Saturday, July 25, 2009

November 9 Spotlight - Phil Ivey


It's hard to build up a poker player as accomplished as Phil Ivey. When he enters the Amazon Room and sits at the WSOP Main Event Final Table in November, Phil will easily have the most poker experience. Ivey's been on Poker's Biggest stage for years, and has so many success stories, it's hard to say what the best ones are. You can make a case that Phil is not only the best poker player alive (some would argue that to be true - and I agree that he has to be in that discussion), but some may say (and I don't think that they're off base) that Ivey is perhaps the greatest poker player to have ever played the game. He is that good. A win at this main event would only add to a collection of impressive poker accomplishments.

Phil is a professional poker player who plays online at Full Tilt Poker, and I went there to read up on his bio. What I came accross just continued to surprise me the more that I read. I wanted to share with you the bio on Full Tilt, because it does an excellent job on capturing the tournament poker accomplishments of Ivey (much better than I ever could have done). So, enjoy:

Raised in New Jersey, Phil's poker career began in Atlantic City. he made his name as a high stakes player before moving on to the live tournament circuit in 2000. It was then, at the age of 23, Phil won his first World Series of Poker title - beating Phil Hellmuth and Amarillo Slim in the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event.

2002 saw Ivey claim 3 more WSOP bracelets, winning the $1,500 Seven-Card Stud, $2,500 Seven-Card Stud Hi/Lo and $2,000 SHOE events. Over the next couple of years, his success continued with wins in a World Poker Open event, two Bellagio and two Commerce events. In addition to these performances, he also made several WPT final tables - impressive results for a player only 25 years of age.

In 2005, Phil earned his 5th WSOP bracelet in the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event, and made two more WPT final tables. He finished 2nd in the WSOP Circuit Event at Harrah's Lake Tahoe, before winning the Monte Carlo Millions tournament for $1 million in prize money. Phil then went on to win a further $600,000 just 24 hours late, with a first-place finish at "The FullTiltPoker.Net Invitational Live from Monte Carlo."

In January 2006, Phil was named Player of the Year by the UK Gaming awards, "Bluff Magazine" and "All In Magazine." His incredible run continued at the 2006 WSOP, with a 2nd place finish in the $5,000 Omaha Hi/Lo event and a 3rd place finish in the $50k HORSE event, winning over $800k in total. He also increased his reputation through the heads-up Phil Ivey vs. Andy Beal challenge, where he won over $16 million in just three days by playing against the poker billionaire.

The following year, Phil won the "Earphones Please" episode of "Poker After Dark" for $130k before making the final table in the 2007 WSOP $5k HORSE event. In 2008, Phil made his 8th appearance at the WPT Championships, where he won his first ever WPT title and landed in the top ten on the all-time tournament money list.

In 2009, Phil has proven himself as one of the greatest players of all time by winning two more WSOP Bracelets and by making it to the final table of the Main Event.

His 6th gold bracelet came in the $2.5k No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Lowball event when he bested a field of 147 entrants, including some of the world's top poker players, for more than $96k. He won his 7th bracelet in the $2.5k Omaha/Seven-Card Stud Hi/Lo event for over $220k in prize money, a victory which ties Phil in fourth place with Billy Baxter for All-Time Bracelet wins.

In November, Phil will be looking for his third bracelet of the year and his first Main Event win when he sits down at the Main Event final table. Coming to the table with 9.8 million chips, Phil is guaranteed to add a minimum of $1.26 million to his career tournament earnings as a member of the "November Nine." To date, he has cashed in 36 WSOP events and accrued over $10.8 million in career tournament earnings.

Ask anyone who knows even a little about poker, and Phil Ivey will be the answer as the favorite to win this event.

3 comments:

poker rakeback said...

Phil Ivey is the most dominant poker player in the world. He continues to excel at online poker, big live cash games, and poker tournaments. He is definitely the Tiger Woods of poker.

play2win said...

he is a little bit short on chips but he is still phil ivey.
My money are on him.

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