The Online Railbird Report: Phil Ivey Second-Biggest Winner with $472,000 Win

Chad Holloway PR & Media Manager

Nov 07, 2014 5 min read Last updated Nov 08, 2014

It’s been awhile, but the online high-stakes action on Full Tilt and PokerStars finally returned to form this week as plenty of action resulted in both big winners and losers.

The big story this week was appearance of Phil “Polarizing” Ivey, who played a higher volume than normal and seemingly drove the acton. It paid off too as he won $472,073 in 4,695 hands over 23 sessions. That was a nice score, but it was a bit behind the $514,717 of Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby, who played 1,015 hands over four sessions.

While those two won on Full Tilt, there was a trio of big winners over at PokerStars including “St1ckman” ($172,082 in 52 sessions/4,140 hands), “BigBadBoss” ($158,263 in 67 sessions/7,867 hands), and Alex “joiso” Kostritsyn ($156,477 in 45 sessions/5,392 hands).

As for the losers, no one did worse this week than Alex “Alexonmoon” Luneau, who dropped $666,877 in 2,674 hands over 13 sessions. Another loser on Full Tilt was “Carlooo13,” who lost $381,140 in 640 hands over two sessions.

Luneau Monday’s Biggest Winner; Ivey Scoops Big Pots

On Monday, Nov. 3, Alex” Alexonmoon” Luneau and “Kagome Kagome” were at the $2,000/$4,000 2-7 triple draw tables, and after six hours of play, the Frenchman walked away a $474,000 winner, which helped mitigate the $600,000 or so he was down on the week.

It was also on Monday that Phil “Polarizing” Ivey won $41,700 playing $1,000/$2,000 mixed games against Alex “PostflopAction” Kostritsyn and Elior “Crazy Elior” Sion. It was against the former that he won the biggest pot of the day.

In a hand of $200/$400 pot-limit Omaha, Ivey ($44,596.50) opened for $1,200 and then called when Kostritsyn ($151,996.25) three-bet to $3,600. When the flop came down 3♠8♥2♥, Kostritsyn led out for $7,200, Ivey three-bet to $28,800, and Kostritsyn four-bet to $50,400. Ivey called off his last $12,000 or so and the cards were turned up.

Kostritsyn: Q♥10♥10♦7♦
Ivey: A♠8♠2♣9♥

Kostritsyn flopped a flush draw, while Ivey was ahead with his two pair. The 7♣ turn didn’t change a thing, and neither did the K♣ river. Ivey’s two pair held and he was pushed the $89,193 pot.

Kibler-May vs. Luneau; Marathon Match for Ivey

On Tuesday, Nov. 4, Alex “Alexonmoon” Luneau was back at the $2,000/$4,000 2-7 triple draw tables, but this time it was against Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby. The duo played for 6.5 hours and Kibler-Melby managed to win $560,000, which of course helped propel him to the top of the weekly leaderboard.

The action was spread out across three different sessions. In the first, which lasted 52 minutes, Kibler-Melby won $33,000, and then a couple hours later he returned to win $480,800 more after three and a half hours. In the third session, Luneau pulled out to an early $150,000 lead, but in the latter half of the two-hour match Kibler-Melby stormed back to win another $30,000.

In other action, Phil “Polarizing” Ivey was at the $1,000/$2,000 8-game tables and played a marathon 13-hour heads-up session against Alex “PostflopAction” Kostritsyn that lasted 2,096 hands. Ivey won $111,700 in the match, but he actually profited just $12,000 as he had lost $86,000 in 19 hands of fixed-limit Omaha hi/lo (FLO8) to Kyle “KPR16” Ray earlier in the day.

Here’s a look at the day’s biggest pot, which went to Ivey:

Ivey Will Remember, Remember the 5th of November; Not so Much the 6th

On Wednesday, Nov. 5, Phil “Polarizing” Ivey sat down at the FLO8 table against Kyle “KPR16” Ray, who he took for $82,000 in 157 hands. From there, Ivey went on to the $1,000/$2,000 8-game tables and ended up losing $14,000 to Alex “PostflopAction” Kostritsyn in 90 minutes.

