Phil Ivey wins first-ever live Short Deck Tournament

Here’s a poker player who is often referred to as one of the best in the world and has several live cashed in excess of a million dollars each, across a career spanning close to 20 years. USA’s Phil Ivey has over $24 million in live poker cashes but it’s safe to say that he hasn’t been having the best of times in the last couple of years, including losing a court battle of millions of dollars in the London edge sorting case.

The first-ever live Short Deck tournament took place at the Maestral Resort & Casino in Budva, Montenegro, and Phil Ivey won this event, returning to the spotlight and registering his first live cash since January 2016. The tournament was the opening event of the 2018 Triton Super High Roller Series and Ivey received a payday of HKD 4,749,200 (~$604,977) for this win.

The ante-only tournament had a buy in of HKD 250k and it attracted a total of 61 entries which created a prize pool of HKD 14,347,200. Nine players were paid out with a minimum cash prize of HKD 473,000 and Ivey took home the biggest prize, marking his first live tournament victory since Event #21 in the 2015 Aussie Millions.

He went into heads up against countryman Daniel Cates and the master displayed a strong set of skills that saw him overcome a 1:4 chip deficit to win the title. What’s more is that it was just the first event in Montenegro and he is excited to do well in the rest of the series as well.

Final results:

Phil Ivey – HKD 4,749,200
Dan Cates – HKD 3,199,000
Gabe Patgorski – HKD 1,937,000
Jason Koon – HKD 1,334,000
Furkat Rakhimov – HKD 918,000
Ivan Leow – HKD 689,000
Alan Sass – HKD 560,000
Wai Kin Yong – HKD 488,000
Mikhail Smirnov – HKD 473,000

“I am looking forward to the events with bigger prize pools and hope to win some more,” said Ivey about this win and about the rest of the series in Montenegro. Three more events are set to take place at the 2018 Triton Super High Roller Series and GutshotMagazine.com will bring you updates from all those events, so stay tuned.