Phil Hellmuth Gets Political

Phil Hellmuth Gets Political

Wednesday, 2 March 2016

American Presidential candidate Donald Trump has rarely been far from the headlines recently but the outspoken businessman has now received a mention from one of the most unlikely of sources.

As part of an interview with financial news website TheStreet, 14-time World Series Of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner and 2007 Poker Hall Of Fame inductee Phil Hellmuth described 69-year-old Trump as ‘the ultimate loose-aggressive player’.

New York-born Trump has angered people around the globe with controversial comments on immigration, women and the disabled while 2012 WSOP Europe (WSOPE) main event champion Hellmuth used the interview to liken the candidate’s scatter-shot approach to playing many weak hands of poker in hopes of securing a beneficial position.

“The [loose-aggressive player] controls the pace of the game, controls the flow of the game, controls how much money is put in the pot and pushes the pace to make sure every pot is bigger,” said Wisconsin native Hellmuth.

“Whether he has good cards or not, he has faith that he can outplay you or get lucky. The way you defeat that is to get even more money in; you have to get more aggressive. You make sure that every time you have a hand that's likely to be better than his hand, you're getting big raises in. You have to have good discipline but you get aggressive.”

Fifty-one-year-old Hellmuth subsequently described how Trump opponents could defeat the New Yorker’s attempts at being elected the nation’s 45th President in November.

“When you're playing against a loose-aggressive player, think of a harpoon,” said Hellmuth.

“You nail them with a harpoon, on one big pot for all their chips. They're a big target and Trump is a big target. Trump has made a target of himself over and over and over again. He's playing many weak hands, so you'd expect him to get harpooned a lot. The problem is you've harpooned Trump five times and he's so smart, he's so resilient, he has so much style, he's changed the rules of poker.”

Hellmuth closed by referencing a recent debate where fellow Republican candidate Marco Rubio got aggressive with Trump by quizzing the former The Apprentice host about his inheritance, business acumen and hiring of foreign workers.

“Rubio made a smart move,” said Hellmuth.

“He finally took it to the next level. He assumed he was just going to win with patience and when you're waiting for someone else to implode and they don't implode, all of the sudden you're way behind in the chips and ‘Super Tuesday’ is coming up and you can't wait anymore. Rubio can't wait. Rubio changed tactics, finally aggressively attacked Trump and he looked pretty good doing it.”



Tags: Donald Trump, Phil Hellmuth, The Apprentice, Marco Rubio, President