De Knijffs Are Out for For Hellmuth

Phil Hellmuth raised to 12,500 playing a stack of about 100,000. His perennial nemesis, Martin de Knijff made it 32,500 to go from the blinds and Hellmuth elected to flat call, seeing a {Q-Clubs} {J-Spades} {2-Spades} flop.

De Knijff fired out a bet of 30,000 and Hellmuth went massively into the tank, counting and recounting his stack several times. Finally, he declared he was all in, De Knijff quickly called.

Hellmuth: {3-Spades} {3-Clubs}
De Knijff: {K-Clubs} {Q-Hearts}

Hellmuth was in trouble, he was drawing to a three or running spades if he wanted to survive and the {4-Spades} on the turn gave him a flush draw, dramatically increasing his chances. The river was black but it was the {9-Clubs} and not a spade, the crowd groaned and many began to leave as at the same time as Hellmuth, now that their favourite player had been eliminated just before the money.