April 26th, 2007 1:02 am EST
The Phil Hellmuth / Sorel Mizzi Confrontation at the World Poker Tour Championship
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We all know that Phil Hellmuth Jr. is an agitator and a whiner. That's why we love to watch him; we love to see him explode and berate someone else's bad play.
 Sorel Mizzi, aka "Imper1um", got a taste of the outlandish that is Phil Hellmuth when the two shared a big hand at the World Poker Classic. This hand steamed Hellmuth enough that he actually dedicated most of his blog posting to it, referring to Mizzi as "Internet Boy."
First off, Mizzi has been ultra successful online, yes; but he has just turned 21, and just recently chopped the Irish Poker Open for better than second place money, and finished in the top 15 at the World Poker Tour championship. Not exactly chopped liver. Hellmuth has inferred often that Mizzi is simply a lucky Internet player that is due to be schooled by "better" live poker pros, which is simply not true.
Anyways, Mizzi had a decent stack, and was raising often. Hellmuth remarked that if he kept doing that, he probably "wouldn't make the top 27." Anyways, then a big hand came down between the two of them.
Mizzi is holding pocket 9's, and Hellmuth is holding A 6. The flop comes a 9 x, and Mizzi bets out, and Hellmuth calls. The turn is another Ace, and Mizzi bets out again, and Hellmuth calls again. The river is a Jack and Mizzi pushes all-in. After a bit of deliberation, Hellmuth calls and Mizzi turns over his full house.
Why was Hellmuth steamed? He contends that Mizzi played this hand way too fast, and ran the risk of chasing Hellmuth out of the hand. Regardless of what Hellmuth thinks, Mizzi extracted the maximum possible chips out of Hellmuth, so it obviously worked.
The sad thing is that Hellmuth wrote about Mizzi in his blog, constantly referring to him as "Internet Boy", an obvious ploy to try and belittle Mizzi.
Mizzi may be young and may have made most of his money online, but I would bet a large amount of money that Mizzi is more successful over the next five years than Hellmuth. Mizzi is that good.
Filed Under: Strange Poker Stories |
