Breaking News: Phil Ivey Closing in on Elusive 11th WSOP Bracelet Tonight

June 20, 2022

Only one poker player in history — Phil Hellmuth — has reached the 11 World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet plateau. On Monday, Phil Ivey could join one of poker’s most exclusive clubs.

The for-now 10-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner is currently sitting on a large stack with five players remaining in Event #42: $100,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold’em, which slated to play down to a winner tonight.

Ivey on the Brink of WSOP Glory

As it stands, Hellmuth is the record holder with 16 bracelets, followed by Ivey, Johnny Chan, and Doyle Brunson tied at 10.

The $100k was originally scheduled to wrap up with the final table on Tuesday, airing on PokerGO, but PokerGO called an audible and decided to livestream the final table tonight. At the time of publishing, the remaining players were on a dinner break and will come back at 7 p.m. to play it down to a winner, who will receive $1,897,363. Coverage on PokerGO will resume at 8 p.m., along with PokerNews’ live reporting updates.

Follow updates from Ivey’s final table here!

With the blinds at 60,000/120,000, Ivey currently sits at 9,075,000, approximately 75 big blinds, good for second in chips. Aleksejs Ponakovs, an online poker crusher, is the chip leader at 14,450,000 and has been dominating play during Monday’s Day 2 session.

$100k Final Table Chip Counts

Place	Player	Chip Stack
1	Aleksejs Ponakovs	14,450,000
2	Phil Ivey	9,075,000
3	Ben Heath	5,825,000
4	Michael Moncek	4,540,000
5	Gregory Jensen	4,200,000

Ivey’s 11th bracelet has been a long time coming for one of the all-time greats. It may be hard to believe but it’s been eight years since the Poker Hall of Famer last won a WSOP title. His most recent bracelet came in 2014 in a $1,500 8-game mix event in which he won $166,986.

Ivey was all in and in trouble on the last hand before the dinner break against Jensen. Holding in the small blind and facing a raise to 350,000 from Heath, the poker legend jammed for 4,300,000, but Jensen woke up with in the big blind and snap-called.

The flop came out , no help whatsoever for Ivey. But the turn completely changed around the complexity of the hand, and the river gave the 10-time bracelet winner a double-up to stay alive.