It takes a very long time to learn how to play all the mixed games. It takes about 5 minutes to learn how to play holdem.

Which option do you think appeals more to a recreational player?

Friend of mine played with Ivey on day 3 of the main.

Ivey min-raises the CO, and the bb shoved 7 or 8 bb vs Phil, got back to phil and he tanked for a little bit.

He calls with A2, cracks the kids AJ or something.

He then looks to my friend on his immediate left after the busted guy leaves and is like "am I supposed to call there? I think that's a call. I don't know, but you guys know. Is that a call?"

cosign

This, I believe this is the biggest factor in what makes ivey so good that people don't realize. his adaptation is unreal in not only figuring out what your doing but developing the most exploitive strategy to counter. Call it a gto style or not but hes definately the quickest and most accurate in this sense. As far as him asking about if calling off w A2 is correct just seems like an example of an old school guy looking to add some math elements to his game ie negraneu back in the day. Believe it or not theres more than one way to win at poker and math isnt the only route and certainly not or never was in iveys game.

Who cares? Wtf does it matter?

Worry about your own game.

I wonder if the reason he asked the question was to get other people to reveal how much they know or how they think.

It isn't only a maths question though unless the BB is a GTO bot, it depends a lot on how the BB has been playing. If there is a possibility he is pushing with anything weaker than a pair or medium ace then it is call. Even with a 3-outer it is close to good enough pot odds but not quite.

But with some players -and this may include someone wanting to ladder at the main event - they really aren't doing it with anything A3 is better than a 30-70 dog against and you are only getting 6-11 on the call (assuming 8 BBs and the antes/SB are worth another BB) - once you start putting things like QJs in his range it changes a lot though.

I assume someone already said this, but:

1. Are you aware that No Limit Texas Holdem is only one of many poker variants?

2. He was not being read like a book last year. You thinking this hurts your argument a lot actually.

I won a tournament yesterday too. Not that I'm as good as Ivey. Just that the won a tournament recently thing doesn't seem to carry a terribly large amount of water.

27:10

Cool. Now sit those guys down with Ivey in the big mixed games he plays live. Or at a super high roller final table.

Ivey was dominant chip leader in Main on day 3. If he truly was all he is cracked up to be, he'd still be there and positioned for final table. But the dude totally spazzed out and was busto by the end of the day.

If you can't manhandle a table when you have the biggest stack in the room, how can you legitimately be considered the best?

Ha!

I'd put my money on the likes of Dan Smith, Joseph Cheong, etc. over this guy Ivey any day of the week - and twice on Sundays.

Pretty weak level ^

hm...interesting...i don't actually share the same opinion, though

This

Ivey is still competitive as hell of for GOAT. He's in the conversation for Braclets for sure. I think you mean he's slipping, and probably just online.

Ivey is going to be devastated when he finds out you don't think hes the best :/

.........

Spoken by someone who will never win a bracelet in his life.

Most of the guys who do well in the Main Event are hardly ever heard of again.

All of the famous poker pros have went bust in Main Event and you would put the guys who are still there now ahead of them?

So you have to always do well in the Main Event???

You judge poker players solely on how well they do in the Main Event, when Ivey would crush all those guys in a cash games.

You just have a personal dislike of Ivey.

Ivey has 10 bracelets and is ranked SECOND in terms of total winnings of more than $21,400,000 and he's not the best???

Every poker player has their weaknesses but Phil Ivey is the best OVERALL poker player in the world.

I know I will get a lot of hate for saying this but I actually think Isildur is one of the best overall players. He's good at plo, decent at holdem, great at 2-7, good at omaha 8, got some sick mtt scores when you take into account how few he plays and is one of the best online mixed game players (and maybe the best hu).

Lego, you have 20k posts and can't tell that was a level? Smh

Ivey tha best around.. saw him pull a amazing bluff once. Will never forget that.

I remember a few years ago everyone said ben lamb was the best player in the world, how's he been doing in tourneys lately? Welcome to variance-ville. It doesn't matter how good you are there's a ridiculous amount of luck involved in poker, in particular in tournaments with 7,000 players, 6,000 of which all grasp the concept of poker theory and now know that aj, at, kj, kt, jq, <99 are trash in early position. This wasn't the case 15 years ago, the players have absolutely improved.

Hang on... WHO was saying this a few years ago?

Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt Benba is a great overall poker player, but it seems only a handful of people — e.g. those who only follow the game via ESPN telecasts of the WSOP — would have pegged him at No. 1.

Jungle has had massive success in one area and Phil Ivey has had incredible success in just about every type of gambling, including games that are supposed to have a house edge.

There's probably a few types of structures in a few types of games where Jungle would have a big edge against a competitive Ivey, and Ivey could probably lose significant money to Jungle in those select scenarios because of ego.

However there is a massive # of games and structures where Ivey would probably have massive edge against Jungle where Jungle just wouldn't even be competitive. And he's absolutely a sharper gambler overall. I'd lay 2:1 that Ivey could make more money on prop bets in a weekend than Jungleman could in an entire year.

This goes for basically everyone you listed as better than Ivey but especially Jungleman.