Phil Ivey Biography
Phil Ivey was born in Riverside, California on the 1st of February 1976, but he was raised in Roselle, New Jersey. Phil’s grandfather taught Phil how to play poker, but he also tried to deter Phil from taking a liking to the game by dealing him cards from the bottom of the deck. Needless to say this thinking didn’t work and Phil was playing poker at the casino from the young age of 18. Phil got an ID from a friend named Jerome Graham and before long the regulars at the casino were calling him ‘No Home Jerome’ because he would almost always be at the casino. Three years later when Phil turned 21 he flashed the floor men his real ID and continued on playing cards.
In his first World Series of Poker Ivey had instant success winning his first WSOP gold bracelet and $195,000 in the PLO event and also cashing in two other WSOP events that year. Two years later in ’02 Ivey went on a tear winning 3 WSOP bracelets, which tied the record for the most bracelets won in one year. After at least another 2 bracelet wins in 2009 Ivey is now at lucky number 7. I say at least because Ivey also made his way to the final table of the main event and he’ll have to wait until November 9th to see if he can add another bracelet to his collection. Ivey currently has about $9 Million in career tournament winnings under his belt, but this number will rise very quickly if Ivey can continue his run on the 9th of November.
With all of this tournament success you may be surprised to know that Phil Ivey is also arguably the best cash game player in the world, both live and online. He is a regular in the big game at the Bellagio and has also been a main attraction on High Stakes Poker. Ivey also played for the biggest stakes every recorded against billionaire Andy Beal. “The Corporation”, which is a professional poker player alliance, was in the hole against Andy after a few sessions, but after three days of playing Ivey Beal had lost all of his winnings and then some. In fact it is said that Ivey beat Beal out of $16 Million over the course of three days. Online Phil Ivey also plays for the highest stakes available and has shown he can win without being able to see his opponent. Ivey won about $2M online in 2007 and upped this to about $7.5 Million in ’08. It is very hard to argue that Ivey is not the best all-around poker player alive today.
Phil Ivey is addicted to gambling, but lucky for him he wins. He will bet on just about anything as long as he feels he is getting the right price. Phil is a member of Team Full Tilt Poker and you can consistently find him ripping up the highest stakes online. Watch him take on some of the best young internet players in the world such as Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan and Illari ‘Ziigmund’ Sahamies or other Full Tilt pro’s Gus Hansen and Patrik Antonius.
