Posts Tagged ‘Phil Ivey’

Phil Ivey loses £7.7m Crockfords Case – Is Precedent set for Borgata?

Wednesday, October 8th, 2014

Phil Ivey took a bad beat in court when a UK High Court judge ruled against him in a £7.7 million baccarat edge sorting case.

Predictably, Ivey argued that edge sorting is not cheating and he wouldn’t use the technique if he thought it cheated the casino. The judge believed that Ivey didn’t think he was really cheating. However, the judge still sided with Crockfords’ argument that Ivey went above and behind the normal scope of advantage play, including asking for a bunch of favors under the guise of being superstitious (i.e. cards tilted at 180-degree angle, same deck used, Chinese-speaking dealer).

After the case was decided, a disappointed Ivey continued to profess his belief that he won fair and square. The 10-time WSOP champ said the following:

I am obviously disappointed with this judge’s decision. As I said in court, it is not my nature to cheat and I would never do anything to risk my reputation.

I am pleased that the judge acknowledged in court that I was a truthful witness by saying that ‘I am entirely convinced that Mr Ivey did not consider that what he was doing was cheating.

I believe that what we did was a legitimate strategy – we did nothing more than exploit Crockfords’ failures to take proper steps to protect themselves against a player of my ability – clearly today, the judge did not agree.

There’s also a $9.6 million lawsuit filed by the Borgata against Ivey that’s yet to be decided. Another edge sorting case, Ivey was actually paid the $9.6 million in baccarat winnings before he left the casino. However, Borgata now wants their money back and, like Crockfords, they’re taking their case to court.

Given what happened in the Crockfords judgement, there may be some precedent here. Of course, Borgata is dealing with a different country and they already gave Ivey the money. This case is supposed to be decided next year, so it’ll be interested to see if Ivey goes 0-for-2 or he gets better luck this time.

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Dan Cates up $10.2m, Phil Ivey down $5.1m

Friday, August 29th, 2014

Oh what a difference a couple of years can make in high stakes online poker. Coming into the relaunched Full Tilt Poker, Phil Ivey was the game’s biggest winner with $19.2 million in online profits. However, he’s since taken a big tumble over the nearly-two years since Full Tilt reopened.

Switching to the name “Polarizing,” Ivey is now down $5.1 million. This still leaves him with about $14.1 million in career online poker winnings. And we certainly wouldn’t expect him to be in money trouble, given his multiple business endeavors and baccarat edge-sorting profits. Still, it’s strange to see the man whom many call the “world’s greatest all-around poker player” struggle so badly.

On the other end of the spectrum is Dan “jungleman12” Cates, who is dominating the cyber felt this year. Cates had the prime of his poker career interrupted by Black Friday, as he’d earned $6.8 million in just a year before April 15th, 2011. Since resuming his high stakes career at Full Tilt, Cates hasn’t experienced any drop-off, and his HighStakesDB graph just keeps going up. At the time of this writing, Jungleman has made over $2.83 million in 2014, which leads everybody entering September.

Cates also ranks third all-time with $10.23 million. He only trails Ivey and Patrik Antonius – the latter of whom is another interesting story. Like Cates, Antonius is crushing players this year and has earned $1.83 million. Overall, the Finn has collected $5.95 million in career profits through his “Finddagrind” name. Combine this with $11.2 million from his self-titled name and Antonius has over $17.1 million in career winnings.

Of course, the high stakes online poker world is a fickle place. So it’ll be interesting to see if Cates and Antonius continue dominating the big games at Full Tilt. But at this point, we have little reason to doubt their skills.

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2014 WSOP Main Event Unkind to Early Chip Leaders

Saturday, July 12th, 2014

It’s commonsense that you want to build your chip stack in the early stages of the WSOP Main Event. But for the superstitious types out there, you might consider that being in the lead of the 2014 WSOP Main Event is almost like a curse. Don’t believe us? Just take a look at what’s happened to chip leaders from the first five days of the Main Event.

Day 1 Leaders
1A: Martin Jacobson – still in with 3.925 million chips (14th place)
1B: John Luxemburger – did not cash
1C: Eric Tracy – did not cash

As you can see here, it certainly didn’t pay for Luxemburger or Tracy to grab early chip leads in their flights of the tournament. However, the 2014 Main Event has treated Jacobson pretty well since he still has a good shot at the November Nine going into Day 6.

Day 2 Leaders
2AB: Timothy Stansifer – cashed by finishing 289th ($33,734)
2C: Phil Ivey – cashed by finishing 430th ($25,756)

All that anybody could talk about following the second day was how Ivey was leading the field. Unfortunately for the 10-time WSOP champ, he quickly lost his chip lead on the third day and continued falling. As for Stansifer, the unknown amateur’s cinderella story ended with him barely cracking the top 300.

