A couple months ago, I wrote a blog about Phil Hellmuth at a televised final table from this year’s WSOP, focusing how he took the bad side of every insurance bet with Phil Ivey. My theory, which I still believe, is that Hellmuth thinks the -EV of those bets is counterbalanced by being seen with “hip” people like Phil Ivey.

Some discussion about a hand from that table has come up recently on a couple of message boards. Hellmuth made a large raise pre-flop for approximately half his stack, then folded to a re-raise. The general consensus amongst the so-called intelligensia is that Hellmuth’s play is terrible, he’s getting way over 2:1, he should make that call with almost any two cards, etc. But Phil Hellmuth doesn’t think like any other poker player.

There is nothing more important in Phil Hellmuth’s world than being on television. Why else would he be interested in doing VH1’s “Surreal Life”, a haven for broke C-list celebrities who are willing to suffer any indignity to revive their careers? Hellmuth’s got 10x the money of everyone who has been on that show put together. In his mind, the more he’s on TV, the bigger his empire outside of poker can grow.

In keeping with that, I’m sure part of Hellmuth’s decision to fold for the other half of his stack is based on the cameras. Mathematically, against the range of some very loose opponents, it’s a bad fold. In the pseudo-math of TV-time value…it’s a different story.

Is he right? Or is there something as “too much of a good thing” when it comes to a personality that a lot of people can’t stand? I dunno. We’ll talk more about poker money without playing the game later.