Phil Ivey is widely recognized as the world’s best all-round poker player. He has won 10 WSOP bracelets and has amassed $23 million in live tournament winnings. Yet what earned him legendary status in the poker world already in 2006, was the heads-up game against Dallas banker Andy Beal in which Ivey played for the group of high-rollers who called themselves The Corporation and won $16,000,000 over three days.

The Tiger Woods of Poker has had many other nicknames over the years, including No Home Jerome or The Phenom, and his Full Tilt screenname Polarizing keeps making headlines in the weekly chronicles of high-stakes online poker.

Ivey is a notorious gambler and in one of the most famous prop bets in poker, Tom Dwan challenged him to keep a vegetarian diet for one year. The bet was for one million dollars but in the third week Ivey bought out for $150,000 and went on to order what has been called “the most expensive steak in poker history”.

In recent years he’s been involved in two widely publicized edge-sorting lawsuits against the UK Crockford's Casino and the Borgata. As for his business ventures and investments, they range from poker coaching, with Ivey League, to sports&entertainment, with All-In Entertainment LLC, and in latest news, Ivey obtained a license to run a medical marijuana dispensary in Las Vegas.

Written by Annie RKH
Last update: 11/03/2015