Gibraltar – 4th November 2009 – Bookmaker PartyBets.com has had to cut the odds on Phil Ivey taking down the WSOP Main Event from 5/1 into 7/2 making him the new OUTRIGHT FAVOURITE to win. This is despite the fact that Ivey is seventh in chips and Darvin Moon has a monster stack that many believe should be big enough to roll his opponents over quite easily. Moon has drifted in the betting from 3/1 favourite out to 4/1.
Ahead of his induction into the Poker Hall of Fame on Saturday, PartyPoker.com Ambassador Mike Sexton said: “Phil Ivey is the most well known pro to the public and this has to be a sentimental bet for action on the tournament. It is hard to imagine, more astonishing, that a player can be favourite with just 5% of the chips in play. I regard Ivey as the best player in the world and it would be nice to see him win but as everyone knows chips are power.”
A PartyBets.com spokesman said: “Has the world gone mad? Ivey is a short stack and Moon is a massive chip leader with 30% of the chips in play. It just doesn’t make sense but the punters just keep coming for Ivey and we have had no choice but to make him favourite because of our large six figure liabilities and the consistent interest.”
“There will be a lot of punters out there sweating Ivey and a lot of bookies praying that he doesn’t get the early double-up that is essential for him to make a remarkable comeback from seventh in chips. If Ivey achieves what punters think he can it will be the worst poker result in bookmaking history.”
PartyBets.com - a sister site of PartyPoker.com and PartyCasino.com - chalked Ivey up at 175/1 to win the Main Event earlier this year. He was 100/1 as the Main Event got underway and his odds have plummeted since then. A big name on the final table of the WSOP is always bad news for bookmakers. 175/1 as a starting price for any player in a field of 6,494 players is short and his true odds could have been double that but bookmakers are forced to price him prohibitively short because punters back the name.
PartyBets.com currently has Ivey as 7/2 favourite, followed by the commonly regarded favourite Darvin Moon at 4/1. Eric Buchman is next in the betting at 9/2. Ivey only has 265,000 more chips than France’s Antonie Saout but Saout is a 16/1 shot. The UK’s James Akenhead, a recent participant in the PartyPoker.com World Open V alongside Saout has also been well supported but is still 14/1. A Shulman double, with Jeff joining Barry as a WSOP Main Event winner this year is priced at 6/1. Other markets available include winning hand and colour of the final river card.
See PartyBets.com for more odds and information.
** The story of how Jon Kalmar, a poker pro from Chorley in the UK made the final table of the 2007 WSOP Main Event is a poker fairytale in itself. Jon went to Vegas with a bankroll of $15,000 before getting down to his last $2,000 and qualifying in a satellite. He had been on a terrible run for a long time but ended up as the only UK representative making it to the climax of poker’s showpiece and won $1,255,000 for finishing in fifth place. It was also happy days for a poker pro from Skane, Sweden won $25,000 from PartyBets.com after placing a bet of $100 at 250/1 that Kalmar would make the final table.**
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