Monday 23 May 2016 11:03, UK
Phil and Tiger have many things in common. They both crushed their respective fields, and earned the admiration of millions, but along the way, both suffered from the flawed genius syndrome which seems to affect so many sporting greats, such as George Best, Hurricane Higgins, Eric Cantona, Ronnie O'Sullivan and John Daly.
Of one thing we can be sure - Phil Ivey might just be the greatest Poker player of all time. 10 World Series of Poker bracelets faster than anyone else - even Phil Hellmuth took longer - and his 10 gold bracelets have come in no less than 9 different disciplines. In fact, rather oddly, Phil has yet to win a bracelet in No Limit Hold'em, which is the predominant game these days. Some speculate that he has won "cheap" or easy bracelets, but you try winning 10 of them in 9 disciplines, it's a phenomenal statement of versatility, especially in Poker where most players specialise in a specific discipline or format.
In online Poker, for many years, he got the lot, and won millions, but things turned sour recently, and in 2015, it is widely reported that he lost nearly $4 million playing online, which would be more than anyone else.
When he plays live Poker, he even has his own travelling fan club who rail him every hand, and bring "Go Ivey Go" placards.
I had the good fortune to be tableside, reporting, when Phil Ivey won the 2005 Monte Carlo Millions. By general consensus, a hand he played in that final, versus England's Paul "ActionJack" Jackson, might just be the most amazing hand of Poker ever played, when both players were bluffing, and Phil - with nothing but queen high - forced Paul Jackson to fold after 5 betting. To be fair, Paul only had 6 high, but Ivey could not possibly know that. It was breath-taking stuff, especially given the context that they were playing for a million dollar first prize. We all went to dinner afterwards, and Ivey, who generously paid for the dinner, (admittedly he had just won a million dollars) insisted he absolutely knew for certain, 100%, that Paul had been bluffing. I've never seen a hand of Poker like it, before or since, and I still have no idea how he pulled the trigger in that spot.
He's a good looking boy, too, and lives the dream in his luxurious Las Vegas home.
However, Phil rarely treads the easy path, and has been involved in numerous situations which caused controversy. He is a keen golfer, and when he plays golf, there is usually serious money on the line. He lost money - a LOT of money - playing golf against two English Poker pros, Ram Vaswani and Mark "Mr Cool" Goodwin. So he took a 6 month break, and then invited Ram and Mark to come play some more money golf, on the same terms. Well you can't blame Ram and Mark for readily accepting, and so they did so, with some $200,000 on the line. What Ram and Mark never knew was that Phil had spent 6 months improving his game under the tuition of a professional golf coach. And Phil's hard work prevailed, and he beat Ram and Mark easily. This, as you can imagine, did not go down well with the 2 English lads, but after some years it all got settled amicably. Well, sort of amicably.
More recently, he became involved in various court cases after winning huge sums - up to 10 million - from two casinos, one in London, and another in Atlantic City. He had been playing as the front man for a syndicate, and the coup involved something called "edge-sorting", which, essentially, took advantage of a weakness or flaw in the design of the playing cards. Whether you'd call that cheating is debatable, but one of the courts - the London one - ruled against our hero, and the other remains unresolved.
When he plays live Poker, he's hardly good table company. I've spent many hours observing him play in London, Monte Carlo, Barcelona and Las Vegas, and I've rarely seen him speak to his table companions. He seems to prefer immersing himself in his mobile phone, messaging mates or, more usually, playing online high stakes Chinese Poker. He adopts a sullen look, rarely smiling, but always be careful what you wish for, when he does look at his opponents with that famous Phil Ivey stare-down it's enough to make their toes curl. "FOLD" is usually the result.
He courted controversy with his site sponsor of many years, eventually suing them for no less than $150 million, though he eventually withdrew the suit.
Later, he promoted his own site, Ivey Poker, and many of the top pros were wearing an Ivey Poker patch, presumably on a promise of a cut of the action. The site, despite some wonderfully high class advertising, never got off the ground and Ivey eventually signalled its closure in 2014.
When trying to judge this enigma, we should not forget his charitable work, as he founded The Budding Ivey Foundation, which awards scholarships and does much good work, aided by money donated by Phil.
So there you have it, Phil Ivey, good guy or wise guy, enigma or eccentric, winner or loser?
Me, I've no idea what to make of him. I'll say this though, Poker is all the richer for characters like Phil, and if you ever get the chance to rail him at a Poker event, make sure you do, as it will be worth it. You may even get his autograph, too, if you are very lucky. But whatever you do, don't sit at a Poker table with him, as he'll clean you out, nothing is more certain. Whatever else he may be, at the Poker table he is sheer genius. You have been warned.
