Hellmuth Ducks, Dodges, Survives
At the end of the previous level, a severely short-stacked Phil Hellmuth opened with a pot-sized raise to 4,200, leaving himself just 800 chips behind. It folded around to the small blind who reraised to 8,300, then the BB repopped it all in for around 30,000. Hellmuth called -- saying "quack, quack" as he did -- the small blind folded.
Hellmuth tabled his cards and as he had indicated onomatopoetically he indeed had a pair of ducks -- . His opponent held , but after the flop Hellmuth already had his opponent drawing dead.
"Ladies and gentleman, Mr. Phil Hellmuth!" crowed Mike Matusow after that flop, having stepped over from a nearby table. Mr. Hellmuth is back to 19,000, but still well below average.