At only 33 years old Phil Ivey continues his poker prowess and never before has a 33 years old man been so successful at poker. Phil does not hold all poker records yet, but given his young age and if he can live a few more decades, all current records will have been pulverized.

So Phil Ivey just won his 8th WSOP bracelet in the $3,000 HORSE event. Only four players have ever won more bracelets. Phil Hellmuth has 11 bracelets (46 years old), Doyle Brunson 10 bracelets (77 years old), Johnny Chan 10 bracelets (52 years old) and the late Johnny Moss 9 bracelets (but the first one was by vote). And he is in a tie with Erik Seidel (51 years old) for 8 bracelets. Given that Phil is the youngest by a wide margin, it is clear that he has a good chance to become the player with the most bracelets at some point. Phil has said himself that he believes that he could win as many as 30 bracelets in his career.

Phil Ivey also won the first prize of $329,840, adding to the total of his live tournament winnings which is close to $13 million. Here no record broken because Phil was already the number one player and no one has ever surpassed this amount of money won at live poker tournaments. Daniel Negreanu is just behind in the number two spot with over $12 million, but he remains behind so far as he has not won a major prize at the WSOP.

Phil Ivey is considered by many poker players in the world as the best player, and this result confirms the general belief. Note that Phil is the most well-rounded player, as he can play well both live and online, both in ring games and in tournaments and in all poker variations. Interestingly Phil has not yet won a bracelet in Holdem, but he did in Omaha, Stud, Draw poker and mixed games (HORSE, SHOE, Omaha-Stud Hi/Lo).

Online, Phil Ivey plays exclusively at Full Tilt Poker as he was one of the founding poker pro at this online poker room. The highest stakes section is named after him and he can often be seen there mostly playing NLHE or PLO at stakes as high as NL100,000. A large crowd of railbirds follows all his moves, hoping to learn a few tricks from the master.

I bought it just by curiosity. I have a good training in computer science so this is the type of product I love to play with (I am a borderline geek let us be honest). Since the robot can play poker by itself and the coding can be modified through an open source programming language (available). There is a default setup with the program, or you can also tweak it in details when you buy.

I do not care too much about the results, but the facts are there: my initial deposit of 150 dollars at pokerstars has increased to 260 dollars in a few hours without any human intervention other than sitting at the tables and starting the robot. This 110 dollars gain includes the profit from playing at the tables plus part of a bonus conversion, but no rakeback (as pokerstars does not offer rakeback but the initial deposit bonus is quite easy to grind).

The robot plays without emotions obviously, which is one of its main advantages beyond the fact that it is programmed to always make the optimal decision. It applies strictly to the letter my own playing style at no-limit Texas Hold’em, bluffing, semi-bluffing, blocking bets, etc. None of that was omitted in his design. It is always content to apply its algorithm, without ever asking any question or getting upset when getting a bad beat from a lucky player.

Is it a big risk to use such a bot? Lol, I don’t think so: He goes to bed without getting angry after to a bad beat, he continues to play without getting annoyed, he never tilts. The advantage is that I can run two or three tables at once and let it run while I do other things, a great way to convert bonuses and to collect rakeback potentially.

Of course, the test period is still too short to make any conclusion, but the actual result is quite satisfactory: it is a true pleasure to program this robot, to adapt it to my profile as a player, watch him play and make corrections and improvements.