Phil Ivey Now $4.7m Down Since Full Tilt Relaunch

As a Full Tilt Poker sponsored pro Phil Ivey may have won $19,242,744 playing online under his own name, but since the poker room relaunched in November, 2012, the 9-times WSOP winner has been on a relentless downswing and is currently stuck a not inconsiderable $4,702,778. In other words, over the past year and a half Phil “Polarizing” Ivey has now lost a quarter of what it originally took him four years to amass.
This year alone Phil Ivey is down -$2,008,665 after 236 sessions played, making the 38 year-old pro the third biggest loser on the site in 2014, just behind Gus Hansen (-$2,683,205) and Samrostan (-$2,367,039).
Compounding Ivey’s woes further was a particularly stinging Easter week in which he proceeded to drop $755,042 of his bankroll playing a variety of formats, including PLO Hi/Lo, 8-Game, Omaha Hi/Lo, and some NLH. Ivey’s losses over Easter easily dwarf those of other players last week, such as next biggest losers MalACEsia ($248,649), mikki696 ($163,814), Crazy Elior ($151,759), and SanIker ($89,849).
During an interview posted on his training site iveypoker.com in March, the poker legend highlighted some of the challenges facing a high-stakes pro, explaining: “The least fun is the downswings and when you’re losing. Poker is a job you can put your heart and soul into, work the extra hours, feel like you’re doing everything right, and still you lose money.”
Back then Ivey was still less than $1 million in the red for the year. Its anyone’s guess how much more Ivey is suffering now, especially since just a few years back the world’s poker number one didn’t even seem capable of losing.
Naturally, the poker community has been giving its take on the situation, with one poster called “GoodFellaz” offering the following explanation on highstakesdb:
“He had a few million dollar downswing on his official account and a 3+ million downswing at one point in 08-09..Ask Galfond if it’s still possible to lose 7 figures online these days..Do I personally think it’s weird that this is happening to Ivey? Of course. Is it a surprise though? Not really at those stakes… no disrespect to Ivey or anything but players are less afraid nowadays, the Ivey fear probably made him a solid 8 figure. Now you have the young genius phenom online who have absolutely no fear of anything and confidence through the roof that does make a big difference.”