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 The game of Poker has churned out a lot of legends and Phil Ivey is certainly one of the best in the list. Such is his skills and achievements that people have named him as “The Tiger Woods of Poker”. Phil, or Philip D. Ivey was born in California, but soon his family moved to New Jersey.
Young Phil started playing for money from the age of sixteen. He started working as a telemarketer at the age of eighteen and that is when he had bought his first ID for 50 US dollars from his college, Jerome. He was so frequent in the games that he was promptly nicknamed as “No Home Jerome”. This changed when he got his own ID, and started his illustrious career in the world of poker.
Once on the circuit, his achievements knew no bounds as he won three bracelets at the World Series of Poker in 2002. This equaled the record of most tournament victories in a particular year, which brought him alongside the greats like Ted Forrest, Jeff Lisandro and Puggy Pearson. Another of his personal accomplishments includes being the first ever person to defeat the great Amarillo Slim at the final table of World Series of Poker in the year 2000. Apart from the bracelets, he has enjoyed stupendous success at the main events of WSoP. He has regularly featured in the Top-25 list from 2002 to 2009, with the best finish of 7th coming in 2009.
The year 2009 is considered as “The year of Phil Ivey” as he started the year by winning the US $2500 “No limit 2-7 Draw Lowball” event of the 2009 World Series of Poker after defeating a field of one hundred and forty seven players, and bagging his sixth bracelet in the process. His next and seventh bracelet came in the US $2500 “1/2 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo ½ Omaha Hi/Lo” Event. This time he became the best among three hundred and seventy six players and defeated Ming Lee heads-up! On the other hand, he finished a respectable 22nd spot in the US $5000 “Poy-limit Omaha Eight-or-better” just by playing in the breaks! At the 2009 main event, he faced a loss to Darvin Moon but ended up with the seventh spot and 1,404,002 US dollars!
The fact that he has seven bracelets to his credit at an age of thirty-three, makes him the youngest to do it, and is currently number six on the list of all-time best. Moreover, it took him just nine years to achieve this feat, which ties him with Johnny Moss. As of 2009, his total earnings from all kinds of poker tournaments are well over 12,800,000 US dollars, of which 4,865,010 US dollars have come from the events at World Series of Poker.
He has been a regular at the World Poker Tour, where he has had record eight finishes. However, he was eliminated several times while holding the same hand at start every time – a queen and an ace! However, finally in 2008 WPT, he ended on a winning note after seven failed attempts at the finishing table. He has amassed over three million US dollars from the WPT itself.
Apart from WSOP and WPT, the star Poker player tried his hand at European tournaments too. He came second at the 2006 European Poker Tour after entering the final table as the chip leader! Then again in the same year, he finished seventh in the European Poker Masters in England and won the grand US $1,000,000 prize at the Monte Carlo Millions tournament.
Other than playing Poker, Phil has been part of the core team of “Full Tilt Poker” and has donated money to quite a few charitable organizations, especially for education of underprivileged children. On the personal front, Phil Ivey has been facing tough times, as he filed a divorce petition on December 2009.
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Phil Ivey
