Phil Hellmuth Rage Quits Live at the Bike after Monster Losses

Poker Brat Phil Hellmuth has never been a good loser, and recently he confirmed that reputation by storming off the set of Live at the Bike following his second 6-figure loss in consecutive days...

Hellmuth had back-to-back ‘appointments’ in California, first up at the highstakes Hustler Casino Live table, then on to Live at the Bike, where the reappearance of Robbi Jade Lew was set to be one of the highlights.

For big Phil, though, it proved to be one of the lowlights of his lengthy career, a record loss to start the week on the HCL livestream...

That included a horrible river call against show reg, “J.R.” who bet out $20k into $47k on the following board ...

Hellmuth: K♥ 10♣
JR: Q♠ Q♦

Board: A♠ Q♣ 8♣ 7♥ 5♥

What Hellmuth thought he was playing at is still unclear, with Bart Hanson among those wondering if he had simply misread his hand. Phil himself later quote tweeted Hanson, stating: “I believe I had A-10, but if I didn’t, then “double whoops!”

He also responded to Daniel Negreanu’s tweet about the mysterious hand, explaining: “Yo @RealKidPoker: I’m 99% sure I had A-10, but coulda been K-10. Either way, easy fold, but @JRPlaysPoker and I have history on our App “Home Game.” I shoulda understood he was playing much tighter than usual. I thought my $6,000 bet was “setting him up” to raise, whoops!”

As if that 6-figure loss wasn’t enough, there was worse to come for the Poker Brat as he moved on to the Bicycle Casino in Gardena for their Live at the Bike show, and Robbi Jade Lew’s big ‘LatB’ debut gig.

Another $300k buy-in for Hellmuth saw him punt a fair bit of it early on, and although he won a few pots to steady the ship, he wasn’t ready for what followed.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

Hellmuth: K♥ K♣
Eric “Mad Genius” Hicks: A♦ K♦

After Hicks 4-bet Matt Berkey’s BB reraise, Hellmuth was the only player left in the hand to see the flop, having originally just called in the hijack with his pocket kings.

Flop: 9♦ 10♦ 3♦

Hicks’ $20k bet was called and the turn came...

Turn: 8♥

...upon which Hicks bet another $50,000 and again received a call.

River: 4♦

This four to a flush card on the river really ought to have saved Hellmuth a lot of money, but for some reason he couldn’t get away from it as Hicks fired in yet another $50k, taking down a $285k pot and sending Hellmuth into an atypically tame but definite meltdown.

“I quit,” said Hellmuth, rising from his chair much to the disbelief and disappointment of the players, fans and even commentary team.

“If I can’t even trap the crazy guy with ace-king against aces (sic) then I might as well quit.”

“Are you sure, Phil? The only way to get out of a hole is to keep digging,” was Robbi Jade Lew’s parting shot, with Matt Berkey providing the laughs with “You’re handling it well,” as Phil told the table it was his second biggest loss in 15 years.

Hellmuth later revealed on Twitter that the back-to-back 6-figure losses had broken him.

He also tweeted: “Two things: 1.) obviously, it’s my “New diets” fault that I had two record live stream losses in a row (Monday and Tues)! Obs…Def…For sure…Had to be… 2.) I learned how to “Rage quit” whilst playing online poker during the pandemic!

Will we see Phil back at the highstakes livestream tables any time soon, or has he had enough?