pretty sure that dude is a fish, having played PLO against online a bunch.

Ivey has won more money at limit holdem (HU) than anyone else and with higher bb/100 than anyone else. There is no edge anyone has ever had over him at limit holdem (HU).

Antonius was beating the best players at medium and high limit games some ten years ago already and no one has shown himself having an edge over him at limit holdem, not even short handed.

Hawrilenko was beaten by those two players that better and better adjusted to his style. Hawrilenko was stupid enough to play with a short roll and lost all his winnings playing higher than he ever had before.

IHateJuice (from Japan) was beating his way fast up at hu, like Hawrilenko did, but couldn't beat 10-20 lh sh (Hawrilenko also was weaker at sh), and the higher games didn't get going as he got scared.

There hasn't been all that much tough action at those levels but there isn't much of a possibility that anyone would ever beat Ivey and Antonius at limit holdem (HU) for more than a short period, counting out a bot that's not making mistakes and plays in a way that it can't lose (though not win either against a perfect player, just that humans make mistakes, and badly adjust to the bot when its changing its strategies).

Hoss was still up in terms of BB's versus Ivey, though. The trouble with playing higher and higher versus someone who has virtually an infinite bankroll is that you're bound to hit a rough patch at some point. I don't think we should anoint Ivey as king based on a few thousand hands played a while back on what turned out to be a pretty shady site he had a large ownership stake in.

My own view is that Ivey has some pretty bad leaks in HUHU, especially with c-betting, to crown him king of the poo-flingers.

who is our king, then?

I guess there is no king when it comes to huhu lhe


philnewall@ is your screenname public? I know you are a highstakes player and hu specialist (even read your book), but still talking about ivey leaks seems kinda funny since there are very few people who actually played with him (I'd guess you're not one of them)

Where do you get that the site was shady?

the king is dead, long live the king.

No I never played him. However, I never saw him check the flop behind no matter how exploitively his opponent played.

Black Friday?

Why are you accusing Ivey of possibly cheating on Full Tilt in his Hoss match? Hasn't Ivey always played pretty much anyone at his main games, including live? Assuming he is indeed Raiseonce on Stars, doesn't he continue to play anyone at hu LHE? Or do you suspect him of somehow cheating on Stars too? This sounds like NVG caliber conspiracy nonsense.

On Stars, Chung Ho and KPR are the only 2 who have shown any interest in playing Raiseonce at 1k/2k. I am pretty sure KPR is well behind in the match. Chung Ho hardly plays him because Raiseonce tends to sit out too often for his taste. Nobody else plays him despite his alleged leaks.

Do you think it is possible that Ivey cbets 100% for a good reason? He excels at plenty of games that require checking back flops. He obviously understands the concept. Some things that he may believe that would lead to a 100% flop cbet strategy:

1) Human opponents play poorly against flop cbets... most likely he feels that they fold too much + c/r and c/c incorrectly.
2) He feels he has a massive edge against his opponents. When your opponent is weak, you want to give them as many opportunities to make bad decisions as possible. Checking back flops lets them off the hook.
3) Ivey is known to be very into poker psychology. For example, he rarely continues to play if he loses a certain amount in a match to make sure he is at 100% and not on tilt. Perhaps he wants his opponent to feel like Ivey is constantly in his face and winning pots to break him psychologically, and feels that this is more important than the small theoretical edge he gains from checking back some flops.

I think it is silly that people are so quick to call out Ivey for his leaks when he is obviously an extremely successful nosebleed hu LHE player. Why are people so focused on tearing him down instead of attempting to learn from him?

If he has such obvious leaks, get yourself or someone you respect staked and go beat him down at Stars 1k/2k when the WSOP is over. There are enough of you who claim he is overrated and leaky that you should have no problem pooling your money together to pwn him. But you know what? That's not going to happen. When it comes right down to it, everyone is afraid.

So keep studying bot play as you worship the retired Hoss. In the meantime, Ivey continues to play the best humans in the world. Ivey is king until proven otherwise.

I think most of the things you say are false, including the last statement

From what i read/heard the reason few HU LHE experts dont want to play PI has little to do with his insane poker skills but more to do with his sitting out tendencies.
Get PI to actually 100% certainly stick around for 6 hours and i bet there would be a lot of guys in line to take stabs at him.

and imo there is definitely a non-zero chance his play on FTP wasnt legit. To say otherwise seems very naive. He also from what i know doesnt have impress results at all at any other sites online than just FTP

Well, this sounds like bs. It could be an excuse if these guys had very little to no edge over him, otherwise I don't see how it would stopped them from playing. They would wait all day just to play an hour or so. Not to mention that I saw him playing a standard lenght sessions, 6 hours is rather long.

By that I don't mean that he's the best, tbh I think we're able to point out few best players and discussing who is best from that few is pointless since they either don't play each other or if they do it's not nearly enough hands to make any conclusions

I think there's a huge gap between the problems FTP had and some kind of superuser thing. Trying to imply something by stating he never played at another site back then is kinda stupid imo. That way any sponsored pro at any site is suspect.
The fact he wants to play anyone at stars too is imo enough prove nothing changed for him.

There's surely some people that won't play him because of his sitting out tendencies, but the players that did play him say he's (one of) the best.
If those tendencies don't make him 'king', it's prolly PA who's king.

As has already been mentioned, hu specialists sit by themselves doing nothing like 95% of the time. Since when do these guys require long sessions? Most log like 5k hands in a good month. I don't see why Ivey's sitting out would stop them unless he is buttoning, which I have never seen or heard of him doing. Also, he does play long sessions with KPR. And even though he sits out a lot, he will continue the match another time.

On the Hoss match, the point is that it is wrong to accuse players of cheating with no evidence. It's a pretty simple concept. There's a non-zero chance that you and I cheat too.

What cash games does Ivey even play anymore? I havent seen him in any nosebleed games the whole WSOP this year. He's not playing online anymore right?

This might be a good thread for Hasu to chime in on, although I'm not sure if there's much more for him to add beyond the PokerStatic interview.