Well, I simply couldn't believe it right away about Hellmuth, but the more I stared at him, the more he looked like a guy I know who is an archetypal ENTJ. I think what may have been throwing me off initially was the high levels of talkativeness and his weird humor.
Then again, he's a bad loser and extremely competitive.
Well I don't doubt that he was highly competent in most of what he did as a child, actually probably choosing things he was sure he could win with, and improving on those.
Without knowing his life I'd speculate he was raised by a single cynical mom who fostered his competitiveness and never scolded his poor sportsmanship probably thinking just the same as he does now -- that he's better than everyone else.
Just a guess, but the 'bratty' nature is probably derived therein.
You have to remember that prestige is very often the appellate of Te.
Reputation matters most of all. A lot of Te-s balance this, but Hellmuth is a bit more determined, and subsequently frustrated when his determination alone doesn't win it for him, as it likely did when he was young.
Laak is such a twitchy guy. I think the physical veiling of his person makes him feel as an Se primary more cloaked from scrutiny.
Indeed. Overcompensating for the, surely, absurd number of mistakes made simply by concrete outspoken habits [even perhaps, not unbelievably, in some cases swearing at the cards by name] and other exaggerated impulse responses. The mouth does all that shit too, but he's got a better acumen at his aid.
Plus, loads of bonhomie. Fe at work?
Indubitably. He's geniunely rooting for the other guys.
If you've ever seen the movie Rounders, I compared him a bit to Worm, only without (simply because I don't know him well enough, but the contrary wouldn't surprise me) the compulsive cheating and inadvertently accruing malevolence.
Worm, though was an intuitive. The willingness and determination of secondary Ti is still there, and even more outstanding than their dominant (or ironically submissive) leading function.
Whatever. I'll watch some more of that guy and get a closer read but I think ESTP is right.
Also what you said about him being the victim of his own genius earlier:
Undeniable. Apparently, seeing for sure that he read them right (and he did almost every time at the table I saw him playing) is worth the enormous piles of chips.
He may even prefer
knowing that he was right to winning.
Ti never was any good at following prescribed instructions. Maybe he joins that tournament with a different priority than the one mentioned explicitly by the rules and object of the game.