Early Tuesday morning the world’s best poker player took down another World Series of Poker title in Event #37: $3,000 HORSE. Phil Ivey defeated a stacked final table full of mixed-game specialists as well as a large chip deficit once heads-up play began. Ivey is a co-owner and major player on FullTilt where he participates in nosebleed HORSE, PLO, and Texas Hold’em cash games on a daily basis.  His previous seven bracelets came in a variety of games including Pot-Limit Omaha, Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo, SHOE, Seven Card Stud, NL 2-7 Lowball, and OE. He currently has more than $13,000,000 in career earnings on the live tournament circuit to go along with more than $15,000,000 in earnings from FullTilt cash games. Ivey took home $329,840 for the title and probably a lot more in WSOP bracelet prop bets where he reportedly made quite a sum by winning two in 2009.  Those bets might take a bit of sting out of his near miss in the 2009 WSOP Main Event where he was part of the November Nine but was unable to take down Joe Cade and others for the most prestigious crown in poker.

The final eight had many WSOP bracelet winners including the 2009 WSOP Player of the year Jeffrey Lisandro, two-time WSOP bracelet winner Bill Chen, PokerStars professional Chad Brown, and 3-time bracelet winner and 2008 WSOPE Main Event champion John Juanda.  Nearly 500 players ponied up the $3,000 entry fee including other big names in poker such as Tom “Durrrr” Dwan, David Benyamine, Scott Seiver, and many others.

Ivey found himself heads-up against a limit specialist in Bill Chen whose previous two bracelets came back in 2006 where he won the $2,500 SH NL Hold’em and $3,000 Limit Hold’em events for more than $775,000 in combined prize money. At one point Chen had Ivey down to just 6 Big Bets but was unable to finish off the relentless professional who immediately won a handful of pots in a row in the Hold’em and Omaha Hi/Lo games and flipped the chips in his advantage. Another hour of play was all it took before Ivey finally won during the Razz round when his 6-5 low was good enough to beat Chen’s 7-6 for the title. The final table pay-outs can be found below:

2010 WSOP Event #37 $3,000 HORSE
478 Entrants; 48 places paid

1. Phil Ivey $329,840
2. Bill Chen $203,802
3. John Juanda $129,553
4. Kenneth Aldridge $93,418
5. Jeffrey Lisandro $68,417
6. Dave Baker $50,871
7. Albert Hahn $38,391
8. Chad Brown $29,406