It seems like every year Phil Ivey plays in the World Series of Poker, poker fans are waiting for him to win another gold bracelet. But for the last ten years, some of which he didn’t appear at the Series, nothing. On Thursday night, though, the man who many consider to be the greatest poker player of all time did it, winning the 2024 WSOP Event #29: $10,000 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Championship Six-Handed for his 11th career bracelet and a $347,440 first prize.
Ivey now sits alone in second place
The victory broke a long-standing tie on the all-time WSOP bracelet list with Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, and Erik Seidel, who joined that group with his 10th bracelet last year. Phil Ivey now sits alone in second place, still well behind Phil Hellmuth, who has racked up 17 WSOP bracelet wins.
The tournament was supposed to end on Monday, but it went so long that the final three players – Ivey, Danny Wong, and Jason Mercier – had to return on Tuesday to finish it up. Ivey made a couple comebacks three-handed: he was the short stack headed into the final day and he went into heads-up play against Wong down 5.315 million chips to 3.630 million.
But Ivey grabbed control quickly and Wong soon found himself short. Down to his last 250,000 chips, Wong stood pat with T-8 and Ivey drew one card, holding 7-7-5-4-3. He found a deuce to hit the wheel and finally had that 11th bracelet after a decade of waiting.
With the win, Ivey also extends his record for the most WSOP bracelets in non-Hold’em events. Whereas most of Hellmuth’s have been in Hold’em, every single one of Ivey’s 11 victories have come in non-Hold’em tournaments.