Radowig Beats Phil Hellmuth For WSOP $10K Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo Bracelet

For the second time, Phil Hellmuth has narrowly missed out on capturing a 12th bracelet at WSOP 2011 after being beaten heads-up at the $10K Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo event by US pro Eric Radowig.
As Hellmuth commented following his second place finish: “Absolutely Played my heart out, but fell short of the 12th bracelet one more time: 2nd place again. Not as depressed this time though.”
WSOP Event #33 started out with a field of 168 players and after three days of play Phil Hellmuth outlasted the remaining competitors to go heads-up against start of the day chip-leader Eric Rodawig.
The remaining finalists falling just short of their WSOP aspirations were Ali Eslami out in 8th ($51,750), Joe Tehan in 7th ($62,710), Mikhail Savinov in 6th ($77,222), David Benyamine in 5th ($96,836), Ted Forrest in 4th ($123,904), and John Racener in 3rd ($171,122).
Eventually, just Eric Radowig with 3.74 million in chips and Phil Hellmuth with a 1.3 million stack remained. As Radowig explains:
“Hellmuth adjusted to me pretty well actually. I kinda expected him to be folding more based on how he plays No Limit tournaments. That wasn’t the case so he was able to accumulate a lot of chips so and get heads up with me. It was tough to shake him.”
In the end, however, it took around one hour for Radowig to relegate Hellmuth to the runner-up position worth $273,233, while Radowig captured his first career WSOP bracelet and the $442,183 first place prize.
However, its not all bad news for Hellmuth who has now cashed twice for $500,140 at WSOP 2011. The signs would be that the ‘poker brat’ is running hot  this year in Vegas and could have a few more surprise in store before the end of the series.
Hellmuth seems to have made some adjustments to his game ahead of the WSOP getting underway on May 31st, and as he commented at the time:
“My problem has been that I’ve over-adapted. I’m playing too fast on day one. I’m busting myself out trying to play like the superstar internet kids, putting in six-bets and reraising and going crazy on draws and playing T-9 suited for 30% of my chips.”
“I had never played like that until 2008, 2009 maybe. In the past I invariably outlasted all [the pros] because I always played hard. I always respected the structure, I always played good fundamentals. But I got away from that. I’ve always had all the moves, when to go all-in, when to bluff. I’ve always had all the speed. Now I’m back.”