Phil Ivey is already among the biggest poker losers in 2015, according to multiple industry reports.
His profile in the poker world has gained him a fair share of both notoriety and infamy. Most know that 2014 was a trying year for the pro, as he faced a highly publicized legal battle amid allegations of cheating.
But like any determined player, Ivey keeps diving into the game. Unfortunately, the first days of 2015 are seeing Ivey topping the list of online losers, with nearly $300,000 in the red already tilting his bank account.
New Year’s Red
According to the HighStakesDB, Ivey is 2015’s current biggest loser when factoring in both site and overall performance.
Using the screen name “RaiseOnce,” Ivey has lost $227,706 on PokerStars over the course of 27 sessions and 1,452 hands. His performance on Full Tilt has been slightly less harsh, losing $63,219 under the screen name “Polarizing” and making for a total online loss of $290,925.
2015’s second biggest loser is Norway’s Ola “Odd_Oddsen” Amundsgard who finds himself down $214,547 from 15 and 638 hands on PokerStars.
However, unlike Ivey, Amundsgard took the sting out of that major loss with $21,368 in winnings on Full Tilt, playing under his “no_Ola” moniker. Despite his entry into the biggest losers, Amundsgard pulled off winning the biggest hand of 2015 so far. In a $100/$200 pot-limit Omaha hand, he won $69,053.10 playing against Colombia’s Daniel “d2themfi” Isaacson.
The top five biggest losers are rounded out with “terryhsu” down $147,841 on PokerStars, “Jeans89” down $113,050 on PokerStars and “flong78” down $95,852 on PokerStars.
Big Winners
Even though we’re only two weeks deep into 2015, there have been some impressive hands played online.
While Russia’s “Trueteller” might not keep the record for long, he is currently the biggest winner of the year with $231,762 in profit, made across 22 sessions and 2,112 hands on PokerStars. A majority of Trueteller’s action was against Ivey, Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby, and “arabianights” at $1,000/$2,000 2-7 triple draw tables.
“AckmaJin” took the second place spot by gathering up a total of $140,345 in winnings on PokerStars over the course of 18 sessions and 1,054 hands. His biggest hand of $46,223.30 was won at the $100/$200 pot-limit Omaha tables playing against “EireAbu” and “ImagineKing”.
Daniel Isaacson completed the top three with $128,437 on PokerStars across 18 sessions and 805 hands.
Fourth place in 2015’s current biggest winners is “gunning4you” who made $121,608 in profit on PokerStars over 26 sessions and 2,740 hands. Kibler-Melby took fifth with $119,038 in winnings on Full Tilt over 5 sessions and 796 hands. With his Full Tilt profit and a PokerStars profit of $96,200, Kibler-Melby is actually the year’s second biggest overall winner with $215,238 in combined profit.
Falling Ivey
For Phil Ivey, January’s numbers don’t provide much relief from the bad luck the pro had at the close of 2014.
Ten days into December, Ivey was down $558,220, marking a less-than-stellar performance over the year. That loss in profit made him down nearly $2.5 million for the entire year and the second biggest loser in 2014, bested only by Gus Hansen, who found himself at $5.4 million in the red.
Of course, online losses can’t compare to the highly publicized cheating accusations Ivey faced against Crockfords Casino in May 2013.
In October 2014, a High Court in London ruled in favor of Crockfords, saying Ivey’s method of “edge sorting” in games of Punto Banco were considered cheating under civil law. Feeling that his £7.8 million ($12.4 million) shouldn’t be withheld, Ivey decided to appeal in November.
Whether or not his early streak of bad luck continues for the rest of the year remains to be seen.
