Congratulations to one of the world’s most skilled poker players, Phil Ivey, who on Friday night earned his tenth World Series of Poker bracelet, placing him in the august company of legends Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan, and edging him closer to all-time record bracelet holder Phil Hellmuth.
Ivey achieved his latest honour playing heads up against his long-time friend and retired Florida jeweller Bruce Yamron in event 50, a $1,500 buy-in Eight Game Mix competition that attracted a field of 485 players and created a prize pool of $654,750.
Ivey’s tenth bracelet coincides with the tenth anniversary this year of the Rio as venue for the annual prestigious WSOP tournament.
Day 3 of the event saw 14 survivors taking their seats, with Ivey in great form holding the third biggest chip stack. He immediately set to work climbing up the leaderboard, and was chip leader among the unofficial final table of eight players when Daniel Negreanu busted out at ninth.
By heads up Ivey and Yamron were pretty much even in chip stacks, but Ivey quickly scored a major pot that put him firmly in control, and he never really looked back after that, steadily taking his opponent’s chips despite a commendable fighting response from the retired jeweller.
The end came in the Omaha Eight or Better round, when Yamron was unable to improve against Ivey’s two-pair and was sent to the cashier for a second placing prize of $103,375.
Ivey scooped up that precious tenth bracelet and $167,332 in first prize cash.
The rest of the final table fared thus:
Dan Heimiller $66,246
Aaron Steury $44,286
Stephen Chidwick $30,426
Yuebin Guo $21,592
Christoph Haller $15,720
Alexander Rocha $11,750