Phil Ivey StareDOES THIS STARE SCARE YOU? IT SCARES THE CRAP OUTA ME! AND SO FAR THIS YEAR, NEARLY EVERYONE WHO HAS LOOKED INTO IT! THE WORLD IS ON NOTICE THIS IS PHIL IVEY AND HE’S ON FIRE!

For those of you have not been following the world of poker, Phil Ivey Poker Pro who plays exclusively at Full Tilt Poker, is on a tear that has not been seen in poker since Daniel Negreanu’s run with the WPT in 2005 where he was named both WSOP player of the year and WPT player of the year.

The 2008 year began with Phil Ivey appearing on Poker After Dark III, the week’s theme is 19th hole. On Poker After Dark six players are invited to play tournament format winner take all the buy-in is $20,000 USD. Phil Ivey finished 2nd which unfortunately pay’s nothing. From there he moved on to the L.A. Poker Classic at the famous Commerce Casino in Los Angles California, this is the largest Poker Room in the world and features some of the highest cash game stakes in the world. At the 10K buy-in Main Event of the L.A. Poker Classic a WPT event, Phil managed to out last 665 entrants to take home a cool $1,596,100 for his effort. He out lasted the likes of Phil Hellmuth Jr. 6th, Jennifer Tilly 12th (I will tell you a funny/disgusting story about her later on), Fellow nosebleed specialist (a term for those who play at the highest limits in cash games) David Singer 18th and that is just a few of the notables that made the money. This is a prestigious event as are all the WPT Events, in a later article to come I will go into the debate about WPT vs. WSOP and which should hold more clought. With this win to start the poker year it raises the expectation for Phil who has not done so well in the past few years at the World Series what is considered the mecca of the poker world. His last Bracelet came in 2005 in a $5,000 buy-in Pot Limit Omaha event, other then that he has had four top five finishes two of them in 2007 and two in 2006 which included a third place finish in the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. Event behind winner David “Chip” Reese and 2nd place finisher Andy Bloch. It should be noted that Phil Ivey is the youngest player to attain five bracelets and that none of the five are in Hold’em event. Which is one of the on going knocks against all time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth Jr. (with 11, followed by Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan with 10 each) is that all of his are only in Hold’em events. For those of you who are not aware it is felt that Hold’em is the easiest of all poker forms. To give you an idea of his success at the famed World Series he has 5 bracelets (tying him for 10th with 8 others) in a mere 7 trips to the World Series, along with 26 cashes totaling an astounding $2,873,526 this ranks him 21st in earnings (and 3 of those ahead of him have only 1 cash and another 3 of those ahead of him have only one significant cash and that being final table main event), that is staggering numbers for someone only 32 years old.

Now if a major tournament win to start the year, wasn’t enough Phil Ivey had more to come. At the NBC National Heads-Up Championship, Phil Ivey Finished in 3rd place losing to eventual winner Chris “Jesus” Ferguson another Full Tilt Poker Pro. This showing landed him another $125,000 and adding to the ever growing and never diminishing hype behind this jersey wearing, ice calculated stare poker superstar. So now we are three months into the year 2008 and Phil Ivey has a major win and a 3rd place showing at a major tournament, could it get better?

Well the next stop for Phil Ivey’s cash train was the $7,500 buy-in WPT event at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nevada. Where Phil Ivey fought with 261 entrants making the final table but coming up just short on that famous T.V. final 6, he did however finish in 10th taking home $46,832. So now the road leads to the Rio on May 31st when the WSOP takes over Las Vegas for the 39th year will Phil find himself in the winners circle hoarding the cash I sure hope so as long as it’s not in my event. But before the Rio there are still some stops to be made including the 6th annual Five Star World Poker Classic April 2nd – April 23rd in Las Vegas, The EPT Grand Final Monte Carlo April 11th – April 17th, and the WSOP Circuit event at Caesar’s Palace Las Vegas.

With these excellent finish’s under his belt and the World Series on the horizon as well as some other major stops along the way the question will remain, has the kid who grew up in Jersey sneaking into the card rooms in Atlantic City as a minor and then living on the streets of Atlantic City scrounging money to play cards got enough left in him to take on the WORLD! Or will he peter out too soon. Only time will tell.

By Staypuff