Phil Ivey
Phil Ivey (born
February 1 1976) is an
American professional
poker player.
Ivey grew up in
New Jersey and crafted his skills amongst his co-workers at a
New Brunswick, New Jersey telemarketing firm in the late 1990's - Phil was a master salesman as well as a talented card player. One of his nicknames, "No Home Jerome", stems from the ID card he secured to practice in
Atlantic City in his teenage years. More recently some have tagged him with the nickname "The
Tiger Woods of poker".
World Series of Poker
Despite now focusing more on
cash games than tournaments, his tournament accomplishments include winning three titles at the
2002 World Series of Poker (WSOP), tying
Phil Hellmuth Jr and
Ted Forrest for the most wins in a single year.
Ivey also has bracelets in
Pot Limit Omaha in
2000 and
2005. In addition to his five World Series Bracelets, Ivey has shown great success in the WSOP Main Event. He placed in the top 25 three times from 2002 to 2005, with the fields growing exponentially each year. Phil finished 23rd in 2002, 10th in 2003, and 20th in 2005.
Bracelet summary
| Date | Tournament!Prize (US$) | | 05-May-00 | $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha | $195,000 |
| 03-May-02 | $2,500 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo | $118,440 |
| 10-May-02 | $2,000 S.H.O.E. | $107,540 |
| 23-Apr-02 | $1,500 7 Card Stud | $132,000 |
| 26-June-05 | $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha | $635,603 |
World Poker Tour
Ivey has also reached numerous final tables on the
World Poker Tour (WPT), but has yet to win an event. He has coincidentally lost several of these WPT events by being eliminated while holding the same starting hand each time, an ace-queen.
Other tournaments
On
20 November 2005, Ivey won the $1,000,000 first prize at the Monte Carlo Millions tournament. Four days later on
25 November 2005, Ivey won the $600,000 first prize at the FullTiltPoker.com's invitational tournament broadcast live on Fox Sports Net from
Monte Carlo. The other six men consisted of (in reverse finishing order)
Mike Matusow, Phil Hellmuth,
Gus Hansen,
Chris Ferguson,
Dave Ulliott, and
John Juanda.
As of 2006, his total live tournament winnings exceed $6,900,000.
Ivey is a regular participant in the $4,000-8,000 mixed cash game at the
Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas (often referred to as "the big game") and in February 2006 played heads up
Limit Texas Hold'em versus Texas billionaire,
Andy Beal. With stakes at $50,000/$100,000, Ivey won over sixteen million dollars over the course of three days. Ivey was playing for "The Corporation", a group of poker professionals who pooled their money and took turns playing against Beal. Earlier in the month Beal beat the Corporation out of ten million dollars. After losing to Ivey, Beal claimed (not for the first time) that he was giving up poker.
Ivey is a
Los Angeles Lakers and
Houston Rockets fan and can often be seen wearing basketball jerseys. During the
2003 WSOP, he was seen wearing a
Steve Francis jersey when he was eliminated in 10th place.
Phil's
hobbies include video games, proposition gambling, and recently he has also taken up
golf.
Ivey is part of the design team for
Full Tilt Poker, an
online poker website that opened in
July 2004. He also mentored WPT winner
Annand "Victor" Ramdin.
Ivey resides in
Las Vegas with his wife. He has joked about coming home dejected after losing thousands of dollars in cash game play, only to have to console his wife about her losses at penny-ante level online poker games while he was gone.
*
Official site*
Full Tilt Poker profile*
World Poker Tour profile*
Poker Babes profile*
Guide to Poker profile*
ALL IN interview*
PokerPlayer magazine interview*
Hendon Mob tournament results
