The Story of Phil Ivey

The story of Phil Ivey is a very interesting one. Presently Phil Ivey is one of the most respected and talented poker players in the world. Interestingly, he used to be a sucker at poker tables during his earlier times. He was known to be extremely terrible at the poker tables. However now, he’s won seven WSOP bracelets and about $12 million by way of his tournament wins.
During younger times, 17 year old Ivey used to use a fake ID under the name of Jerome Graham to sneak into Atlantic City card rooms. Then on he started building himself up for bigger games. Since very young times he was known to for his unblinking stare, now known as the ‘Ivey Stare’. And he was noticed during one such game by Negreanu, a Canadian native known as a close friend of Ivey.
Then came the much talked about phase of Ivey’s life. Here he and Negreanu joined hands with Allen Cunningham and John Juanda. The four them then stated travelling the gambling circuit together. And throughout this time they’d deconstruct their plays and strategies. This alliance paid off highly in favorof Ivey and helped him make his game much better than before.
Ivey then started playing stud games. He never attended tournaments, instead he played studs and succeeded in building up a pretty good bankroll for himself.
In the year 2000, he started announcing himself as a major tournament talent. By this time he had won his first WSOP bracelet and had moved really high in the card games. His far increasing repute always preceded him. Where ever he went, even the most talented and high rolling players seemed to be wary of him.