Back in May, Phil Ivey made a very strong statement that he had no intention of playing in any WSOP events this year. This statement was made along with Ivey expressing his disappointment in Full Tilt Poker over their non-payment of player funds. And it preceded his big $150 million lawsuit against FTP, which was blasted by several pros like Tony G and Mike Matusow.
However, it appears as if Ivey may be changing his tune following the possible sale of Full Tilt Poker to European investors. The news came via Ivey’s friend Barry Greenstein, who talked about the plans in an interview with PokerNews. You can check out Greenstein’s interview right here.
Going back to Ivey, his original statement was that he didn’t want to play in the 2011 WSOP because he said it wasn’t fair if other players could participate – due to their money being locked up in FTP. But weeks later, we saw him opening up to Full Tilt by meeting with the company’s executives in Ireland. It was reported that the meeting involved Ivey and FTP settling over the money he had tied up in the site.
Following this news, the LA Times broke a huge story about FTP working on a deal with the mysterious European investors that are still unknown at this point. And bringing this all to the present, Ivey plans on playing the Main Event as long as the deal gets completed soon.
However, even though the LA Times reported that the deal was already done, we’re still waiting on it to be officially completed. Seeing as how the Main Event starts in a few days, that doesn’t give Ivey much time to finalize his decision on playing in the tournament.
Tags: Barry Greenstein, Full Tilt Poker, Mike Matusow, Phil Ivey, PokerNews, Tony G, WSOP Main Event