Phil Ivey –
Poker, Parties And Pick-Up Lines
New feature article in Playboy exposes even more of the Life of Ivey.
There’s been a lot of #IveyStories floating around the Rio this summer, but inside the pages of Playboy perhaps we’ve found the most revealing tale of The People’s Champ, Phil Ivey, yet.
The Playboy feature article documents Ivey’s cold streak at the end of the 2013 World Series of Poker as writer Michael Kaplan tags along with Phil and his entourage in and out of the high-stakes living in Las Vegas where Ivey is on the hunt for bracelets, ladies and redemption for Full Tilt in the form of Ivey Poker.
Read: Phil Ivey’s New House Of Cards
From $50K a hand baccarat, to Ivey Poker parties dominated by ladies “all eights or better”, in addition to recounting Ivey ascension to the pinnacle of poker, Kaplan details a more personal side of Ivey than we’re used to seeing and, just as you’d think, it’s extremely fascinating.
Money, he decided a long time ago, is a thing to be deployed, not savored when it’s won or mourned when it’s gone. The summer he was 23, Ivey says, he started with a $200,000 cushion of poker winnings. “It was the largest bankroll I’d ever had up until that point. By the end of the summer, though, I’d lost all of it playing poker.” Told that he must have been devastated, Ivey looks uncomprehending. “I didn’t view it as money lost,” he says. “I saw it as money used to play bigger games. I thought it was worth playing in those games. Now I see money as what gets me into the biggest game in the world. Wherever the biggest game is, that’s where I want to be.”
More than just tales of Ivey’s sicko thirst for action and his otherworldly prowess at poker, we see Ivey hitting on women after his divorce, his “black cat” superstitious nature, his ability to summon private trainers to move to Las Vegas and that, apparently, Ivey know how to throw a pretty great party.
More: Phil Ivey Is A Nice Guy, Great Guy, Good Guy
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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