Day 3 Leader
Andrew Liporace – cashed by finishing 159th ($52,141)

With the field consolidated on Day 3, Liporace lived up to his name by racing out to the chip lead. And while he didn’t do too badly by finishing 159th, he probably dreamed of more glory when he was atop the leaderboard on the third day.

Day 4 Leader
Matthew Haugen – still alive with 760,000 chips (71st)

Haugen’s Main Event title dreams are on life support as he’s sitting in 71st place with 760,000 chips. It took just one day for him to tumble down the standings.

Day 5 Leader
Mark Newhouse – Leader with 7.4 million chips

We’re now entering Day 6, so it’ll be interesting to see what Newhouse can do. He made the November Nine last year, so he’s definitely got some experience. And with just 79 players left, Newhouse has a very realistic shot at becoming the first two-time November Niner.

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Is Patrik Antonius Online Poker’s Biggest Winner?

Thursday, April 24th, 2014

Thanks to their numerous TV and online poker battles, Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius are two players whose careers are closely tied together. But these high stakes pros couldn’t be any further apart these days when considering their online results.

Antonius is coming off a week where he made nearly $1 million under his ‘FinddaGrind’ name. Since Full Tilt relaunched back in November of 2012, Antonius has earned $2.65 million in profits. Not bad for playing in a continually tougher high stakes world!

Ivey’s fortunes haven’t been quite as good. Maybe it’s the pressure of facing two baccarat “edge sorting” lawsuits, but Ivey has had the worst results of his career. He lost over $755k during the Easter weekend and is down $4.7 million on his ‘Polarizing’ account – the one he’s been using ever since Full Tilt relaunched.

Given the two different directions that these stars are headed, we wonder if Antonius has now become online poker’s biggest winner. After accumulating $19.2 million on the old Full Tilt, Ivey was far and away the biggest winner. However, that could very well have changed now, based on data from HighStakesDB:

Patrik Antonius
Patrik Antonius screen name: +$11.32 million
FinddaGrind screen name: +$4.99 million
Total = $15.31 million in profits

Phil Ivey
Phil Ivey screen name: +$19.24 million
Polarizing screen name: -$4.7 million
Total = $14.54 million in profits

Okay, so based on these numbers, Antonius is definitely online poker’s biggest winner. But here’s the curveball: both players are also rumored to have names on PokerStars too. As HSDB writes, Ivey “almost certainly plays under ‘RaiseOnce'” while Antonius “almost certainly plays under ‘Fake Love888.'”

Keep in mind that these names have never been 100% verified by either player. But if these are indeed Ivey and Antonius’ names on PokerStars, here’s how the lifetime profits would shake out:

Antonius
Known winnings: +$15.31 million
Rumored Fake Love888 name: -$1.4 million
New total = $13.91 in profits

Ivey
Known winnings: +$14.54 million
Rumored RaiseOnce name: -$47.88k
New total = $14.49 million in profits

So as you can see, the matter of who’s the most profitable player in online poker history depends on rumors and speculation. But one thing’s for sure: if everything keeps going like it is, Antonius will undoubtedly become the internet game’s biggest winner.

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Phil Ivey on Bilzerian Rumor, Craps and Early Days

Thursday, March 13th, 2014

Often billed as the world’s best poker player, Phil Ivey has kept a low profile throughout most of his career. But over the last year or so, Ivey has been opening up more and doing some interviews. This is definitely a good thing for the poker world, which is always interested in hearing more about the legends and rumors surrounding the 9-time WSOP champion.

Recently, Bluff Magazine’s Thomas Keeling got a quick interview with Ivey. And this brief chat included a number of intriguing tidbits, such as how he got started, his supposed craps habit, and what he thinks about Dan Bilzerian saying he’s broke.

In the first part of the interview, Ivey discusses his early poker days, including when he used a fake I.D. to play at Atlantic City casinos as a 20-year-old. When asked about the stories of him sleeping under the Boardwalk, he said, “What happened was, I lived in North Jersey, so you take the bus down. And if you missed the last bus coming back, and you didn’t have any money…what can you do? So I ended up sleeping under the Boardwalk a couple of times.”

In regard to his love of craps, Ivey said that he doesn’t play as much as he used to. The 38-year-old added that he likes “to take chances sometimes” and doesn’t believe that playing casino games is a problem if its within your bankroll and won’t affect your livelihood.