Ivey then jumped back to the FLO8 tables and dismantled “Carloooo13” for $241,900. Ivey officially won $449,000 on Nov. 5, but he continued to play past server time; in fact, he spent another hour at the FLO8 tables against Ray, who exacted revenge to the tune of $200,000 in just 144 hands.

Ivey's Wednesday would not get better as he went on to play “Kagome Kagome” at $2,000/$4,000 2-7 triple draw. The duo played three sessions over three hours, and things turned up all “Kagome Kagome” as he won $333,000.

Here are some other highlights from Wednesday’s action:

“Kagome Kagome” ended up losing $185,000 later in the day, but he still finished as Wednesday’s biggest winner with $310,800 in profit.
Kostritsyn was the day’s second-biggest winner with $193,200
Ray ended the day a $122,900 winner after losing $77,000 back to Ivey in a 22-hand evening session.
”Trueteller” won $94,400 playing primarily $2,000/$4,000 2-7 triple draw.

Speaking of Kostritsyn, he actually won the biggest pot of the day, which came in the $200/$400 pot-limit Omaha round of a mixed game. It happened when Ivey ($163,628.75) opened for $1,200 and Kostritsyn ($43,791.50) three-bet to $3,600. Ivey responded with a four-bet to $10,800, Kostritsyn called, and the flop fell 8♦5♦3♦. Kostritsyn led out for $21,600 and then called off for $32,991.50 after Ivey had raised to $43,200.

Ivey: A♦Q♦K♠9♥
Kostritsyn: 6♦7♣8♥Q♣

Kostritsyn had flopped top pair with an open-ended straight draw, but he was way behind as Ivey had flopped the nut flush. The 2♠ turn left Kostritsyn drawing dead, and after the K♥ completed the board on the river, he watched the $87,583 pot pushed to Ivey.

Online Superstars Weigh in on PokerStars Rake Increase

The changes by Amaya over at PokerStars, which includes the introduction of a new currency exchange rate and rake increases, have upset many in the poker world. Earlier this week PokerNews reached out to numerous online players, such as Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond and Ola “Odd_Oddsen” Amundsgard, to weigh in on the situation.

"It’s important to understand that PokerStars is a business, and that they can charge whatever they please for their service,” said Galfond. “I don’t like the changes thus far and more than that, I fear for what’s yet to come if this is an indication of Amaya’s business strategy. They have a monopoly and if they want to press it, they don’t have any obvious incentive not to at the moment. The lack of a legitimate competitor is the major issue here.”

Amundsgard echoed those sentiments: “The thing with today’s online poker market is that PokerStars/FTP does not have any competition. They have basically monopoly and can do whatever they want. So I can totally understand why Pokerstars is doing this both with exchange fees, casino games, and now adding more rake. They are interested in earning as much money as possible. Let's hope they know what they are doing and not pushing things to far."

Read the full statements from Galfond, Amundsgard, and other players by clicking here.

Biggest Winners/Losers from Oct. 31 thru Nov. 5

Winners	Profit	Losers	Loss
Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby	$514,717	Alex “Alexonmoon” Luneau	$666,877
Phil “Polarizing” Ivey	$472,073	“Carlooo13”	$381,140
“St1ckman”	$172,082	Ivan “vandir4rek” Soshnikov	$209,232
“BigBadBoss”	$158,263	Dan “w00ki3z.” Cates	$114,505
Alex “joiso” Kostritsyn	$156,477	“sat1337en”	$110,643
“Sanlker”	$120,458	“flippie123”	$101,746

Year's Biggest Winners/Losers

Winners	Profit	Losers	Loss
Dan “jungleman12” Cates	$2,807,509	Gus Hansen	$5,522,853
Mikael “punting-peddler” Thuritz	$2,571,235	Phil “Polarizing” Ivey	$1,997,680
Patrik “FinddaGrind” Antonius	$1,754,449	Viktor “Isildur1” Blom	$1,395,340
Isaac “luvtheWNBA” Haxton	$1,299,576	Elior “Crazy Elior” Sion	$1,286,868
Doug “WCGRider” Polk	$1,110,009	Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond	$1,082,089
Alex “joiso” Kostritsyn	$958,466	“Sanlker”	$951,227
Christoph “Tight-Man1” Vogelsang	$663,177	Paul “MalACEsia” Phua	$823,325