It’s been 10 years since Phil Ivey last won a bracelet, a drought that could come to an end Wednesday.
The Poker Hall of Famer has reached the final table in Event #29: $10,000 Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw Championship (6-Handed), and he’s hoping to capture his 11th World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet.
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Poker Legend to End Bracelet Drought?
The last time Ivey won a WSOP title was 2014 in a $1,500 8-Game Mix event, years before the series moved from the Rio to Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. From 2000 to 2014, he secured 10 bracelets, the most anyone has ever won over a 15-year period. Phil Hellmuth, of course, holds the record (17) for most WSOP bracelets lifetime.
Hellmuth’s record may never be touched as Ivey, Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, and Erik Seidel are all tied for a distant second place (10). But if the cards go Ivey’s way on Wednesday, he could move out of a second place tie and sit alone in that position.
Ivey, whom many argue is the greatest poker player of all-time, has had an up-and-down Day 3. He began the session fifth in chips out of 13 remaining players, but lost three-fourths of his stack early in the session before grinding his way back near the top of the leaderboard as the final table began.
It’s been an otherwise slow summer for poker’s three most popular mainstream stars — Ivey, Hellmuth, and Daniel Negreanu. The trio had combined for exactly zero final table appearances entering Wednesday’s action. Negreanu, like Ivey, has a lengthy bracelet drought — 11 years.
Ivey is the only player ever with 10 bracelets in events that were not of the no-limit hold’em variety. He has 85 cashes in bracelet events and $45 million in lifetime live tournament earnings, according to The Hendon Mob.
For the poker legend to finish it off at the final table, he’ll have to beat a tough table that includes six-time bracelet winner Jason Mercier, and five-time winner Benny Glaser, the defending champion in the $10k 2-7 event.
At the time of publishing, seven players remained, all chasing the bracelet and the $347,440 first place prize. Ivey was sitting on around 1.7 million in chips, while Mercier was chip leading at a bit more. Every player still in the field is guaranteed at least $42,625. The tournament will play down to a winner on Wednesday.
