Phil Ivey Photo
Well I must admit, Janine and I are pretty avid Texas Hold’em players and fans, so when we learned that the Travel Channel was in Vegas for the WPT Mirage Poker Showdown - the first event of the next season - we had to check it out! We have been parking in the back of the Mirage and entering through a side entrance as it is much easier then dealing with the strip. Today on our way to the Mirage, we arrived at the same time as Phil Ivey! We even shared the same bench for about 5 minutes. For those who don’t know Phil, he is widely considered the best Texas Hold’em poker player in the world right now. We talked briefly, I wished him good luck, he asked if I was playing in the tournament. It was kind of funny - we haven’t even entered a $40 tournament on this trip, we certainly aren’t about to enter a $10,000 tournament, but it was nice he asked. He was actually very friendly.
The tournament is now down to 6 players, tomorrow the cameras will be rolling for the actual TV coverage. Ivey is currently the chip leader, it would be fun to see him win, especially now that we are practically best friends. I think Janine and I will stop by and watch a little of the coverage - heck at 3:00, the light isn’t that great anyway!
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:30 am
That’s really cool dude to meet someone you admire and get such a close-up of them in action. I didn’t realize that you could take pictures of people who are gambling. Phil Ivey looks younger than I thought he would.
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:52 am
You can’t - I shot really fast becuase I knew they would stop me - and they did.
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:59 pm
lol, sometimes I’m tempted to do the same thing.
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:51 pm
btw, I’m guessing you don’t have a Playstation 2, but there is this awesome Texas Hold ‘em game called Daniel Negreneau’s Stacked. I blieve it’s on PC as well. If you can do any damage in that game, then you’ve probably improved your game. It’s hard! I won a few small tournaments in that game, but stalled after a certain level of competition. You can also play online too.
May 23rd, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Hey Ron
You should know better than to shoot where you’re not supposed to shoot. next thing you’ll be getting too close to bears, and whatnot like that.
Nice to hear of your travels man - I never knew you and Janine were Poker fans.
Cheers
Carl
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:36 pm
That is funny Carl.
I’ll have to check that game out Richard - I have a different one for my PC that is a lot of fun and fairly challenging.
We watched the final coverage tonight - it was fascinating see all that goes into the making of the TV coverage. Phil ended up finishing 5th. Appearantly it will no longer be on the Travel Channel like I mention, but it will now on the game network - the 6th season that is.
Ron
May 26th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Phil Ivey? Ha, ….. I could take him!!
May 27th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Ron,
I can’t believe I missed this picture, Kathy told me about it, Nice shot. It would have been fun watching the players live.
May 28th, 2007 at 7:05 am
Hi Mike,
I thought of you when I posted this! It was really fun.
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