Poker Player - Philip Hilm
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Philip Hilm was born in Denmark, is Polish on his mother’s side of the family, and resides in England at the present time. Before he left to live in England, he spent two years in Poland so that he could become acquainted with his mother’s side of the family. That’s how important family is to Hilm.
There is an old saying that when a door shuts, a window opens. In 1997, he earned a degree in economics from the Copenhagen Business School. Shortly after that, he formed a small company with twelve employees; however, it soon went bankrupt. In 2003, Philip Hilm was demonstrating and selling coffee makers in supermarkets. He admits it was a lousy job, but he needed the money to buy Christmas presents. Lots of doors shut on Philip Hilm. When a friend of his, a former professional backgammon player, wanted to introduce him to playing poker online, Philip immediately tried it. He was intent on giving it every effort and studied and practiced intently. After playing online for a month, he was making three times the amount his day job paid. He quit selling coffee makers and began playing poker full time.
Online, he specializes in cash games; also he prefers to play heads-up (two players playing a game by themselves) so that he can play more hands and enhance any advantage he has over his opponent. He prefers live tournaments to those played online; this is simply because he likes to meet other players in the flesh and get to know them.
He considers poker both a job and a hobby. The first year he claims he made $50,000 playing poker online. He’s come a long way since then and says the same amount today could represent the up or downswing for a single month.
Hilm has earned two cashes in European Poker Tour events. In 2006, he won a fourth place finish at the Scandinavian Open. In 2007, he placed 15 at the Grand Final in Monte Carlo. In addition to these wins, he has cash the $2,500 Short-handed No-limit Hold’em event at the 2005 World Series of Poker.
The win in Scandinavia caught the attention of an on line gaming site, PokerStars.com. He became the team captain of the Polish team and its star player. PokerStars.com is the largest poker room in the world. It runs huge promotions and the software is easy to use, is reliable and looks good. Hilm was so successful with PokerStars.com that he was able to lead his team to victory ahead of Team Canada and Team U.S.A.
Success has snowballed for Hilm. In 2007, he made it through to the Final Event table, one of the final nine. Going in to the competition, he had the chip lead. Jerry Yang, who played very aggressively through out the tournament, cut down his chip lead in about an hour and a half. Yang pushed his chips repeatedly, taking down massive pots. Hilm, having had quite enough of being pushing around, decided to push back. Surely, Yang couldn’t have a good hand every time it was dealt. Hilm’s timing was off and he pushed on the wrong hand; Yang eliminated him from the tournament.
Hilm left the table in 9th place with a take of $525,934.
For online players, Hilms offers a few tips. Players should practice head-up cash games. Going one on one allows a player to focus on his own and his opponent’s playing styles. Improve your skills wherever you can. Hilms is also in favor of bad beats; he make a fair amount of money off of them. A bad beat is when a strong hand is beaten by a longshot or improbable hand. The win gives the poor player a false sense of confidence and he will continue playing long after he should stop.
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