Phil Ivey Poker Profile

There are very few poker players in the world, if any, that are as feared as Phil Ivey. With his soul piercing eyes, fierce poker mind, and unrelenting aggression, Ivey plays poker on a level most players can’t even fathom.

As a kid growing up in New Jersey, Phil’s grandfather taught him to play five card stud while dealing off the bottom of the deck. With hopes of dissuading his grandson from becoming a gambler by ensuring losses for the youngster, the teacher became the student when the tricks only fueled Phil’s desire to win. By the time he was old enough to drive, Ivey was playing in backroom poker games and just two years later, he made an investment that rivaled business deals financed by Warren Buffet.

While working at a telemarketing company Phil Ivey made traded $50 for a fake I.D. provided by a co-worker which instantly turned him into Jerome Graham, and most importantly, made him old enough to get into Atlantic City poker rooms. Phil played whatever games he had enough money to get into. Whether it was poker, craps, blackjack or any of the other casino games Phil needed action and spent the majority of his time in the casino. In fact, Phil spent so much time in the casino that other regulars gave him the nickname “No Home Jerome.” After going broke so many times that rent wasn’t always on time, and the electricity and water weren’t always on, Phil started working harder and harder on his poker game.

When he turned 21 Jerome Graham turned back into Phil Ivey after he informed the casino floor staff of his real name. At his telemarketing company, Phil met the girl who would later become his wife, Lucietta. The rocky times didn’t last much longer and when asked about how he made the transition from often broke telemarketer to successful professional gambler, Phil said, “I just kept playing and playing until I made enough money that I didn’t have to go back to work anymore.”

After cutting his teeth in the high stakes stud games in New Jersey, Ivey left for Las Vegas to take a shot at the tournament scene. In 2000 Phil won his first World Series of Poker bracelet capturing first place in a $2,500 buy-in Pot Limit Omaha tournament, beating out Phil Hellmuth, Amarillo Slim and Markus Golser.

In 2002 Ivey tied a record already shared by Ted Forrest and Phil Hellmuth when he won 3 W.S.O.P. bracelets, one in Seven Card Stud, Stud Hi-Lo, and S.H.O.E. His fifth bracelet came in 2005 in another PLO tournament making him the first player under 30 to have 5 bracelets to his name.

Although Ivey hasn’t won a bracelet in since then, his tournament record has still had two wins added to it, one later the same year in Monte Carlo worth $1,000,000 and another in 2008, when he won the World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic earning $1,596,100.00.

What impresses most people in the poker community though, isn’t Phil’s ability to transition seamlessly from game to game in tournaments, it’s his ability to do so in the highest cash games in the world. As a mainstay in the $4,000/$8,000 mixed games in Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio, Ivey was the biggest winner in the “Corporation’s” heads up LHE matches against billionaire Andy Beal. When the team found themselves stuck a few million playing $100,000/$200,000 to the Texas banker, there seemed to be only one thing to do. Call Phil. In one day, Ivey one $16,600,000 against the amateur putting the “Corporation” way in front and making himself the biggest one day winner in the history of poker.

When Phil became an original investor in Full Tilt Poker, he gained another form of income to feed his need to gamble on just about everything. As a big winner in the highest games online, Ivey also likes to gamble as high as he can on the golf course and is never one to turn down a roll of the die at a craps table.

All things considered, Phil has proved his ability to win in all the games, at all the limits, in all forms. That combined with a never ending need for more gamble, Ivey is one of the biggest single threats the gambling world has ever seen.