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Bill Ordine of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote an interesting piece entitled “The Smart Money: Hellmuth Makes an Entrance”, which discusses some of poker brat and UB.com rep Phil Hellmuth’s grand – often over the top – entrances at World Series of Poker events. Whether you actually look forward to these entrances or you just want to see Phil make a fool out of himself, there is no question a lot of people now look forward to the Hellmuth arrival, much in the same vein as we await Jesus Christ’s presence back on Earth.
A glancing over Hellmuth’s Twitter page we find that he is always hanging out with celebrities including, most recently, Michael Phelps.
That Hellmuth has artfully ratcheted up his own celebrity by associating with other celebrities "is a new move on an old game," said Sam Chambers, an associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins who studies popular culture and political theory, in an interview with Ordine and the Inquirer.
"He's cultivating and maintaining a certain status even if he goes, say, four months without actually winning anything at the tables," Chambers said.
At this past week’s World Series of Poker Europe, Hellmuth made his appearance first known by surrounding himself with a bunch of Lady Gaga impersonators. Her song “Poker Face” blared in the background.
Love him or hate him, Ordine points out Hellmuth’s many skillful self-promotions in recent months.
While the exposure poker has had on TV means that many players can't get through an airport without being recognized, Hellmuth has eclipsed all of his card-playing colleagues with shrewd self-promotion.
Just in the last month or so, he has thrown out the first ball at an Oakland A's game (and then gave poker pointers to A's players Coco Crisp and two-time all-star Andrew Bailey from Voorhees), went clubbing with Olympic hero Michael Phelps, and schmoozed with Bill Clinton at a charity gala. In Hellmuth's blog, he said that Minnesota Vikings coach Brad Childress asked him to address the team before a game this season. Apparently, Childress recalled Hellmuth doing that very thing for the University of Wisconsin football team when Childress was a Badgers assistant coach.
Check out Bill Ordine’s column on Phil Hellmuth Here
Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
