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Phil Ivey’s tremendous run of recent results continued on Monday with his second victory during this trip to North Cyprus. Ivey won Super High Roller Series Europe Event #4: $50,000 Pot-Limit Omaha for $640,000, defeating Ali Imsirovic in heads-up play. Ivey topped a field of 32 entries to get the victory.
“It’s still nice,” Ivey said of winning. “It’s always nice to win a tournament.”
Across the joint series involving Triton Poker Cyprus and Super High Roller Series Europe that has been running at Merit Royal Hotel Casino & Spa in North Cyprus, Ivey has five cashes, and they’re all top-five appearances, and two victories.
“I’m enjoying playing,” Ivey said. “I’m enjoying playing these tournaments. It’s fun.”
Ivey has now won $2,880,100 from his recent performances in North Cyprus, where he is the current frontrunner on the series leaderboard with 1,725 points. Ivey added 384 points by winning Event #4.
“I feel much more present at the table,” Ivey said, talking about his current mindset and work-life balance. “It definitely has helped my game. In my 20s and 30s, I played so much all the time. It was just poker, poker, poker. There was no balance and I ended up, let’s say, paying the price for that. So now I try to keep in mind what’s important and what’s not.”
Now with more than $35,000,000 in career live tournament earnings according to HendonMob.com, Ivey is ranked seventh on poker’s all-time money list. This win allowed him to jump Cary Katz on that leaderboard and go from eighth to seventh, where he is only a few thousand dollars behind Jason Koon. Ivey is having one of his best years ever on the live tournament scene and could make it even better from here being as it’s only April. The $2,880,100 he’s cashed for this year is his fifth-best year for live tournament cashes and he’s within $1,000,000 of it being his best-ever year.
“The game is constantly changing and evolving and you have to be aware of these changes, and be aware of how the players think,” Ivey said. “Everyone’s individual and I think you get your advantages over time, playing consistently with the same group of players, and paying attention to what they’re doing, and you improve. You know, it’s never too late to really improve your game.”
Place | Player | Country | Prize |
1st | Phil Ivey | United States | $640,000 |
2nd | Ali Imsirovic | Bosnia and Herzegovina | $416,000 |
3rd | Joni Jouhkimainen | Finland | $256,000 |
4th | Eelis Parssinen | Finland | $176,000 |
5th | Dylan Weisman | United States | $112,000 |
Super High Roller Series Europe Event #4 took place at Merit Royal Hotel Casino & Spa in North Cyprus. The final table was live-streamed on PokerGO’s YouTube channel. The tournament had a $50,000 buy-in and drew 32 entries, generating a prize pool of $1,600,000. The top five finishes reached the money, with all players to cash earning PGT leaderboard points in addition to their cash prize.
Phil Ivey finished Day 1 of Event #4: $50,000 PLO in third chip position with seven players remaining. Only the top five finishers would make the money, meaning two players needed to go home before the field was in the money. First to bust on Monday was Tomas Ribeiro, falling in seventh place. Then it was Iakov Onuchin hitting the rail in sixth place to become the tournament’s “bubble boy.”
In the money, pot-limit Omaha wizard Dylan Weisman went out first. He was all in on the jack-nine-seven flop with ace-queen-eight-three against the king-queen-ten-four for Ivey. The turn was a four to give Ivey the lead. The river was a six to send Weisman to the rail with a $112,000 payday.
Finland’s Eelis Parssinen was next to bust, going out at the hands of Ali Imsirovic and taking home a $176,000 prize. That set up three-handed play between Ivey, Imsirovic, and the other Finnish player to reach the final table, Joni Jouhkimainen.
Jouhkimainen fell next, also hitting the rail at the hands of Imsirovic, and that set up the heads-up match between Ivey and Imsirovic. Imsirovic began the final duel with the chip lead, having 2,705,000 to Ivey’s 2,095,000, but things quickly went in Ivey’s direction.
Ivey quickly began picking up pot after pot against Imsirovic, grinding Imsirovic down to fewer than 1,000,000 chips and taking about a 4-1 chip advantage. From there, Ivey won even more chips. He first rivered a straight against Imsirovic’s set of sevens and Imsirovic was forced to fold the river. He then hit a set of jacks on the river against Imsirovic’s two pair.
Although Imsirovic did manage to find a double up after getting very short, the mountain of Ivey was too steep to climb.
On the final hand, the money went in on the queen-jack-three flop. Ivey had ace-ace-eight-four against Imsirovic’s king-queen-six-two. A four on the turn followed by a seven on the river gave Ivey the $640,000 triumph.
Phil Ivey extended his lead atop the Super High Roller Series Europe leaderboard further with the victory in Event #4: $50,000 Pot-Limit Omaha. He’s now in first place with 1,725 points and is nearly 1,000 points clear of anyone else. Andras Nemeth is second with 738 points.
The player that accumulates the most PGT leaderboard points throughout all events will win the Super High Roller Series Championship and a $25,000 championship bonus.
Rank | Player | Country | Points |
1 | Phil Ivey | United States | 1,725 |
2 | Andras Nemeth | Hungary | 738 |
3 | Winfred Yu | Hong Kong | 700 |
4 | Jason Koon | United States | 700 |
5 | Elton Tsang | Hong Kong | 653 |
6 | Mikita Badziakouski | Belarus | 633 |
7 | Tom Vogelsang | Netherlands | 616 |
8 | Laszlo Bujtas | Hungary | 606 |
9 | Lee Wai Kiat | Malaysia | 567 |
10 | Ivan Leow | Malaysia | 537 |
Looking ahead, Ivey plans to be in action for the remainder of Super High Roller Series Europe, which includes the $250,000 Super High Roller Bowl, and he plans to play his best.
“You know, it’s just a bigger buy-in tournament,” Ivey said. “I’m going to try my hardest. It doesn’t matter if it’s a smaller buy-in tournament or a big buy-in tournament. I’m just going to give it all that I’ve got.”
On the 2022 PokerGO Tour (PGT) leaderboard, Phil Ivey is now second with 1,725 points coming from two wins and five cashes. He trails only the player he beat in heads-up play to win Event #4, Ali Imsirovic. Imsirovic is in first place on the leaderboard with 1,839 points.
“There’s a lot of really, really good players out here now,” Ivey said of the top-level competition he faces on the PGT. “I took a lot of time off and it’s good to be back at it and get to business.”
The top 21 players as ranked on the PGT leaderboard will be invited to compete in a winner-take-all $500,000 freeroll at the end of the season to determine the PGT champion, with starting chips being determined by how many points are earned throughout the season.
Rank | Name | Points | Wins | Cashes | Earnings |
1st | Ali Imsirovic | 1,839 | 4 | 16 | $2,879,700 |
2nd | Phil Ivey | 1,725 | 2 | 5 | $2,880,100 |
3rd | Isaac Kempton | 1,375 | 0 | 3 | $1,297,464 |
4th | Alex Foxen | 1,295 | 2 | 12 | $1,629,002 |
5th | Tony Sinishtaj | 1,250 | 1 | 1 | $1,655,952 |
6th | Sean Winter | 1,217 | 2 | 10 | $1,855,100 |
7th | Sean Perry | 1,147 | 2 | 11 | $1,615,508 |
8th | Nick Petrangelo | 1,119 | 3 | 5 | $2,189,800 |
9th | Jeremy Ausmus | 1,049 | 2 | 9 | $1,216,100 |
10th | Alex Livingston | 886 | 0 | 5 | $917,599 |
Note: PokerGO Tour leaderboard accurate at the date of this article.
Click here to view the complete PokerGO Tour leaderboard.
Photo courtesy of Merit Poker.
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