Not sure how complete PTR tracking is, but as far as nlhe it has Ivey with a 2.63ptbb winrate over 41k hands, and a lot of those hands are at cap where variance is absurd and a lot of those hands are with Guy, a fish who just came in and donated millions.
Again I'm not saying he's bad or anything, but there's just no proof he's the best of all time, especially by a large margin as people everywhere seem to accept. Donkament results from 10 years ago are all but irrelevant and if you only include results from when they were relevant no one will have a reasonable sample size. It's obvious he's not a fish, it's obvious he's good, no one denies that. But to say he's not just the best player but far and away the best player in the world?
I'll go out on a limb and say isildur is better than he is at poker right now if you need a name.
Also I can't prove this because Ivey hasn't played HUNL in forever but I'd bet these days Ivey would be considered a fish at HUNL and that the top players like isildur, sauce, kanu, ike, etc. would pounce at the opportunity to play him.
1) HU NL is one mode of one form of poker....while I would agree that 5-6 yrs ago many of the most talented young guns became HU players bc of the win rates possible, that is less and less the case with each passing yr.
HU NL isnt the most important game to master anymore...and just getting action past mid stakes can be a grind.
2) PTR isnt complete or accurate...Ivey is the #1 winner in the history of
online poker, period. You can spin this or try to manipulate numbers with all sorts of calculations, but no one quibbles with the fact that he is the number 1 earner online of all times.
3) So what his online HU game isnt top notch if he just jumped into them without practicing.
I GUARANTEE YOU his mixed game performance would be 10000x better than HU NL specialist even if his HU game would take a few months to ramp up.
4) Are you joking about MTT results being old/outdated...the guy is pprobably one of the most dominant all around donkament players since 2003(post boom) without having to grind the circuit.
He is the world's best HORSE MTTer....almost without a doubt.
He is once of the top 3-5 Draw MTTer.....almost without a doubt.
He is a top 10 stud variant MTTer....almost without a doubt.
5) Quite simply you've proven our point by being several posts and hundred of words in this debate without putting forward ONE VIABLE alternative!!!
Spit it out....
Who would it be???
p.s.
If your point is that we cannot be 100% certain of Ivey being the world's best, fine, that is an obvious part of poker with its live cash games, unknowable ROI in donkaments....etc.