Phil Hellmuth saying he’s not playing in this year’s World Series of Poker’s Main Event, Kevin Martin finding gold in a sock drawer, and GGPoker shaking up its ambassador squad are the short stacks CardsChat picked up in its latest orbit of poker news.
Hellmuth not playing WSOP Main Event
Phil Hellmuth took to his socials to tell the poker world he will not play in this year’s World Series of Poker’s Main Event. His reason: At 60, he’s too old and the two-week long marathon event is too much of a poker grind.
“I think that really hurts the older players in a much bigger proportion than the younger players,” he said through a video on X. “And I’ll say this: more great players come and tell me that they blew the main event because they got too tired with 100 left, 50 left, with 30 left. It’s turned into an endurance test. I don’t think that the World Series of Poker Main Event is measuring skill.
It’s still my favorite event in the world, don’t misunderstand me, I don’t want to miss it. But I know that I can’t do that. I’m 60 years old. I don’t think I could have done it at age 50.”
Hellmuth was 24-years-old when he won the Main Event in 1989. The first of his record-holding 17 WSOP brackets, it came in a field of 178. Last year, more 10,112 players battled for the $10 million top prize.
Hellmuth is asking WSOP organizers to make the blind levels shorter and add an extra day or two off to the event in order to make it more fair to older players like himself.
He’s played every Main Event since 1988.
ElkY is out
French pro and poker personality Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and GGPoker have parted way. Grospellier took to socials thanking GGPoker and informing his fans.
“GGPoker and I had an incredible journey together, but our ride has come to an end. That said, I’ll still be playing on GG and WSOP from time to time, so I look forward to seeing you all at the tables,” he wrote.
GGPoker hired Grospellier as one of its ambassadors in 2020. He worked in the same role before for both partypoker and PokerStars.
The decision may be performance-based. According to the Hendon Mob, he only had two cashes in 2024 (he did win an Asian Poker Tour event in March for $367,793). His 2023 was a little better, cashing eight times. All but one of those cashes came while playing in Asia.
Martin find gold
These poker players, man. GGPoker ambassador Kevin Martin found $35,297 in a bitcoin wallet that he had forgotten about.
“This dude’s message made me dig up an old crypto wallet in my sock drawer. I thought it had maybe 1k on it. It has 0.37 of a bitcoin,” Martin wrote.
Yep, nearly $40K stuffed in his sock drawer. The user who suggested he check his e-wallet, Erius777, received “a little tip,” Martin said.
