Athletes - Phil Ivey

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	Athletes - Phil Ivey

Phil Ivey (born February 1 1976) is an American professional poker player.

Early years

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".

Poker tournaments

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 the record for most bracelets won in one 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

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 "The Mouth" Matusow, Phil Hellmuth, Gus Hansen, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott, and John Juanda.

As of 2005 his career tournament winnings exceed $6,000,000.

Cash Games

In February 2006, Ivey 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 he was giving up poker.

Outside of 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.

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 her about her losses at penny-ante level online poker games while he was gone.

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