Phil Ivey, arguably the greatest poker player ever, recently hit another major milestone in his glittering career when he claimed the number one spot in the all-time tournament earnings list.

He is currently battling it out at the 2010 Aussie Millions where he finished second in the AUD$100,000 Challenge, a tournament with a AUD$100,000 entry fee. The feat netted him AUD$600,000. This money, approximately $538,275, took his live tournament career earnings to $12,798,489, enough to oust Daniel Negreanu from the top spot.

It is a phenomenal achievement for Ivey, who is best known for playing the highest possible stakes in cash games both online and in the live arena, especially as he is only 34-years of age and should have a good thirty or forty years ahead of him.

Ivey had some great successes at the 2009 World Series of Poker, winning his sixth and seventh WSOP bracelet and a reported $10,000,000 in prop bets from his fellow professionals. He also came agonisingly close to winning his first bracelet in a No-limit Hold’em event when he finished seventh from 6,494 entrants in the $10,000 Main Event for a cool $1,404,014 – the second largest win of his career.

When he is not hoovering up tournament chips, Ivey can be found taking the money of all comers at the cash tables. A regular at “The Big Game”, where the blinds are often $4,000/$8,000, Ivey has won countless millions over the years thanks to his trademark aggression and unnatural hand reading ability.

Many will say his crowning moment was when he and a group of professional poker players calling themselves “The Corporation” took on billionaire businessman Andy Beal in a series of heads-up fixed-limit Hold’em matches with blinds set at an astronomical $25,000/$50,000. After three days of play Ivey confirmed his place as the most-feared cash game player on the planet by winning a reported $16,000,000 from Beal, forcing him to quit poker.

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Tags: Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 3:44 pm and is filed under Poker Player News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.