Phil Ivey Competes At WSOP 2012

In 2011, 8 times bracelet winner Phil Ivey was sorely missed by fans after boycotting the World Series of Poker until Full Tilt repaid the money it owed to players. This year, however, the best all-around player in the world and the best tournament series have been reunited once again in Las Vegas.
Following Black-Friday on April 15, 2011, the 36 year old disappeared from the tournament poker radar and only reemerged towards the end of the year in November when he made an appearance at the APPT Macau Main Event. Since then, Phil Ivey has cashed in three events to the tune of $2,258,538, much of which was accounted for by his victory in January at the Aussie Millions $250k High Roller Event for $2,058,948.
Those wins helped Ivey maintains his position near the top of poker’s ‘All Time Money List’ where he currently lies in 3rd place with $16,118,482 in earnings, just behind Daniel Negreanu in 2nd ($16,129,219) and Erik Seidel in top spot ($16,918,173). However, those positions will likely change over the next seven weeks as 61 events are played out at the 43rd annual World Series of Poker at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino.
With 8 WSOP bracelets to his credit, Ivey’s biggest successes came in 2002 when he won 3 events, and 2009 when he added a further two to his tally. Signalling his intent at this year’s tournament series, 1:30pm Monday saw Ivey take a seat at the first open buy-in event of WSOP 2012, the $1,500 no-limit hold’em event.
However, the world class pro will have to wait a while longer before capturing another bracelet after being eliminated from Event#2 at the hands of Maria Ho. Pre-flop, Ivey jammed all-in for 1600 chips with pocket tens over the raise of Ho (J-10) and almost doubled up on a 9-3-2-7 board until an 8 fell on the river to make Ho her straight and send Ivey to the rail.
Still, its great to see Ivey back in action and trying to add a 9th WSOP bracelet to his already impressive tally. The ever competitive Phil Hellmuth also seemed pleased to see Ivey back at the WSOP once more, and commented:
“Ivey is a wonderful player with an amazing amount of talent. He won four bracelets in two years, and is a threat to me in the long run. He has eight bracelets; I have 11. He might catch me. He keeps the pressure on me to play great and put some numbers up on the board.”