Zaichenko Zings Hellmuth

Phil Hellmuth had raised a couple of hands in a row, then put in a small preflop raise to 25,000 from under the gun. It folded around to Andrey Zaichenko in the small blind who quickly shoved all in for his whole stack of a little more than 200,000.

Hellmuth then said he was apologizing in advance for the slowroll, but he had apparently only checked one card before raising. The first card had been an ace. And when he checked the second one -- jackpot! Another ace! Hellmuth immediately called, turning over his {A-Hearts}

. Zaichenko then tabled his cards -- {K-Spades}

.

And then came the flop... {K-Diamonds}

. Two pair for Zaichenko. The turn was the {4-Clubs}

and the river the {J-Diamonds}

, and Zaichenko is now at 415,000. Hellmuth slips to 150,000.

Hellmuth followed the hand with thoughtful, carefully worded analyses of the relative intelligence of his opponent as well as the dealer. He punctuated his commentary with a final statement regarding his own commitment to the present competition:

"I'm playing for my life here!"

Tags: Andrey Zaichenko Phil Hellmuth

2009 World Series of Poker

2009 World Series of Poker

Zaichenko Zings Hellmuth