Following a long hiatus from the poker world, which coincided with Full Tilt Poker shutting down, Phil Ivey has been getting more and more involved in the game lately. First off, he returned to the 2012 WSOP and won five gold bracelets. Then he started a poker training website called IveyPoker. Now it appears as if he’s back to playing high stakes poker games on Full Tilt – only under a different name.
Ivey was previously a sponsored pro by the site and owned a stake in FTP. But now that he doesn’t have any contractual obligations with the poker room, he’s been grinding under the screen name “Polarizing.”
Apparently this started a few weeks ago when other high stakes players were sent an email stating how Ivey would be changing screen names with the Full Tilt relaunch – something that’s been acceptable given how the revamped FTP is owned by a totally different company.
Since his return, the eight-time WSOP champion has wasted no time in winning on the high stakes tables. Over the past couple of days, he’s collected $225k in profits while playing against some of the world’s top 2-7 Triple Draw players. His overall winnings this week are a bit lower at $114k, but still very good nonetheless.
Before Full Tilt Poker went offline in June, 2011, Phil Ivey was easily the greatest online player of all-time. He’d earned $19.24 million in profits, which is simply amazing when you consider that Patrik Antonius is a distant second with $11.84 million. Based on the hot start he’s gotten off to already since the FTP relaunch, we can only assume that Ivey will continue building on his record amount of profits – rather than suffering through major losses like fellow high stakes grinder Gus Hansen.