By James Guill
Every sport has one person who is clearly considered the “greatest of all-time.” In Basketball, that person is Michael Jordan. In boxing, you have Muhammad Ali. Tiger Woods, to many, has surpassed the great Jack Nicklaus in golf. In the world of professional poker, there are many players who are considered great, but most would agree that the greatest poker player of all-time is Phil Ivey.
Phil Ivey began his poker career in the casinos of Atlantic City, where he used a fake id to get in. Once he became legal, he revealed to his friends that he was not actually “Jerome” as he had claimed to be, but rather Phil Ivey.
Unlike many modern poker players, Ivey made a name for himself in his early career by becoming proficient at all forms of poker. In fact, his first major poker tournament victory in 2000 was the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha Event at the 2010 World Series of Poker.
Just two years later, Ivey had one of the greatest WSOP runs in history after winning three bracelets, five final tables, and finishing 23rd in the 2002 WSOP Main Event. After a monster year at the 2002 WSOP, Ivey began to make major tournament final tables at will. In 2005, he made his first six-figure score by taking the Monte Carlo Millions for $1 Million. Then in 2008, Ivey won his first World Poker Tour title by winning the 2008 LA Poker Classic and $1.5 Million.
While dominating the tournament poker world would be enough for some, Ivey would not stop there. Ivey continued to dominate at cash games and was so proficient that a group of pros turned to Ivey to bail them out. A group calling themselves The Corporation played against Billionaire Andy Beal and lost over $13 Million. Ivey then sat down against Beal and proceeded to win more than $16 Million over the course of three days.
In addition to his live tournament and cash game play, Ivey is one of the most consistent online poker winners in the history of the game. Since 2007, Ivey has won close to $19 Million. Due to legal problems with Full Tilt Poker, the website that Ivey had a contract with, he chose not to play in any major poker events from May 2011 until January 2012. The website had been indicted by the US federal government and Ivey sat out from the tables until the matter was resolved.
Even after sitting out the better half of a year, Ivey returned to the game in January of 2012 and within 2 weeks had won a major event at the Aussie Millions that netted him over $2 Million. Ivey won $3.6 Million so far in 2012.
If you look at Phil Ivey’s player profile, you will see that he sits second on Poker’s All-Time Money list with a total of $17.5 Million in earnings. The person sitting #1 on the list is only there because he won a charity tournament that awarded $18.3 Million to the winner. In addition to his tournament winnings, Ivey has 8 WSOP bracelets and 1 WPT title. This is in addition to the numerous smaller event titles that Ivey has racked up over the years.
For years, Phil Ivey has dominated the game of poker like no other. His domination has been compared to other sports greats and Ivey has been called the “Tiger Woods of Poker.” Gus Hansen once said that the object of poker was to keep the money away from Phil Ivey for as long as possible.
Ivey is certainly a first ballot Hall of Famer and just to show his dominance on the game, the rules for induction were recently changed because of Ivey. Chip Reese was the youngest player ever inducted at age 40. Until Ivey, Reese was considered the greatest player of all-time. Due to Ivey’s dominance, many felt Ivey would trump Reese’s as youngest Hall of Fame member and to prevent this, the rules were changed requiring inductees be 40 years of age.
In poker, there are great players, and then there is Phil Ivey. Ivey’s dominance is really just getting started as he is a just 36 years old. As many poker players play into their late 50’s or 60’s, odds are that we will hear much more of Ivey for decades to come.
