Phil Ivey again shows why he is one of, if not the, best players in the world. Today he won the $250,000 buy-in 2012 Aussie Millions Super High Roller event for $2 million. According to the Hendon Mob “All-time money list” this win put Ivey into second place at just shy of $16 million in career live poker tournament earnings. He pulled just ahead of Daniel Negreanu ($14.9 million) and is behind only Erik Seidel, who is sitting at $16.9 million.
This year’s Super High Roller event attracted some of the biggest names in the poker world, including Eric Seidel, Tom Dwan, Gus Hansen, Daniel Negreanu, Patrik Antonius and Jason Mercier. The event also included some wealthy businessmen in the field, including Paul Phua, Richard Yong and Winfred Yu.
Negreanu ended up being eliminated on the bubble in 4th place, when his shove with A8 from the big blind couldn’t win against Antonius’ pocket jacks. Gus Hansen finished in 3rd place for $800,000 after his K8 fell to Ivey’s J4, all in on a flop of KJ4.
Heads up began between Ivey and Antonius with nearly equal chip stacks. Ivey had just a slight lead with 2.2 million chips against Antonius’ 1.8 million. Less than an hour into the heads up battle, Ivey won a large pot to give him a commanding lead. A few hands later, Antonius pushed all in with K3 offsuit, which Ivey called with AQ. The flop gave Antonius a pair of three’s, but a queen of clubs on the turn and a blank on the river secured Ivey as the winner. Antonius won $1.2 million for his efforts.
Ivey’s win is surely a welcome one, as he hasn’t had a great amount of success in poker lately. This was likely due to the troubles between him and the now defunct Full Tilt Poker, as well as personal relationship issues.
In June 2011 Ivey, at one time a part owner of Fulltilt Poker, filled a $150 million lawsuit against Tiltware/Fulltilt Poker for “irreparably” damaging his reputation. This came after Fulltilt being unable and/or unwilling to process cash outs from their players, due to the site shutdown and account freezes following Black Friday.
Then there is the ongoing “divorce saga” in which Ivey’s ex-wife, Luciaetta Ivey, filled a suit against Phil Ivey. They divorced in December 2009, which left Ivey paying $180,000 a month in alimony. He claims that these alimony payments were set up to be taken out of the money he received from Tiltware (parent company of Fulltilt Poker), which sponsored him. Ivey’s attorneys stated that when the payments stopped coming in, he was no longer liable to continue the alimony payments to his ex-wife. According to Ivey, his ex-wife was left with no debt, a $1.2 million collection of purses, over $1 million in jeweler y, among other assets. Ivey accepted $15.1 million in “gambling and other debts”, including $170,000 in credit card debt.