Simply amazing! Phil Ivey won his 10th WSOP gold bracelet on Friday night in the $1,500 Eight-Game Mix tournament! Besides the bracelet and the $166,986 prize money, Ivey won considerably more in side bets made on the proposition of him or Daniel Negreanu winning a bracelet this year!
"It's number ten. That's a good number," Ivey said afterward. "Me and Daniel [Negreanu] made these bets. That's what I'm talking about. I said either me or him were going to win [a gold bracelet] and we took even money. Me and him were both very deep in this tournament. This was a great opportunity. The tournaments are dying down. There's not too many left. I knew I had to get this one, or else it was going to be pretty tough from here."
With his latest win in the $1,500 Eight-Game Mix, Ivey has won as many bracelets as poker legends such as Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson. The latter is someone Phil Ivey spoke warmly of when interview by WSOP.com
"Doyle is one of my poker idols. When I first game to Las Vegas, him and Chip [Reese], we were all playing poker, so it's very meaningful to tie him," Ivey said. "It's not too fair of a race because he doesn't play too many tournaments anymore. I'm in there playing a lot of them. I just got finished playing with Doyle last week...we played for 12 hours and he's still as sharp as he can be. Yes, it's meaningful."
Now when the 38-year-old (Ivey) is tied with Brunson and Chan, the next goal should be to catch up with 13-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth...
"Do I think I can catch Phil Hellmuth? Sure, I think I can catch him," Ivey responded when asked about the ongoing gold bracelet race. "It's possible. We just have to see how it goes. I just have to keep in playing at this pace. I got to keep playing a lot of them because he [Hellmuth] plays a lot of them, so it's a lot of work."
Players: 485
Prize pool: $654,750
1st: Phil Ivey- $166,986
2nd: Bruce Yamron- $103,162
3rd: Dan Heimiller- $66,110
4th: Aaron Steury- $44,195
5th: Stephen Chidwick- $30,426
6th: Yuebin Guo- $21,592
7th: Christopher Haller - $15,720