Ivey also covered the rumor that Dan Bilzerian has been spreading about him being broke. He practically dismissed the rumor by saying, “I don’t even think I’ve played a hand of poker with him.” Ivey added, “People can say what they want to say. I don’t really feed into that. I really don’t know the guy, so his opinion is his opinion. He doesn’t really know my financial status. So it’s okay, it doesn’t really bother me that much.”

There’s plenty more from this interview below. So if you’ve got a few moments, it’s definitely worth watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUEzLvzxZlg#t=171

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Phil Ivey talks Macau Games, Strategy, $200k Golf Bet

Thursday, February 20th, 2014

Throughout his career, Phil Ivey has remained one of the quieter and more private poker stars. But ever since he began the process of transforming IveyPoker into a full-fledged training site, he’s been a lot more active in the social media world. Ivey also did a rare interview with PokerCast recently, where he discussed a number of very interesting topics.

Not surprisingly, the interview began with some discussion about Ivey’s victory in the Aussie Millions $250k last month. The 38-year-old said that his win was actually “smooth sailing” because he had played with most of the final table in the past. Ivey added that he doesn’t really like rebuying in these types of events, which is good, given that he only needed one $250k buy-in to take down the AU$4 million top prize.

Another topic that Ivey talked about was how there’s not many good poker games for him in Vegas anymore. Instead, Ivey said that he has to go to London or Macau to find games that are worth his time. He specifically addressed the Macau high stakes action by saying that they’ve “gotten a lot tougher” because the businessmen have improved.

The PokerCast crew also asked Ivey about why he opened a training site. To this question, the 9-time WSOP champion said that you don’t have to be “analytical” just to teach poker. Ivey added that he plans on doing videos for every game and every limit, where he talks about his thought process on a lot of hands.

One more interesting subject that Ivey hit upon was a golf prop bet that he made with Joe Cassidy in Aruba. Ivey put $1k against Cassidy’s $200k that he wouldn’t make a fairly long shot. The poker legend said that he “thought he was just giving Cassidy $1,000.” But the ball went in the hole and Ivey couldn’t believe it.

If you’d like to hear more about this story and others from Ivey, make sure to check out his interview.

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Dan Bilzerian dishes on Ivey, Dwan and Degens of Poker

Saturday, January 11th, 2014

If ever there were a poker player who could rival the Dos Equis guy, it is Dan Bilzerian. For evidence of this, you need merely check Bilzerian’s twitter feed, which features numerous pictures of hot girls, guns, luxury cars and movie appearances.

Given all of the cool things that Bilzerian can and has done, it’s no surprise to hear that his net worth is $100 million. And this puts him in the opposite situation as some world-famous poker players whom he shockingly said were broke. During an interview with CardPlayer, Bilzerian said the following:

Well, it’s kind of a degenerate group. I mean, people who play poker professionally; it kind of takes a special type of person to do that. You have to be able to take a real kick in the nuts, and your life is stressful all the time. It is really hard to be a professional poker player and not go broke. The problem is that when they are winning, they feel like they are going to continue winning at the same rate and when they are losing they want to win their money back. Also, once you play big it’s really hard to drop down in stakes.

Bilzerian went on to say that Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey have gone broke. Of course, there’s no proof of this until these players actually confirm their financial standing. But it’s still interesting to hear Bilzerian declare that both of these guys are broke since he has an inside track on the high stakes poker community.

Aside from talking about degenerate poker pros, Bilzerian also covered a number of other very interesting subjects during his interview. One theme that he stressed is how he’s not among the world’s best poker pros. Instead, Bilzerian sticks to playing against celebrities and rich fish so that he can maintain an edge.

He also discussed a poker game in which an opponent only wanted to bet planes and luxury cars such as Ferrari’s ($300k) and Bugatti’s ($1 million). Dealing in tangible assets at the poker table, rather than chips, is something that really threw Bilzerian off.

One more intriguing subject is Bilzerian’s staking empire. As some people know, he staked Jay Farber during his 2013 WSOP Main Event runner-up finish. With 20% of Farber’s action, Blitz actually scored over $1 million off the second place finish. Aside from Farber, Bilzerian has a lot more pros that he stakes and earns money from.

If you’re interested in seeing what else Blitz had to say, make sure to check out the CardPlayer interview that he did.

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Find out Phil Ivey’s Greatest Weakness

Tuesday, November 12th, 2013

Phil Ivey is generally regarded as the world’s best all-around poker player. So “weakness” isn’t usually a word that’s associated with his game. Nevertheless, Ivey is human just like anybody else and has his poker flaws – however minor they might be.

