Yorky Pud

You may recall that back in May a certain Phil Ivey made the shock announcement that he was in the process of launching legal action against his former sponsors and employers to some degree, Full Tilt Poker. In his statement to the press Ivey said he would not be participating at the 2011 World Series of Poker and he was true to his word.

Several months after the statement there had been no sightings of the man who is widely regarded as the best poker player on the planet and some say that has ever lived. That was until today when Ivey walked into the Casino Grand Lisboa where the Asia Pacific Poker Tour Macau Main Event is being held.

Last year Ivey was one of many big-name poker stars who headed to Macau in order to play in some ultra high stakes cash games with rich Hong Kong-based businessmen so it was expected that rumours of Ivey's return started to surface over the past couple of day. It did look like the rumours were exactly that but as the tournament clocked ticked over into Level 2 Ivey entered the tournament area, took his seat in the middle of the room and got straight back into business.

According to PokerNews who are reporting on the APPT Macau Main Event, Ivey did not engage in much conversation but there were not many people who attempted to talk to the Tiger Woods of Poker. Instead he sat with his headphones on, his mobile phone in one hand and was picking up chips for most of the day. At one point Ivey found himself up amongst the chipleaders but he lost a few pots late on and he bagged up 51,200 chips when the dust had settled on Day 1a so will still be in contention when Day 2 kicks off on Friday.

Should Ivey at least make it through to the money places it will be the super star's first cash in a live tournament since he finished in 80th place at the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic back in December 2010. Not that a lack of cashes will bother Ivey as he has eight WSOP bracelets, a World Poker Tour titles,lifetime winnings of almost $14,000,000 more than that in online cash game profits and countless more millions from live cash games. I for one think it is excellent that Ivey is back in action at the felt and hopefully he will get back to dominating the live arena as soon as possible.