall.

[Todd · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you didn't like Hellmuth prior to reading this book, you still won't like him, and if you did like him prior to reading this book, you might still end up not liking him.

This is a mostly sloppy self aggrandizing memoir from one of the most famous poker players on the planet who is famous, mainly from (which becomes obvious very early on) a singular desire to become the greatest poker player ever. The book is frustrating in that you want to dislike Phil's ambition to become well known, but he's very honest and direct with those goals so it's hard to fault him for it, and the fact is, he did achieve those goals, despite (and in many cases, because of) his obnoxiousness. In many awful ways Hellmuth sounds like Trump, focusing far too much on his status, fame, WSOP bracelets, TV screen time, and rubbing elbows with notable figures in sports, investing and entertainment. In a very Trump-ian turn he takes credit for raising millions of dollars for charities that use him as an MC for charity poker tournaments. Which is all fine and well, and I commend him for donating his time to those events, but to take credit for single handedly raising all those millions of dollars is a bit disingenuous and very self serving. Also in a very Trump-ian way he uses his book to shill for products that he's endorsing. Again this all feels very distasteful, but he does seem to genuinely enjoy the products and I kind of believe him, even if I find it a bit ugly.

I wanted to give this a very low rating just because of it's overall sloppiness (at one point he's going to the Super Bowl in New Orleans, and later on in the paragraph the Super Bowl is in San Diego) and there's a lot of self serving apology/non-apology relationship stuff regarding his wife who must be a damn saint to put up with him for all these years, and there's a lot of bankroll/financial management advice that he gives, but clearly didn't follow for the first 20 or so years of his career, but it deserves credit for being a pretty direct and detailed account of a remarkable poker career. Now, would I rather read a memoir from someone who is really the greatest poker player ever, someone who is in the trenches grinding through the toughest, most stressful cash games in the world, someone who isn't chasing cameras and bracelets and name dropping at every opportunity? Absolutely. But unfortunately whoever that person is, they're not writing a book about it. So we're left with this, a largely flawed, but still compelling story of a man who succeeded at his goals, despite how distasteful they are, and how annoying he is.

[Matthew Callman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks @timferriss for the book recommendation. Poker players think strategically when it comes to decision making, and @beingthegreatest was able to walk us through his thought process. At the beginning of his career, Phil put pen to paper and wrote down his #lifetimegoals Take some time this week, and write down what you want to achieve. I have never written down my lifetime goals, so I know I will be doing the same thing!

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is pretty bland and doesn’t go into enough detail about any of the interesting stories that could be. It’s like I went to the tournament and I played this hand and I won, I’d have enjoyed it more if there was more detail in poker hands and such

[Fritzov · Rating 4 out of 5]

For being Phil this is surprisingly honest. Good listen.