On Thursday, Phil Ivey ended a decade-long World Series of Poker drought and made history by winning his 11th career gold bracelet in the $10,000 Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw Championship.
It broke a long-standing tie at 10 WSOP gold bracelets, where poker legends Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, and Erik Seidel remain tied. Ivey now stands alone in second place on the WSOP All-Time Bracelets list, behind only 17-time WSOP winner Phil Hellmuth.
“I still get fired up for World Series of Poker events,” Ivey said shortly after his victory. “Now I have a family and other things that I value more than poker. But I still love it.”
Thursday’s victory is all the more impressive in light of what happened on Day 3 of the tournament. While Ivey was three-handed against Danny Wong and Jason Mercier, he was reduced to just one big bet before spinning his way back into contention.
The tournament was extended to a fourth day after hitting a time limit on Day 3. Wong returned with the chip lead, and both he and Ivey chopped down Mercier to reach heads-up play. As Ivey and Wong battled for the bracelet, it was all one-way traffic as Ivey quickly erased Wong’s lead and then ran away with it in a hurry.
The last time Ivey won a WSOP gold bracelet was in 2014 when he won a $1,500 8 Game Mix event. He cashed 29 times in WSOP events since that win, but he’s taken several long hiatuses from tournaments in recent years. There were several close calls during a busy schedule at the 2022 WSOP, with four final table appearances, a second-place finish, and a third among his results. An abbreviated 2023 WSOP schedule saw Ivey make two additional final tables in just three total cashes.
Since March, though, Ivey’s been back into the tournament swing as he’s traveled the world. In his busiest WSOP in years thus far, his victory on Thursday was Ivey’s seventh cash of the summer already.
“It’s nice to win,” Ivey said. “Nice to be consistently playing poker again, which I haven’t done in quite some time. I played a couple of Tritons, I played a WPT in Korea, and now the World Series [of Poker] so I feel like I’m getting better, getting back into the swing and hopefully, you know, we’ll keep it up.”
Outside of two Pot Limit Omaha titles, each of Ivey’s 11 wins have come in different tournament formats, and none of them have been No Limit Hold’em. With his victory over Wong, his heads-up record in WSOP bracelet events is now 11-5.
Ivey is in the pole position to push towards Hellmuth’s record of 17, and all indications seem to point towards Ivey maintaining a continued stretch of high tournament volume over the next month. If that is the case, it seems unlikely Ivey will have to wait another 10 years for No. 12.
For now, he’s just happy to have an opportunity for more shots at a bracelet.
“I’ll just keep playing,” said Ivey. “I’ll keep showing up, playing, performing and hopefully winning. I’m motivated. If I can play, I will.”