Title	Poker Brat: Phil Hellmuth's Autobiography
Author	Phil Hellmuth
Year	2017
Skill Level	any
Pros	Autobiography of the WSOP's career leader in bracelets, final tables, and cashes, with great stories throughout.
Cons	Quite a bit of repeat material, especially the earlier years, from Hellmuth's earlier books.
Rating	3.0

Poker Brat: Phil Hellmuth's Autobiography, like his previous book, Bad Beats and Lucky Draws, reveals a lot about the all-time WSOP bracelet leader's personality, reaching all the way back to his childhood to explore why Hellmuth is Hellmuth. While the book doesn't excuse his behavior, it at least explains it with remarkable candor. Hellmuth was the oldest of five children, one of whom was developmentally disabled, and hence, he did not nearly as much attention from his parents as he wanted. He had attention deficit disorder, suffered from warts and acne, and was socially awkward until he grew into his rather tall body in college.¹

Already a disappointment to his educationally-minded parents because of his poor grades in high school,² he further met with their disapproval when he became a poker pro.

Fortunately for the younger Phil, he reached the top of the poker world very quickly, and when he became the youngest WSOP Main Event champion ever at age 24 in 1989, his rift with them was quickly patched -- his dad was there in person when he won.

Poker Brat contains almost as much life advice as poker strategy advice. Hellmuth set out a number of lofty life goals and has attained most of them. He wanted to marry a "wonderful" woman. Check. He wanted to buy a beautiful house. Check. Car. Check. Win the WSOP Main Event. Check. Write a best-selling book. Check. His Play Poker Like the Pros made the New York Times list.

Many of his older stories have appeared in his previous books, especially Bad Beats and Lucky Draws, which came out in 2004. The thirteen years between books are covered in the final third of the book, less than you'd expect because Hellmuth originally planned to publish in 2011 just as Black Friday struck. But there is plenty of new material in the older chapters as well.

Hellmuth may brag a lot about his accomplishments, but he does indeed have a lot of accomplishments to brag about. His updated poker goal was to win 24 WSOP bracelets (he's now at 15). You'll hear all about it if he gets there, but if not, you can be sure he'll personally write about it in another book.