The 37-year-old actually pointed out what he believes his greatest weakness is during a short interview with ALLIN Mag. When asked about the subject, Ivey stated:

My greatest weakness is that I act too fast on some of my hands. A lot of times, I know what my decisions are pretty quickly, I know what I’m going to do and I’ll just do it instead of like, think about it a little bit. I just act too quick, like I’ll bet too quick or I’ll go to bluff someone too quickly instead of thinking about the situation. Because a lot of times I’ll make a bad decision and realize later ‘Wow, if I would’ve really took my time and thought about this I would’ve made a better decision. You know, but I just reacted because a lot of my game is just reacting. So you know, that’s one thing I have to work on is taking my time a little bit more.

When pressed for advice on how you get better at being patient, Ivey added, “You just practice it, you just take your time in key decisions. You think you know what to do, and you say ‘Well I’m gonna take another 40 second to just really think about the decision.”

I think that most poker players would be quite lucky to have their biggest problem be acting too fast. The majority of amateurs spend forever tanking, only to make a bad decision in the end anyways. So for Ivey to complain of acting overly quick, this seems like an easy leak to fix.

It’s probably hard for Ivey to find ways to improve his game since he’s already accomplished so much. Ivey has won 9 WSOP gold bracelets, $17,669,367 in tournament winnings, and almost $17 million in online poker. Of course, his recent online results could be better since he’s lost about $2.7 million in the last year. So maybe this is where the fast-acting leak is occurring the most.

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Jason Mercier offers 3-1 Odds on WSOP Bracelet Prop Bet

Friday, May 24th, 2013

Jason Mercier is on an incredible heater in May thanks to his performance at the 2013 EPT Grand Final. He won a €2,000 Open Face Chinese Poker tournament ($62,940), placed seventh in the EPT Grand Final Main Event ($179,642), and took second in the €98,000 Super High Roller ($1,462,964).

Perhaps fueled by all of this recent success, Mercier has decided to make a risky prop bet. He announced through twitter that he’ll be taking 3-1 odds on if he can win a gold bracelet at the 2013 WSOP. Here’s the original tweet:

Looking for action at 3 to 1 on winning a bracelet this summer. Also willing to bet on myself vs almost anyone and lay small odds…

Mercier would later tweet that he won’t lay odds against Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey or Daniel Negreanu. But for everybody else that he’ll be taking action from, the minimum bet to get involved is $3,000, which, if successful, would earn the bettor $1,000 in profit.

It’s difficult to gauge exactly what Mercier’s chances are of winning a bracelet this year. He usually plays a pretty grueling schedule that includes 30+ tournaments over the course of the WSOP. So the volume is definitely there for him to win.

Mercier also has history on his side when it comes to this bet. In five full years of playing live poker tournaments, he’s managed to win two gold bracelets. Considering the 3-1 odds that he’s giving people to bet against him, this is definitely a good deal for the Florida native.

One more thing worth mentioning here is that Mercier is pretty well-versed in all poker disciplines. So he should be able to go deep in some of the more obscure poker variations that have smaller fields.

The 2013 WSOP kicks off on May 28th, and it’ll be interesting to see how Mercier fares in his bid to win this prop bet and a bracelet.

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Phil Ivey having Tough Year in Online Poker

Tuesday, May 21st, 2013

Often referred to as the “Tiger Woods of Poker,” Phil Ivey is regarded by many as poker’s top all-around player. His past results definitely back up this sentiment since he’d earned $19.24 million in online poker before 2013. However, the key word in this statement is “before” since Ivey is having a miserable time on the cyber felt this year.

Perhaps emulating Tiger Woods’ struggles from a couple of years ago, Ivey has lost over $2 million in 2013. And dating back to November of 2012, when Full Tilt Poker came back online, he’s lost $2.55 million.

So what’s changed from the first decade of his poker career to now? Well he seems to have undergone quite a bit of stress over the past two years. First off, Ivey lost a great deal of money when the old Full Tilt went down in 2011. He then damaged his reputation by launching what many people saw as a self-serving lawsuit to get his investment/money back.

Last summer, he was also involved in an ordeal where he won £7.8 million from Crockfords Casino, only to have Crockfords keep the fortune on suspicion of cheating. Ivey just recently launched a lawsuit against London’s oldest casino to recover the £7.8 million.

Now based on these major events, it’s likely that the nine-time WSOP bracelet winner isn’t fully focused on poker. And if this is the case, it’s hard to keep up with talented and hungry players – even when you’re Phil Ivey.

Despite his recent online poker struggles, Ivey is probably making plenty of money in live games. Plus he had a very impressive tournament year in 2012, after earning $3,657,531 in live tourneys. With the 2013 WSOP right around the corner, it’ll be interesting to see how he fares here.

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