Hellmuth Offers James Campbell 2019 Main Event Entry After Controversy
After a day of controversy involving Phil Hellmuth��s cursing and outburst during a three-way hand, the poker community woke up to the Poker Brat offering a bit of a mea culpa. The 14-time bracelet winner seemed to have some regrets about his actions, and attempted to make things right with the player in question, 35-year-old James Campbell.
On Sunday morning, Hellmuth sent out a Tweet offering to buy Campbell into the 2019 Main Event as a peace offering.
@JCamby33 I lost some sleep over my outburst. I believe you lose the hand anyway, but maybe I am wrong. You handled�� https://t.co/uH3ndIZqr6
— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth)
Campbell is a father of two and hails from Hudson, Mass., where he works as a firefighter. After the gesture to try and make things right, Campbell seemed pleased that Hellmuth was trying to better the situation and accepted the offering.
That��s a real stand up thing to do @phil_hellmuth! After I watched the telecast last night I do think you realized�� https://t.co/iZ2niMKFpW
— James Campbell (@JCamby33)
Prior to that one hand I really did enjoy my time at the table with @phil_hellmuth. I enjoyed the table talk and ba�� https://t.co/D0lgUYZKQK
— James Campbell (@JCamby33)
Shaun Deeb, Chris Moneymaker, Justin Bonomo, and other pros had been critical of Hellmuth��s action as seen on the PokerGO feature table. For more on the controversy, see PokerNews�� coverage of the incident from Saturday.
Legit used to be a @phil_hellmuth fan but every time I see him on tv berating players and doing his holier than tho�� https://t.co/s510YOr6lr
— Chris Moneymaker (@CMONEYMAKER)
This plays into Hellmuth��s strategy in an unfair pattern we��ve seen for years
— Justin Bonomo (@JustinBonomo)
On Sunday, Moneymaker was one of many who praised the move to offer Campbell a 2019 buy-in. Others in the poker community also seemed to see the move as nice on the Poker Brat��s part. Some also Tweeted that they hoped he had learned a bit about poker etiquette in the process and would watch his table behavior a bit in the future.
Sent out critical tweet of @phil_hellmuth yesterday after his wsop antics. Well today he did a good thing and offer�� https://t.co/NiC6YlHTqS
— Chris Moneymaker (@CMONEYMAKER)
This is a very nice gesture, it appears you did recognize how serious this was & found a great way to make amends https://t.co/wB1i1KqSM9
— Erik Seidel (@Erik_Seidel)
For more, check out PokerNews' interview with Hellmuth here.
Sean Chaffin is a freelance writer in Crandall, Texas. His work appears in numerous websites and publications. Follow him on Twitter @PokerTraditions. He is also the host of the True Gambling Stories podcast, available on iTunes, Google Play, TuneIn Radio, Spotify, Stitcher, PokerNews.com, HoldemRadio.com, and TrueGamblingStories.com.