Twitter Explodes with Phil Hellmuth’s Viral Hand at the U.S. Poker Open

The U.S. Poker Open at the PokerGO Studio at the ARIA Resort & Casino continues to entertain poker fans around the world at PokerGO including two poker OG’s going at it with Erik Seidel defeating Phil Hellmuth heads-up to win Event #9: $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em for $472,500. 

Despite the 25 WSOP gold bracelets between the duo, Seidel has only faced off against Hellmuth heads-up three times. Each time Seidel has managed to come out on top to win the title. One would have to go far back into the memory banks for the other two times the duo has faced off with the first coming in a $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em tournament at the Bicycle Casino in 1998 before four years later in 2002 the duo battled it out for the title in the WSOP $2,500 Limit Hold’em Event at Binion’s.

“It’s pretty wild that the two of us got heads up,” Seidel said to the PokerGO Tour. “That’s the third time we’ve been heads up, so it was fun.”

The final hand was a bit of a cooler for Hellmuth as he called off his stack with top pair on a jack-high flop with jack-nine. Seidel also had top pair with queen-jack and his better kicker held with blanks on the turn and river to win the title.

“It’s always fun to play a final table,” Seidel said. “I don’t think there’s any extra meaning to it that we were heads up, as I would’ve been happy to win against anybody. It’s just nice when things go your way for a few hours in a critical period like this. It’s great.”

The memory of this event will be more than just Seidel defeating Hellmuth heads-up for a third straight time. Read on to learn about a hand that went viral against third-place finisher Alex Foxen on Twitter where Hellmuth played out of character and nearly hit the rail in fifth place.

2022 U.S. Poker Open Event #9: $25K NLHE Final Table Results

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1	Erik Seidel	United States	$472,500
2	Phil Hellmuth	United States	$315,000
3	Alex Foxen	United States	$220,500
4	Sam Soverel	United States	$157,500
5	Tamon Nakamura	Japan	$126,000
6	Ren Lin	United States	$94,500
7	Alex Livingston	Canada	$78,750

Event #9 attracted 63 entries to generate a $1,575,000 prize pool. Nine players were in the money for at least a min-cash of $47,250.

Poker Twitter Explodes!

The poker Twitter universe exploded over the weekend over one hand as Phil Hellmuth appeared out of character in a hand against Alex Foxen.

The hand began with blinds at 30,000/60,000 with a deep-stacked Foxen opening to 125,000. Hellmuth, who is well-known as a tight player, opted to switch things up and commit a third of his stack with a three-bet to 350,000 with queen- four. Foxen four-bet jammed and Hellmuth went into the tank.

The hand was streamed live at PokerGO where the commentators weren’t shy about sharing their opinions on the situation.

“Nobody would call here,” said Jeff Platt.

“Not a single person,” agreed Brent Hanks. “Absolutely nobody is putting the rest of the money in.”

Hellmuth had different ideas. “Yeah, I guess I better play to win,” he said before putting his stack at risk with five players remaining.

A queen spiked the flop and as if that wasn’t enough another queen came on the river to give Hellmuth trips for a double-up.

The poker community on Twitter was quick to react. Instead of getting defensive, Hellmuth joined in on the fun.

Official announcement: after a lot of debate, reflection, and careful study, I have decided to add Q-4 off suit to my list of “Top Ten Hands.” AA, KK, QQ, AK, JJ, 10-10, AQ, 9-9, 8-8 and Q-4: I dropped 7-7. Also, @KevinRobMartin has a chart that reflects the current value of Q-4 pic.twitter.com/ntx4WISKb8

— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) March 26, 2022

From @aakkirock: pic.twitter.com/NNmol0t85s

— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) March 26, 2022

😂😂 well written Galfond!! https://t.co/bSG6CFam04

— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) March 26, 2022

_{*Images courtesy of the PokerGO Tour.}