Phil Ivey has been having a great year. After vanishing into the poker scene in Macau for a few years he returned to the U.S. in a big way thanks to COVID. He missed last year's series, for what are suspected to be vaccine-related reasons, before returning to poker this year with several high-roller victories.
This year has also seen Ivey have one of his runs at the World Series of Poker. He has managed to cash six times, converting four of those cashes into final tables, and converting one of those into second in Event #42: $100,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold’em.
Ivey's success at the WSOP has bumped his number of cashes up to a total of 13 for the year. With those finishes came another 751 points for the PGT Leaderboard. This moved him into first place just 15 points ahead of alleged cheat Jake Schindler. Schindler, in turn, sits right above alleged cheat Ali Imsirovic.
The pair of possible nogoodniks have been battling for first, along with Ivey, for a while now. Below them are high-roller regulars Stephen Chidwick and Alex Foxen.
All four of these players are within a similar 751-point bump of Ivey's pole position.
Ivey's successes at the WSOP have also got him to 6th place in the 2022 WSOP Player of the Year race. The POY leaderboard is currently topped by Daniel Zack.
Ivey's most recent success was making the final table of the WSOP $250,000 high roller. The event ultimately went to Alex Foxen, with Ivey taking 7th place.
Jeff Platt tweeted ahead of the streamed final table of the $250k event, "[Ivey is] looking for his 11th WSOP bracelet (and his first since 2014) in his fourth final table of this year's WSOP. A win puts him in second place in the race for POY... He also would move to fifth on the All-time Money List with a win."
It wasn't to be, but with a few weeks of WSOP left, there is still time for Ivey to win that bracelet, climb the POY rankings, and extend widen the gap between him and Schindler on the PokerGO Tour leaderboard.
Top 10 PokerGO Tour Leaderboard rankings
| Position | Player Name | Leaderboard Points |
# of Cashes (Wins) |
Total Payouts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Phil Ivey | 2,712 | 13 (2) | $5,345,709 |
| 2nd | Jake Schindler | 2,697 | 12 (4) | $7,097,533 |
| 3rd | Ali Imsirovic | 2,281 | 20 (6) | $3,566,356 |
| 4th | Alex Foxen | 2,066 | 15 (3) | $6,287,111 |
| 5th | Stephen Chidwick | 2,044 | 13 (1) | $4,592,268 |
| 6th | Daniel Dvoress | 1,955 | 9 (1) | $4,154,995 |
| 7th | Danny Tang | 1,893 | 10 (1) | $3,420,315 |
| 8th | Jason Koon | 1,833 | 10 (1) | $4,186,913 |
| 9th | Mikita Badziakouski | 1,710 | 6 (2) | $3,691,369 |
| 10th | Isaac Kempton | 1,429 | 4 (0) | $1,351,864 |
Featured image source: PokerGO
