Phil Ivey Plays in APPT Macau

After a long hiatus, Phil Ivey has finally returned to tournament poker, hitting the felt at the Asian-Pacific Poker Tour Macau Main Event on Wednesday. Ivey, who was one of the major professional players involved with the promotion of Full Tilt Poker, had skipped out on tournaments ever since the Black Friday indictments on April 15.

The Black Friday indictments eventually set off a war of words between Ivey and Full Tilt Poker, which included a lawsuit filed by Ivey against his former employer. Saying that he was embarrassed by the company’s inability to pay back American players who had account balances stuck on in FTP accounts, Ivey filed a suit against the company seeking more than $150 million in damages and relief.

In return, Full Tilt released a statement saying that the lawsuit was only meant to deflect any possible heat Ivey might get from fans and players who were owed money, and noted that Ivey owed the site a significant amount of money himself.

As the summer went on, tensions cooled between the two parties, particularly when investment groups began to meet with FTP’s leaders to talk about a potential sale. In fact, such talks raised hopes that Ivey might at least return to poker to play in the World Series of Poker’s Main Event, but the event passed without his participation.

Nonetheless, Ivey withdraw his lawsuit to allow negotiations to continue, which eventually led to the proposed purchase of the beleaguered site by Groupe Bernard Tapie. While the site, the investment group, and the US Department of Justice are still working on the details of a potential settlement, the results of those negotiations are unlikely to impact Ivey, as he has not been named in any Justice Department filings.

The return of Ivey to the tournament circuit is a welcome one. Ivey has generally been considered the best poker player in the world in recent years; he has won eight WSOP bracelets, and is also known to be one of the world’s toughest cash game players.

As for his play on his first day back, Ivey was largely successful, moving his stack up to 51,200 chips at the end of play. The current chip leader is Shih-Chieh Su, with 171,800 chips.