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Today in the 3-Bet we find an apt comparison for Dan Bilzerian, Hellmuth strives for charity greatness and what it's like to enter Panama.
1) Bilzerian = Milli Vanilli
According to the legend of Dan Bilzerian - aka the story he tells himself - he's made around $50m playing poker in private high-stakes cash games over the past few years.
Despite the occasional $5m chip stack photo, there are plenty of people out there who doubt the veracity of his poker claims/skills.
Truth doesn't stop the Bilzerian ego train, though, as he responded to Cate Hall - about to battle heads-up against another card-carrying sexist, Mike Dentale, on Poker Night in America - in typical Bilzerian fashion:
Friend: "Why do so many people care about this match?"
Me: "Because there's no one who doesn't want to watch at least one of us lose."— Cate Hall (@catehall) March 12, 2017
@DanBilzerian someone tell Dan his account has been hacked, he'd never tweet something so derogatory toward women— Cate Hall (@catehall) March 13, 2017
As Cate's response indicates she's clearly not too bothered by another in a long line of embarrassing, gender-related spews from the 'King of Instagram." Ike Haxton, though, might have put the finest point on it - at least from a poker standpoint:
Dan having opinions on who can play poker is like Milli Vanilli having opinions on who can be a musician. https://t.co/0jvHeUdCjj— Isaac Haxton (@ikepoker) March 13, 2017
Well played, Ike Haxton.
2) Hellmuth Almost Halfway to $100m Charity Goal
Speaking of famed social media narcissists ... another guy who catches a lot of heat for his ego-driven tweets and his 'real vs. perceived' poker prowess is one Phil Hellmuth.
A winner and a giver.
With 14 WSOP bracelets and $21m in career live tournament earnings, the haters really should give up on questioning his poker skill.
He might have some holes in his cash game/GTO understanding but dude knows how to go deep in poker tournaments, end of story.
Another major chasm between Hellmuth and Bilzerian? Hellmuth, despite playing "The Victim," a few times too many, has a pretty good heart and spends a lot of his time giving back to charity.
In fact, according to a new 'charity poker chart' on his own website, Phil has helped generate over $44m in charity fundraisers since 2003:
That's an impressive number in its own right, but Hellmuth has much bigger plans:
Feeling good about this "PH charity poker chart": https://t.co/FzWGta14NI $44.5 Million raised for charity, on the way to $100M! #POSITIVITY— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) March 13, 2017
Good on Phil for that. He doesn't get enough credit for his charitable enterprise.
3) Get that Depp Vibe Crossing Customs
While the first-ever PokerStars Championship Panama is off to a booming start at the tables, it also brought with it an appealing side effect just by crossing into the country itself:
What going through Panama customs to play high stakes card games feels like pic.twitter.com/2vR99SZ20E— Martin Jacobson (@Martin_Jacobson) March 11, 2017
Even for a WSOP Main Event winner who's won $10m in one sitting before, that's the power of poker travel sometimes.
PokerListings' Dirk Oetzmann is about to enter the country himself for a good week of feature reporting tableside so we'll ask him about an overall increase in his Depp-ness. Check back here for more poker-related stuff from Panama all week.
