Kane Kalas has booked some serious prop bet action for the upcoming WSOP. It’s a crossbooking bet – him and Joe McKeehan against Doyle Brunson and Shaun Deeb on Phil Hellmuth’s Main Event perfomance.
Phil Hellmuth’s “White Magic”
Phil Hellmuth’s poker skills come to question in the online poker community time and time again.
In 2017, he folded pocket Queens pre-flop to a 27 BB all-in bet in a WPT Legends of Poker tournament. To make matters worse, he turned his hand up – in return, his opponent showed a 4 of diamonds…
In 2018, he shoved his $116K stack into a pot of $10Kwith Aces pre in an episode of Poker After Dark. To his credit, he ended up getting paid by Jean-Robert Bellande with AJ off.
Hellmuth ascribes these unorthodox moves to his uncanny ability to read his opponents. He calls this gift of his “white magic”.
His critics simply believe that – despite all of his accomplishments – he is not that good of a player. One of those critics is willing to put his money where his mouth is.
Kane Kalas’ massive WSOP Bet
Kalas is a young player who successfully transitioned from online poker to live poker. He has over $1 million in live tournament earnings. He’s also a regular on CBS Sports’ popular poker show Poker Night in America.
He’s one of those people who very much doubt Hellmuth’s poker skills. That is why he made a prop bet against Shaun Deeb – the subject, however, is the Poker Brat himself.
Kalas and 2015 WSOP Main Event champion Joe McKeehan is wagering 2.5% of their action on the next Main Event against Phil Hellmuth’s 5%.
Kane Kalas also won one of the biggest pots in televised poker history worth €1,847,000:
Details of the crossbooking
This is what’s called a crossbook bet. Basically, the players agree to pay the difference between their results in a tournament.
The news of this bet was broken by Shaun Deeb on Joe Ingram’s podcast.
Shaun Deeb said: “Last night at dinner, I made a bet where I book two and a half percent of Kane Kalas and Joe McKeehan versus five percent of Phil Hellmuth”.
He later went to explain why he has so much faith in Hellmuth that he made the bet.
“I love Phil. (…) No Limit [Hold’em], big field, soft tournaments, he’s amazing. Put him in a 100K, he gets lit up. (…) I don’t think it’s a knock on him to say he can’t beat the super high rollers, but I also say that I would take him over most of the super high rollers in the Main Event.”
Doyle Brunson Also Books a Bet
Brunson agrees with Deeb’s assessment of Hellmuth’s poker abilities. That’s why he also got some action on the 15-time WSOP bracelet winner’s performance with Kalas.
If Hellmuth finishes in the top 1% in the next WSOP Main Event, Kalas pays $50,000. Kalas can pick 10 players –any players in the world, and he gets $5,000 from Brunson for each that finish in the top 1%.
Those “clowns” are exactly why I made this bet Nobody handles bad players as well as @phil_hellmuth. Do I think he is better than Kanes 10 guys? No, not in a tough field but this is the WSOP and it is Phil fuking Helmuth.
— Doyle Brunson (@TexDolly) May 6, 2019
After a brief time of thinking, Kalas posted his 10 picks on Twitter. He included himself. The rest of the list is:
Jake Schneider, Joe McKeehan, Justin Bonomo, Alex Foxen, Paul Volpe, Ivan Luca, Brian Yoon, Adrián Mates, and David Peters.
