Ivey is da winner of the L.A. Poker classic

Well no one can doubt how great a poker player Phil Ivey is, but now u can add 1 more achievement to his list and that is a WPT championship.

Hellmuth did very well too

February 29th, 2008 2:08 am EST
Phil Ivey Wins 2008 WPT L.A. Poker Classic


Phil Ivey finally broke through and won his first World Poker Tour title, besting Quinn Do in heads-up action and taking down the $1.6 million dollar first place prize.

This was Ivey's eighth trip to a World Poker Tour final table, and his first victory.

Ivey entered heads-up play with a massive chip lead over Quinn Do (10.82 million to 2.48 million), and the tournament was over within two hands.

In the final hand of the tournament, Ivey raised holding A-8 and Do called holding 8-9 hearts. The flop came A-8-6, Ivey bet out and Do called. The turn was the Ace of clubs, and Ivey pushed all-in. Do only had just over a million in chips left at this point, and decided to call after deliberating for a number of minutes.

Do was dismayed to see that he was drawing completely dead, as Ivey had the full house and Do simply had Aces and Eights for two pair. Do should take heart in the fact that he still ended up earning over $900k for his second place finish.

Ivey had just the right combination of luck and strong play on Thursday. He managed to get lucky when he eliminated Nam Le in fourth place, after the two players got all of their chips in the middle with Le holding pocket Aces and Ivey holding pocket threes (they got all-in preflop). The turn brought the three of diamonds, and Nam Le was sent packing in fourth place.

The much-hyped showdown between Ivey and Hellmuth Jr. turned out to be a dud, as Hellmuth went out in sixth place.

The hand of the night for Hellmuth came in a showdown with Nam Le. Hellmuth held J-8, and Nam Le held the K-3 of clubs. The flop came J 6 3. Le bet out, Hellmuth called. The turn was the King of hearts, Le bet out again, and Hellmuth pushed all-in. Le called with his two pair, and Hellmuth was crippled. He went out fifteen hands left in sixth place when his A-9 couldn't suck out on the A-Q of Woody Moore.

All in all, this was a very impressive tournament for Phil Ivey, and he certainly deserved to win. He was amongst the chipleaders for pretty much all of the tournament. After failing to win a WPT title after seven previous trips to the final table, this victory must be particularly sweet for Ivey.

Ivey and Hellmuth don't have any time to relax and contemplate their play at this tournament - both are scheduled to be in Las Vegas tomorrow for the 2008 Heads-Up Championship.

Lol, was he giving Phil insurance in this one?

How does one play 8 WPT tournaments, and make the final table every single time? Not to mention win 1.

Ivey = God?

A god would presumably win all eight

No thats just rigged imo

Come on man, everybody knows the WPT is rigged

Ivey is da man ....lol and only chuck norris can enter 8 wpt final tables and win all ivey can only win 1 btw.......no seriously ivey is a beast....full tilt is loving his face and power lol

Surely he's entered more than eight...

my thinking exactly

i thought the same thing but from this source seems to say that this was his 8th wpt event and 8th ft at that

1 of the many reasons he is called the best............

Saw a post-win video interview with him. The guy is a legend.

uh it just said it's his 8th final table. lol @ thinking he could have played 8 and final tabled every single one. i mean, come on. he's entered many many more

He has most certainly played more than 8 WPT events. It would be highly noted by Sexton and Van Patten that he has made the final table in every event that he played.
Nobody is that good.

fyp

correction
ivey has played many more wpt events, he has 8 cashes only, all of them are fts
combu was right

And that is Ivey's style. His early play strategy is something along the lines of "go home early or final table."
Lives up to that pretty well imo.

yep, gives a hell of an indication of ivey's style that all his cashes were final tables. he is in no way interested in just making the money and it sort of shows that many people's obsession with ITM% regarding MTTs is undue.

he places (rightly) a lot of value on his time and doesn't want to waste it in a tournament unless there's a decent shot he gets a big score. thus he plays very much a go big or go home style the first couple days, very willing to gamble. if he busts early, that's time he can spend winning money at the cash tables

edit: dammit rb pretty much beat me to this post and did so much more concisely

pwn3d imo.

still 8 cashes and 8 fts is pretty insane. How many events has he played altogether?

Phil ivey is the best, my number 1 fav!

Iveys the man, he is the best poker player on the planet

If that dosnt work out for you, call me

Man I love Ivey's style no one gets paid off on his hands like Ivey does. I'll bet if his HU opponent didn't hadn't played with Ivey before or knew his style he would have folded 8 9 in the final hand, but because Ivey plays a full house the same way he would a stone bluff he got paid off.

who is phil ivey