Phil Ivey crushes Million Dollar Cash Game

Phil Ivey crushes Million Dollar Cash Game

By Arthur Crowson

Let's just be honest here. If you had to stake your entire bankroll on one player in a cash game, you would pick Phil Ivey 99.5% of the time.

Ivey proved his dominance in the cash-game format yet again these past two days at the 2008 Full Tilt Poker Million Dollar Cash Game in London.

The stone-faced Ivey absolutely destroyed his competition at the big game and ended up winning over $500,000, which guaranteed him the FullTiltPoker.com Million Dollar Cash Game trophy for the second time since the event started in 2006.

Perhaps most impressive is the fact that Ivey was able to bank more than $500,000 against players like Team Full Tilt-ers Gus Hansen, Mike Matusow, Patrik Antonius, David Benyamine, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, John Juanda, Andy Bloch, Eli Elezra and a few outside big-name players like Phil Hellmuth and Tom "durrrr" Dwan.

Some of the highlight reel hands included one where Ivey flopped a set of threes against Ferguson's pocket aces in a $531,000 pot. In another hand Ivey made Matusow fold the second-nut flush on the river to a stone-cold bluff.

It wasn't all bad for Matusow, however, as he actually walked away from the game a $130,000 winner. John Juanda also did all right for himself by taking home $69,000.

On the other side of things, Hellmuth and Antonius were rumored to have lost close to $200,000 each.

The only other player to win the FullTiltPoker.com Million Dollar Cash Game trophy is Tony G, who won $223,000 in the 2007 edition of the game. Ivey nearly won that year too but had to settle for second overall with a $101,100 profit.