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Brian
Lomas and four other UW students beat nine-time World
Series of Poker champion Phil Hellmuth Jr. at his own
game Thursday night in a campus tournament.
Hellmuth, a Madison native, was in town promoting his
new book, "Bad Beats and Lucky Draws," at a University
Book Store event that drew about 150 poker enthusiasts,
some of whom waited 90 minutes to get their books signed
and take photos with the Texas HoldEm champion.
Another 150 poker buffs attended a first-ever poker
tournament at the Red Gym sponsored by University of
Wisconsin-Madison Intramural Sports.
"They can play, it seems like, these guys," Hellmuth
said after he was eliminated halfway through the
tournament. He played against the top nine UW Intramural
poker champions who emerged from a pool of nearly 500
players last month during preliminary matches.
"I
guess I may be seeing these guys later in my career,"
Hellmuth, 40, said after the 2-hour
tournament wrapped up.
Hellmuth served as commentator while he was at the table
and after he was eliminated, narrating the action,
telling stories and doing what he does possibly better
than playing poker: bragging about his wins, his books,
his DVDs, his clothing line, his celebrity friends and a
potential movie.
A
script about his life is circulating in Hollywood, he
told the crowd, adding that whoever plays him will have
to be young, since the movie ends when he is 25, or
shortly after he became the youngest player to win the
World Series of Poker in 1989. He remains the youngest
player to win the event.
"They brought it to Ashton Kutcher and he said 'no,'
that son of a gun," Hellmuth said. Leonardo DiCaprio and
Tobey Maguire have also turned it down, he said.
Hellmuth also talked about a tournament he held last
week in Los Angeles in which Maguire won.
"Spiderman won it!" Hellmuth exclaimed, adding that for
a $2,000 buy-in the actor won $95,000.
Hellmuth, the oldest of five children, also joked about
dropping out of UW-Madison, where his father was a
professor at the time, to pursue his passion for poker.
He majored in philosophy and accounting, but won $6,500
in a tournament one night and left school, he said.
His
father, whom he called "Mr. Education," has an MBA, a
J.D. and a Ph.D., said Hellmuth. "So when I decided to
play poker for a living it wasn't a popular decision."
Lomas, the UW junior who won the tournament, promised
not to drop out to play professional poker.
"I
don't have the courage to do that," he said, laughing.
The
risk management and real estate major had no explanation
for why he did so well.
"I
probably got pretty lucky," he said. "I got an ace when
I was down."
Lomas, who got into poker two years ago and plays two or
three times a week, called the tournament a lot of fun.
"Because there was no money involved, there was no
pressure," said Lomas, who walked away with a set of
Hellmuth's four DVDs, a Wisconsin Intramural Champion
T-shirt and Hellmuth's book.
Lomas, who was never in an actual hand with Hellmuth
during the contest, said that if he learned anything
from the poker luminary Thursday night it was how to
have fun.
"He
taught me how to have a good time while playing poker.
You don't have to be so serious."
Texas Hold 'Em, Hellmuth's specialty, has stormed
television and computer screens across the country and
put poker center stage for the past couple of years.
"The
last hand demonstrated why Texas HoldEm is sweeping the
country. It was a pretty exciting hand," Hellmuth said
about Lomas' winning hand.
Freshman Abdalla Salah, who had the largest pile of
chips for most of the match, got dealt a few unlucky
hands, bet high and lost. A succession of big losses
forced him out of the game.
"That's how it goes in poker," he said afterward.
Still, Salah was the player who forced Hellmuth out of
the game with an ace-king to Hellmuth's ace-jack.
"I
guess I could brag about that," he said with a grin.
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