Phil 'Polarizing' Ivey On $3.3m Downswing Since Full Tilt Relaunch

The great bard Shakespeare once wrote “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Phil Ivey, however, may have a slightly different take on the subject as having changed his screen name to ‘Polarizing’ after Full Tilt Poker relaunched in November, 2012, the 38 year-old poker legend has since dropped a huge -$3,371,872 playing on the site.
Competing under his own name, Full Tilt’s biggest draw previously managed to amass an incredible $19,242,744 fortune between 2007 and 2011, having hardly even suffered a downswing. As ‘Polarizing’, however, Ivey has enjoyed the occasional uptick but overall has failed to gain any traction since no longer being sponsored by the site as one of its pros.
In fact, Phil Ivey opted to take an extended break from Full Tilt in October 2013, when he was stuck $2.69 million, and only last month made a return to FTP’s virtual felts. The sabbatical doesn’t seem to have made much difference, though, and trying his luck at a variety of games, including 2-7 triple draw, Limit Omaha-8-or-Better and mixed games, the 9-times WSOP bracelet winner has gone on to drop a further $700k to show a $3.4 million loss overall.
Surprisingly, last week Phil “Polarizing” Ivey actually proved to be the biggest loser on the site, and gave away $945,412 of his bankroll over 71 sessions playing mostly 2-7TD and PLO.
In March, Phil Ivey gave an in depth interview on his site iveypoker.com, in which he revealed his least favourite part of the game, stating: “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.”
Nevertheless, Phil Ivey confided that enduring then coming through a downswing carried a reward all of its own, irrespective of the money won, stating:
“Poker is a long-term game and you have to keep that vision or you’ll lose heart. In the long run, the better players who put the time in and work on their games will come out ahead.”
Without a doubt, the high-stakes action has been hotting up on Full Tilt lately, with players such as Hac “trex313” Dang, Jens “Ingenious89” Kyllönen, Niklas “ragen70” Heinecker, and Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond regularly competing at the highest levels on the site. It will be interesting to see how Ivey manages to mix it up against such talented pros this year, as he attempts to stamp his own mark of authority on Full Tilt’s nose bleed cash games.