Hello, Old Friend

Date: 2008.03.24 | Category: Hand Of The Week | By: Phil Hellmuth   

In early March, on the heels of the NBC Heads-Up tournament, Calgary hosted the Canadian National Heads-Up Championship. Many of the top poker players were there, including Huck Seed, Joe Hachem, Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Laak, Jennifer Tilly, Mel Judah and Greg Mueller. When it came time for the finals, Seed took on Brad Booth — someone I have called the “best unknown poker player in the world.” Seed, an old friend, has been making a nice comeback of late. Only a few days before Seed made the finals in Calgary, he qualified for the semifinals in the NBC Heads-Up, losing his match to Andy Bloch.

Before his fall from the pinnacle of the poker world, Seed was considered a perennial favorite to win the World Series of Poker in the late 1990s. In player polls of that era, Seed always ranked in the top three in no-limit hold ’em. Yet most of the world doesn’t know Huckleberry Seed. His timing was bad — he hit his funk when poker really hit television.