Phil Ivey falls short of 11th WSOP bracelet in Super High Roller

Phil Ivey will have to wait for his 11th career World Series of Poker victory.

After reaching the final table of the $250,000 buy-in Super High Roller No-Limit Hold’em on Saturday at Bally’s Event Center, Ivey was eliminated in seventh place from the biggest buy-in event of the WSOP schedule.

Ivey won $597,381, his fourth cash of at least six figures this summer. He was looking to break a tie for second place on the all-time bracelet list with Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan.

High-stakes poker pro Alex Foxen steamrolled over the final table to remove his name from the list of best players never to win a WSOP bracelet. He defeated Brandon Steven in a brief heads-up match to take the first prize of more than $4.56 million.

Foxen, who won a WSOP circuit ring in 2012, has cashed in six events this summer. The former Boston College tight end is now over $26.5 million in live tournament earnings, according to HendonMob.com.

“It really means a lot to me. (Winning a bracelet has) kind of been a monkey on the back,” Foxen said. “This feels like a really special one to get my first in. … To me, what means the most is consistent performance at the highest stakes. This is one of those, so it feels really good.”

Ivey, who skipped the 2021 WSOP, arrived this summer focused and continues to run well. He has cashed in six tournaments for more than $2 million, including a second-place finish in the $100,000 buy-in High Roller No-Limit Hold’em tournament Monday.

But he was mostly card dead at the final table Saturday despite entering play in fifth place with 24 big blinds. Ivey lost a key pot against Sam Soverel about 30 minutes into the action, then folded a pair of 5s rather than risking most of his stack against defending champion Adrian Mateos of Spain.

A few hands later, Ivey was all-in for his final 4.6 million chips and was sent to the rail by Steven, whose ace-queen holding dominated his opponent’s queen-jack.

Ivey’s last WSOP win came in 2014 when he took down the $1,500 buy-in 8-Game Mix for his 10th career bracelet.

Steven won more than $2.8 million for second place. Online poker star Chris Hunichen finished third after a tough river beat against Foxen, and Mateos was fourth.

The top five finishers all earned more than $1 million.

Meanwhile, poker pro Daniel Negreanu finished short of the money after he bought into the tournament twice. According to the tournament updates, Negreanu suffered a bad beat against high-stakes pro David Peters during Day 2 on Friday, then slammed his camera and tripod into the table before he threw the vlogging equipment at a wall.

Negreanu said on his Friday vlog he is down almost $1 million for the series with only four small cashes to his credit.

Contact David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ on Twitter.