Phil Ivey
Doesn’t Do Email, Doesn’t Pick Screen Names
Phil Ivey doesn’t care what you call him. You pick.
That was just latest tale of Ivey floating around the Rio yesterday. Ultimate Poker's Head of Pro Marketing Dustin Iannotti had the unfortunate distinction of having Ivey sit to his immediate left during Day 3 and while they would be playing for the first time together, it wasn’t the first time Iannotti interacted with the best poker player on the planet.
Read: Sitting Next to ‘Phil Fucking Ivey’ in the WSOP Main Event [Bluff Magazine]
You see, Dustin used to work for PokerStars, and essentially Full Tilt Poker, and he tells Bluff Magazine how it was actually he who picked Ivey’s now popular online screen name “Polarizing”:
The two do have a history though, even if Ivey is unlikely to know it. Prior to joining Ultimate Poker, Iannotti worked with the Rational Group as the Head of Pro Marketing for Full Tilt Poker. Following the acquisition by PokerStars Ivey wanted to return to the tables but didn’t want his screenname to be ‘Phil Ivey’ so he had to call Iannotti to get it changed.
“I asked him what he wanted it changed to and he told me ‘I dunno, you pick something’,” said Iannotti. And just like that Ivey became ‘Polarzing’ on Full Tilt Poker. According to Iannotti, Ivey asked him what it meant.
So how’d it go for Dustin? Well, he’s busto from the Main Event. Ivey, who entered Day 3 as the chip leader, still sits in the top 100 with over 500K in chips.
More tag team coverage from Bluff and PokerNews: Phil Ivey Gets Taught A Thing Or Two By The Humphries
Watch: One of the Best Laydowns at PSPC, and Possibly of All Time
Thi Xoa Nguyen makes an incredible fold with a full house at the $25K buy-in PSPC event.
It was during day 2 of the history-in-making $25,000 buy-in PokerStars Players No Limit Hold’em Championship when a Vietnamese lady by the name of Thi Xua Nguyen stunned everybody by making this incredible laydown versus Athanasios Polychronopoulos, a Greek-American professional poker player with two WSOP bracelets.
220 players remained on the field when Nguyen raised from the button with Ad Qc only to get 3-bet to 37,000 by Polychronopoulos from the big blind who held a pair of Aces.
Nguyen made the call and the flop landed Ks 9s Qd. Both the players checked. The Qh on Turn improved Nguyen’s hand to trips. She bets 17,000 after Polychronopoulos checked for a second time. He made the call and the Ace of Spade gave both the players a full house.
Polychronopoulos once again checked on the river with his Aces full. Nguyen bets 50,000 leaving her 153,000 chips behind but finds herself in a check-raise-all-in situation.
This is where things go crazy!!!
After tanking for a while, Nguyen lays down Ad Qc face up—a freaking Full house!!!. Out of respect for her incredible fold, Polychronopoulos flips out Aces and was himself stunned.
Did she misread her hand? No!!! She knew what she was doing. Nguyen put him on Aces or Kings and she was bang on right!!!
The hand was caught during the live stream and obviously, the viewers glued to the stream went berserk including the commentators James Hartigan, Joe Stapleton, and Lex Veldhuis.
Nguyen eventually finished 153rd for $25,450 and Polychronopoulos also made cash but busted against Platinum Pass winner, Jussi Nevanlinna.
What is more crazier is that on day 1 Nguyen won an EPT Monte Carlo package during a random draw table giveaway.
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