Poker Brat Phil Hellmuth seems to be pretty much everywhere these days, signing books, playing poker, celebrating with family in Vegas - and next stop will see both a real and virtual Hellmuth in action as he takes on a final table of guests and a mystery streamer at VRLA2018.
Virtual Reality Los Angeles (VRLA) is the biggest conference of its kind and poker will be at the forefront of the massive event, which last year drew more than 10,000 exhibitors and consumers through its doors at the LA Convention Center.
Big Phil has been drafted in to give a keynote speech on the future of Poker and Virtual Reality, an area of the game which was heralded as ‘the next big thing’ a few years back, and perhaps it will be once it has the backing of the 14-time WSOP bracelet winner – although it was TwitchTV streamer Parker ‘TonkaaaaP’ Talbot who opened the VR world to us all…
Speaking of which, the VRLA crew have got together with award-winning company PokerVR to set up an onsite final table tournament, with 4 lucky attendees being offered the chance to play against Hellmuth – and ‘a surprise guest (hint: he’s a Twitch streamer — more details coming soon)’ according to the organisers.
Well, ‘Tonkaaaa’ fits the bill and has previous, although he does seem to promote a different VR poker game, BoltVR. Who else could it be we wonder?
If you haven’t heard of, or tried, the Poker VR version it’s a free to play multiplayer poker game available on Samsung Gear VR, and coming soon to Oculus Go and Rift, and the PokerVR team will be on hand to hand out some of their goodies – the final table featuring some special prizes.
Whether Hellmuth can survive a ‘virtual bad beat’ without losing the plot remains to be seen, but May 5th in LA is where you want to be to find out.