Phil Hellmuth Jr. is one of the most recognized faces of the poker world. He began his professional poker career twenty years ago and has become one of the game's legends.

Hellmuth was born in 1964 in Madison, Wisconsin. He used to play board games with his five siblings, being competitive even then. Hellmuth said that when he was growing up every day he would read the sign his mother put up on the bathroom mirror that said: "You are what you think. You become what you think. What you think becomes reality".

Hellmuth started playing poker when he was studying at the University of Wisconsin. At first he played small cash games with students to playing higher stakes against his college professors. He soon quit his studies altogether and started playing poker professionally.

Following his phenomenal triumph over poker pro Johnny Chan in the 1989 WSOP (the youngest player to do so), he became a stellar player with more tournaments winnings than any other poker professional before him. Currently, Hellmuth holds 11 WSOP bracelets, five WPT top-tem finishes, over 50 tournament titles and has accumulated more than $9 million in tournament winnings. He also holds some amazing records: he is one of just three players in history to win three WSOP gold bracelets in one year. He is also the only player who ever won three consecutive WSOP events (April 26-28, 1993).

Hellmuth, also known as the "Poker Brat", is famous for his game antics, attitude and ego. He regularly taunts his opponents, especially when he loses, and even shows a very hot temper but he usually cools down shortly after.

He is known to make some outrageous remarks such as: "If luck weren't involved, I'd win every time" and "I can dodge bullets, baby" (when he folded a hand of A-K to his opponent's A-A with a board of A-4-4-Q). He even accused an amateur player that he couldn't spell the word poker after losing to the inexperienced player.

Hellmuth is always the center of attention and the cameras. He has written many magazine articles and poker books, such as Lucky Draws, Bad Beats, The Greatest Poker Hands Ever Played and the autobiographical Poker Brat as well as instructional videos, such as his Ultimate Whote To Black Belt Course.

He lives with his wife Katherine Sanborn, a psychiatrist at Stanford University, and his two sons, Phillip and Nicholas in Palo Alto, California. A screenplay based on his life has been optioned for a movie and Hellmuth also plans to write an autobiography.