Ivey joins $1 million stack club

Phil Ivey is on his way back to being a positive player in 2009 with his great play the past few weeks. He recently played heads up with Tom Dwan for over FIVE HOURS in the Ivey Thunderdome, $500/$1000 Pot-Limit Omaha table. When all was said and done Ivey emerged $1.1 million richer than he was when he sat down.

Key Hand: With over $650,000 in Ivey's stack and Dwan's at $168,000, Dwan opened for the standard $3,000. Ivey reraised to $9,000, Dwan four-bet to $27,000, and Ivey five-bet to $81,000 before Dwan flat-called. Ivey bet $162,000, enough to set Dwan all in, on the flop, and Dwan called, showing his flopped two pair and open-ended straight draw with , which was up against Ivey's . The turn, though, was the , the lead switching to Ivey with aces up. The river was the and "durrrr" was forced to reload again, with this $336,589 pot shipped to Ivey.