Phil Ivey is Good at Poker

I was cruising right along up over 100k in the tournament with little risk. I made one sick call in a hand where I was totally prepared to call a shove on the river: I raised with 77 from early position to 1400 with blinds at 300-600 (75) and the button called (internet player) as did the big blind. The flop came 10-10-8 with two hearts and I fired 2500, the button raised me 4200 more and didn’t buy it- so I called. The turn was a 2 and I check called 8600. Totally had the kid on complete air based on a physical tell I felt strongly about. River was a J, a seemingly bad card but it didn’t scare me all that much. I checked. he had about 22,000 and I’d already decided I was calling it if he bet. He gave it up and tapped the table. Ivey sat at my table, three to my left and doubled up the first hand against that same kid who made a bad play. Kid raised early with AK, I called button with 2s 3s and Ivey called in the BB. Flop was 10-8-6 and it got checked around. Turn was an Ace and Ivey fired out 9000. Key thing to not, is that Ivey only had about 20k. For him to bet 9000 you can take your AK and shove it, no chance it could be good. The kid pushed Ivey in and he called with A8 getting him up in chips and creating a monster that would dominate the rest onf the night. I was a bit handcuffed with Ivey on my left, plus I ceased to flop any pairs for the rest of the evening as my stack dwindled down to 0k or so before me making a comeback to 64k at the end of the day. Ivey was torturing people. I knew what he was up to- we’ve played a lot of poker so I “got it” if you will, but he won all the dead money, got paid on his big hands, and abused people who were trying to steal a pot from him. It was just ugly. It was like robbing people in broad daylight. Today I get a new table and hopefully I can get some work done without having to worry about Ivey on my left, at least till the final table 🙂 I mostly stayed out of his way after his stack grew. He was actually all in with JJ versus 88 on a flop of 8-9-10 but when a Jack hit the river he hit the 100k mark which made him even more of a threat. I was actually a bit tired also, so I decided to take the safe route. I did make two squeeze plays late, as I didn’t get any real hands so I attacked an Ivey limp with 97, then made a squeeze play with Jc 7c from the button. Anyway, I’m going to go putt for a while then head down to the Rio…]]>