Yorky Pud

To many people Phil Ivey is the epitome of poker player. He is well-respected, completely feared at the poker table, hugely successful and widely regarded as the best poker player to have ever lived, but none of that counts for anything in the courtroom so it seems.

Almost two year to the date Ivey and his wife of seven years, Luciaetta, were sadly divorced which lead to the poker community speculating on how Ivey's estate would be divided up. Those details have now come to light thanks to a report in the Las Vegas Review Journal who have been following a court case between the estranged couple.

According to the report the former Mrs Ivey received a purse collection valued at $1,200,000 that would have made Imelda Marcos jealous, more than $1,000,000 worth of jewellery, her car, her life insurance policy, 40 percent of a stock account. A down payment on a new home, half the proceeds from the sale of their former marital homes, 40 percent of all business interests "with the exception of Tiltware, LLC" the parent company of Full Tilt Poker and $180,000 per month in alimony!

Along with all of the above Ivey also agreed to take on the $170,000 worth of credit card debt and more than $15,100,000 in what was only described as "gambling and other debt." So Luciaetta walks away with literally millions of dollars whilst Ivey gets millions of dollars of debt and his interest in the stricken online poker giant Full Tilt Poker. It seems to this humble writer that Mr Ivey has been completely owned, no wonder he was back grinding at the recent APPT Macau Main Event!

In his live tournament career Ivey has won more than $13,800,000 and is currently third in the all-time money listings. A major part of his tournament success has come at the World Series of Poker, which he boycotted this year, where he has won almost $5,300,000 and eight WSOP bracelets. If the various sites that track high stakes cash games online are accurate then Ivey has also profited by more than $16,000,000 from online poker and countless more millions in the biggest live cash games around the world but it looks like he will have to get back to bankroll building when 2012 is upon us.