Phil Hellmuth Apologizes to Kevin Martin over Rage Quit Fallout

Poker Brat Phil Hellmuth had to apologise to fellow pro Kevin ‘Kmart’ Martin this week after rage-quitting the Live at the Bike show in Los Angeles and leaving Martin somewhat in the lurch...

Martin was extremely unhappy at how events played out this week after forking out a chunk of money on expenses after Hellmuth invited him to the Live at the Bike highstakes cash game at the Bicycle Casino in Gardena, Los Angeles. Martin wrote:

“Phil publicly invites me to play with him
- I gather 100k (chunk of my net worth)
- I travel, pay expenses, promote show
- my community is excited to see me battle the “best in the world”
He quits because he’s having a bad week. Big fucking L for you @phil_hellmuth.”

For Phil, the week started badly and got worse, a brutal $150k loss on the Hustler Casino Live show on the Monday followed by an even worse Tuesday Valentine’s Day special on LatB.

That latter session witnessed Hellmuth lose an incredible $285k pot that saw him rage-quit the show in disgust. Never one to avoid a good piece of drama, Hellmuth then left town well ahead of schedule...

That left Martin short of the big draw name that had enticed him into making the LatB trip, bringing us to the outraged tweet in our opening paragraph above.

Once Hellmuth had calmed down, however, he realised his mistake and it was time to make things right with Kevin Martin.

Hellmuth added: “We are rescheduling for TWO days of live-streaming and calling the show the “KMart Game.”

Martin also revealed the ‘my bad, you’re good’ moment: “Hey @phil_hellmuth instantly called me and apologized. He’s covering my travel expenses and we’re going to reschedule. Excited to battle whoever is in the line-up today on the show.”

He added: “Phil said leave the initial tweet up. Really a nice response by him we’re all good.”

Not all poker stories have a happy ending, but this one had double the feel-good factor as KMart’s decision to take a shot with a big chunk of his bankroll paid off...