Phil Ivey is one of the most successful poker players of all time, he has accomplished more than just about any other player in the history of the game. He is best known for what he has done at the World Series of Poker where has managed to pick up five bracelets over the course of his career. He has fame is all the greater because so much of his success occurred at such an early age that he was always the center of attention.

Phil Ivey grew up in New Jersey after moving there from California when he was small. He learned how to play poker at home where his grandfather taught him to play. This naturally led to games with his friends and eventually to cash games in back rooms. While he was still in high school Ivey got a fake ID and headed to the casinos of Atlantic City. At the same time he worked as a telemarketer to help bankroll his poker play. This proved to be a necessary skill to have as he would end up losing a lot of money when he first started playing in casinos so he would need the telemarketing income.

After spending a few years losing pretty regularly in the casinos of Atlantic City Phil Ivey would eventually figure out the game. By the time he was twenty one and actually allowed to play in the casinos he was winning pretty consistently. This naturally enough led to playing in poker tournaments which is where he would make his name. His breakout came in 2000 when he won a World Series of Poker bracelet and made the final table in another event. In 2002 he would have his biggest success when he won three bracelets.

Given how fast he got to five WSOP bracelets and how young he was when he won them it was just assumed that Phil Ivey would go on to become the leader in all time bracelets, this didn’t happen however. After winning five bracelets in his first five years he has not won one since. The reason for this is that he really doesn’t play in very many tournaments anymore and the ones that he does are usually invitation only events rather than the WSOP.

Although Phil Ivey doesn’t spend a lot of time playing tournaments he has not given up on poker. Instead he has started to focus on playing in cash games. A lot of the top pros do this because they find it to be more profitable. It also allows him to stay home in Las Vegas and not have to travel around the world playing in tournaments. Instead the people who want the chance to take on the best players in the world come to Las Vegas to play him.

The game? $2,500 No Limit Hold ‘Em, of course. The big win? $506,786.

This even marked day three of the WSOP. Twenty players started out, all of them competing for more than half a million bucks, the gold bracelet, and some serious bragging rights. The game only took around seven and a half hours from start to finish. At the end, only one man remained standing: Keven “Stammdogg” Stammen. This is Stammen’s very first World Series bracelet.

He was certainly facing some fierce competition. Among the twenty returning players were Kirill Gerasimov, Phil Ivey, and Roland de Wolfe. Sadly, all three of them fell fairly early in the game and it only took three hours for twenty to have been whittled down to ten.

Even then, Stammen’s victory wasn’t a sure thing. He was still competing against chip leader Bahador Ahmadi and Torrey Reily, who amazingly managed to play his short stack into an astounding six figure score.

Still, they all ultimately fell, and Stammdogg emerged victorious.