Weekly High Stakes Report: Ivey Tops the Winners’ List, Kostritsyn on the Losing End

The Main Event is over, Martin Jacobson walked away with $10,000,000 in cash, and our attention can now return to the nosebleeds tables. There were some interesting developments since the last report, and Phil ‘Polarizing’ Ivey was the man at the center of attention.

The famous pro has been spending a lot of time at the high stakes tables as of late, looking to turn around the bad run that’s been following him ever since the introduction of his new online alias, ‘Polarizing.’ Tuesday's session was marked by his battle with Russian pro Alexander ‘PostflopAction’ Kostritsyn, who’s caused a lot of headaches for many big names in the game with his play at the table.

Even Ivey couldn’t measure up to Kostritsyn during their Tuesday wars, as the young Russian walked away with $254k after a 5.5 hour session. The action predominantly took place between him and Ivey, with a couple of other players joining for shorter periods. However, things did not end on a high note for ‘PostflopAction,’ as he got involved against Luke Schwartz on both Full Tilt and PokerStars (nicknames ‘__FullFlush1__’ and ‘lb6121’). Overall, Schwartz ended with a combined profit of over $163k, according to HighStakesDB, while Kostritsyn’s daily take across both rooms dropped to just $63k. German pro ‘SanIker’ also had a good day that saw him make a profit of $87k.

The next two days would see Ivey mastering a big comeback. On Wednesday, ‘Polarizing’ made a profit of $302k after playing different opponents at different games, demonstrating once again why he is widely regarded as the best poker player around. Playing 2-7 TD and 8-game tables, Ivey faced the likes of ‘PostflopAction’, ‘thecortster’ and ‘bbvisbadforme,’ coming out with a significant profit when all was said and done.

‘Polarizing’ continued his high stakes climb on Thursday after only a three-hour break. This time, Ivey truly showed what he was made of, as he went heads-up against one of the most feared names in the industry, Ike ‘luvtheWNBA’ Haxton. However, the game did not stay heads-up for too long, as the likes of ‘Denoking’ joined in, perhaps feeling that they would have an edge over Ivey at NLHE tables.

After losing a little bit, Ivey made a smart move and retreated from what was perhaps an edgeless game. He returned for the evening session and things did not start off so well once again, as he dropped some to ‘Kagome Kagome.’ However, later on, Ivey managed to pull back after making a winning run at the 8-game tables. Overall, ‘Polarizing’ made another hugely profitable day of $368k.

Another big six-figure winner was ‘SanIker.’ The German player made the majority of his $246k profit from $2k/$4k 2-7 TD tables, taking on ‘Kagome Kagome.’

Friday saw Iveytop the winners’ leaderboard once again with a profit of $199k. Things once again started bad for ‘Polarizing,’ as he dropped $163k to ‘HoldemJill9’. ‘HoldemJill9’ had to quit after about four hours of play, but Ivey, who was, in his own words, in Macau and bored, wanted to continue playing.

He joined the table where Mikael "punting-peddler" Thuritz was warming up a seat and after slightly more than 1,000 hands, HighStakesDB reported that Ivey made a profit of $160,000. This, combined with his winnings from a later session with ‘HoldemJill9’ where he won back nearly $40k, put Ivey at the top of the daily profit list, while ‘HoldemJill9’ was demoted to second place with a total profit of $119k.

The last big day covered by this week’s report was Saturday, which saw only one six-figure winner, but that winner did much more than scratch the surface. ‘Kagome Kagome’ ended his Saturday with a profit of $334k, the majority coming courtesy of Phil ‘Polarizing’ Ivey and ‘SanIker.’

And the Money Goes To…

Phil ‘Polarizing’ Ivey. The last seven days were good to Ivey, as he ended up making a profit of $278,400. With his latest efforts, Phil was able to significantly reduce his new losses to around $4.7 million.

Luke ‘Full Flush’ Schwartz joined the action on a few occasions the past week and he was able to come out ahead $94k.

Although ‘Kagome Kagome’ had a big Saturday, other days of the past week were not so kind to him. Overall, his profits amounted to around $53k. Ike Haxton and ‘HoldemJill9’ fared a little better, winning $66k and $71k, respectively.

As for the big losers, we had one and it is not a name we are used to seeing in the red section of the table. Alex ‘PostflopAction’ Kostritsyn had a losing streak that saw him leave $526,000 at the tables. Also, ‘punting-peddler’ did not have the best of times either, as his losses amounted to just shy of $238k.