Phil Ivey down $5 million since Full Tilt Poker relaunch

Phil Ivey is widely considered the best player to ever play the game, his "Phil Ivey" account on Full Tilt Poker is the biggest cash game winner of all times, but ever since the return of Full Tilt Poker, he has lost over $5 million on his "Polarizing" account.

The original Phil Ivey account has $19 million in cash game winnings, and Ivey was way ahead of his fellow FTP Pro Patrik Antonius, who had $11 million in winnings, but after Black Friday, everything changed.

Ivey used to be one of the main faces of FTP, but after Black Friday, he left the company (this is why he needed a new screenname), and even skipped the WSOP, because he didn't feel it would be fair for him to play when a lot of players are waiting for their money.

After PokerStars bought and reopened FTP, Ivey jumped into the games straight away, but he has been unable to repeat the success of his original screename.

He has lost $2.2 million in 8-game mix, $1 million in PLO, $1.1 million in draw games, and roughly $500,000 in NL Holdem.

The two players responsible for most of his losses are Dan "jungleman12" Cates and Phil "OMGClayAiken" Galfond.

With the losses he racked up since Black Friday, he has lost the top spot for the biggest winner of all time in online cash games, which now belongs to Finnish high stakes legend Patrik Antonius, who has added almost $6 million in winnings to his resume since the return of Black Friday. This, combined with his $11 million winnings on the "Patrik Antonius" account (for a total of roughly $17 million) was enough to surpass Ivey, who now sits in second with approximately $14 million in winnings. 


Patrik Antonius

Antonius is crushing pretty much every game, since the FTP relaunch he won $1.6 million in NLHE, $750,000 in PLO, $2.9 million in FL Omaha Hi/Low, and $1.6 million in 8-game. The only variant where he didn't manage to make a profit are draw games, he lost about $670,000 there.

Antonius is one of the few players who managed to stay relevant in today's game, while many of the legendary high stakes cash game players seem to be unable to replicate their old results after Black Friday. Viktor "Isildur1" Blom has lost around $700,000 since the FTP relaunch, Tom "durrrr" Dwan has not played a single hand in almost 9 months (he' down only $240,000 since the relaunch), and of course we have to mention Gus Hansen, who has lost a whopping $16.3 million since the Full Tilt Poker relaunch.

While a big upswing is never out of the question for any of these players, more and more people are on the opinion that online cash games are in a new phase, where Game Theory Optimal (GTO) play and specializing/game selecting well are essential to success, and that the "old-school" pros are not able to adjust to the new environment.