Sporting Life 5 Oct -- Dubbed the 'Poker Brat' by commentators, Phil Hellmuth has a style of playing poker that's all his own, and often causes a fair degree of controversy.

A recent on-air outburst on NBC's 'Poker after Dark' is one of the latest in a series of tantrums that has gained Hellmuth his bad-boy reputation. Following a string of well chosen curse words, Hellmuth stormed off the NBC set after accusing other players of talking while he was trying to think.

Hellmuth's temper belies his idyllic Midwestern upbringing. The oldest of five children, Hellmuth was the son of an assistant dean at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Phil Hellmuth Sr. was beside himself when Phil Jr. dropped out of college after winning $6,500 at a poker tournament in La Crosse.

"I came back and I wasn't doing very well in my classes," Hellmuth says. "I wasn't attending them, I wasn't studying, and just said, 'The heck with this. There's no way I can make $6,500 in one night if I follow this career track.'"

His father's worries proved to be unfounded. Phil Hellmuth was just 24 when he won his first World Series of Poker gold bracelet, at the time the youngest person ever to do so. The winner's bracelet is the equivalent of gold medal, or a championship ring for the game of poker.

"Now the world's most famous athletes and movie stars want to hang out with you, it's kind of freaky," Hellmuth says.

Never short on ego, the Poker Brat boasts of business earnings that exceed those at the poker table. Money made from three books, a syndicated column, a clothing line and assorted other ventures.

Hellmuth is also the face of the new World Series of Poker video game designed by Activision in Eden Prairie. Buy the video game and "beat" the brat, the game's tagline promises. What some have called Hellmuth's childish behavior has become a marketable asset.

"All through the '90s it was a big strike against me," Hellmuth says. "A world champion - which I was in 1989 - should never act that way, you're bad for our sport. Then all of sudden in 2003 the television producers said, 'you're the greatest thing for our sport ever, don't change.'"

Hellmuth, nonetheless, says he's trying to reign himself in. "At some point you want to become a better man, and in trying to become a better man that's something I'd like to lose is that brat."

Whether that's a sincere statement or not is hard to say. After all, Phil has one of the best poker faces in the business.

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