Camp Hellmuth and Pocket Jacks

Date: 2006.08.28 | Category: Hand Of The Week | By: Phil Hellmuth   

I have now done three of my fantasy camps — Camp Hellmuth — at Caesars Palace, with CH III being the last one for at least a few years. The response at each of them was amazing! The comment cards were an absolute joke, with everyone raving about what a good time they had, how much they learned, how cool it was to hang out with Antonio Esfandiari, Michael “The grinder” Mizrachi, Evelyn Ng, Scott Fishman, Mark Seif, and former FBI agent Joe Navarro. I am proud of the fact that each camp had such a good energy surrounding it, and that everyone had so much fun.

A few weeks ago, at CH III, I decided to spice up our main tournament a bit, and get the pros committed to playing their best poker — for the camper’s sakes. Knowing that the pros couldn’t win any of the prize money in our tournament, I made last-longer bets with Mizrachi, Fishman, Esfandiari, and UltimateBet.com online pros “Sean Rice,” “Krazy Kanuck,” and “Poker Ho.” In each case, I laid odds like $600-to-$500 for Mizrachi or $700-to-$500 for Fishman. In a last-longer bet, the first one out of the tournament pays the other player that is still alive in the tournament, so that if I were out ahead of the all of the other guys, it would cost me at least $4,000. This put some financial pressure on the pros to play well, and I also announced each bet to the room full of 180 CH campers. Thus there was a lot of pride involved as well for the pros.