Eli Elezra(credit: Wikipedia)
Eli Elezra is one of the world’s best known poker pros. He has a World Series of Poekr bracelet. He won it in 2007 in the Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo Event, defeating Scotty “Prince of Poker” Nguyen heads-up. The former Israeli soldier and businessman has earned millions playing the game and hits the high stakes games pretty regularly. One could say his poker resume is remarkable if not impeccable.
It wouldn’t seem that he’d need much help from the poker gods, right? Well, in this hand against a dude by the name of Phil Ivey – perhaps you’ve heard of him, Elezra does a little hoping and wishing that he hits the flop of his dreams. Does he come up with the goods or … what?
Read on for this tale from Poker After Dark’s Mega Match Week:
Game Type: No Limit Texas Hold’em
Tournament: Poker After Dark - Mega Match Week
Players in hand: Eli Elezra, Phil Ivey
Starting Hands
Phil Ivey - 8
, 5
Eli Elezra – Q
, 4
PreFlop
Phil Ivey figures this is an easy hand to limp in, completing from the small blind and hoping for a monster flop, something like three hearts or filling a straight. Eli Elezra had gotten beat up a bit in prior hands and was happy to see a cheap flop with suited cards.
The Flop [8, 10, J]
Eli Elezra catches a few runner, runner options here and a chance to steal, but Eli decides a check is in order, so he does. Sometimes, you’ve got to trap a shark too. Phil Ivey was ready to make something happen. With bottom pair and against Eli, who Phil knew was feeling beat up over the last few hands, Ivey felt just fine betting out so the Tiger Woods of Poker fired $5k at the pot.
Eli didn’t take much time to thinks things over. The survivor decided to bail on the hand and looked to the next to stay alive. He figured the poker gods would be more generous later on just like all good poker players do.
Here’s Phil Ivey at the EPT Barcelona from 2007. Watch this clip, courtesy of YouTube:
Play against Phil Ivey at Full Tilt Poker. The site’s tenth edition of the FTOPS is starting on November 5th. Click here for more details!