We all know the played-out, canned phrase, “May the best man win.” But many times in large poker tournaments it seems that the best men, or women, end up chipless long before the drama of the final table ever unfolds. However, at this year’s Los Angeles Poker Classic the best man may have indeed won. But it wasn’t easy as he had to wade through an unbelievable field to win this World Poker Tour event.

A field of 665 players that included poker icons such as Phil Hellmuth Jr., Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Johnny Chan. WSOP Main Event winners Jerry Yang and Jamie Gold, and some other WPT event champs in Gavin Griffin, J.C. Tran, Erick Lindgren, and Bill Elder.

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Action during the first day of the tournament was lengthy to say the least as over a third of the original 665 people were eliminated in nine and a half hours of play. Some of the bigger names who didn’t make it past day 1 included Jerry Yang, Gavin Griffin, J.C. Tran, and Dutch Boyd. David Singer led everyone in chips as the day commenced.

Day 2 was an even more grueling test for the players as it lasted nearly eleven and a half hours and saw over 300 more people go home. WPT Season 5 champ Juan Carlos Mortensen was one of the first players to bite the dust on this day along with Phil Laak, Barry Greenstein, Bill Elder, and talk show host Montel Williams. In a showdown between two stars, Phil Ivey eliminated Johnny Chan and put himself 4th place in chips at the close of the day. Daniel Fuhs was the new chip leader.

The third day of the LA Poker Classic would separate the paid from the non-paid as the final 63 players were to be set here and the top 63 automatically won money. Antonio Esfandiari was the most notable player to bust out as he finished just out of the money at 66th place. Kyle Burnside took over the chip lead with Phil Ivey right behind him and chatty actress Jennifer Tilly charging up to 3rd place.

Day 4 began with an interesting bit of controversy when Las Vegas mayor Bob Stupak was eliminated and was accidentally given 47th place money instead of the 56th place that he earned. Once this mistake was caught, normal play resumed and chip leader Kyle Burnside quickly saw his lead and stack dwindle to nothing as he was ousted. Phil Ivey bumped himself up to first place and Phil Hellmuth Jr. began showing major signs of life in taking 3rd place among chip leaders.

Now, with 18 players left, it was time to decide who would make the final table. Jennifer Tilly would not be one of these players though as she went out in 12th place. The Academy Award-nominee had been the feel good story of the Poker Classic thus far and had already finished far better than boyfriend Phil Laak. Theo Tran got knocked out by Scott Montgomery in 8th place and WeiKai Chang was the next and last to be eliminated before the final table earning him $172,370.

So it was down to the final six players and the field included some very recognizable names in the two Phil’s - Phil Ivey and Phil Hellmuth. Ivey checked in on top with 4,100,000 chips, Scott Montgomery was second at 2,680,000, Hellmuth had 2,380,000, and Charles Moore, Quinn Do, and Nam Le rounded out the top six with all having less than 2,000,000 in chips.

Phil Ivey opened up by playing very aggressively as he looked to score his first World Poker Tour title. But this worked to his disadvantage and he soon found his chips disappearing quickly. Phil Hellmuth followed suit as, despite owning 11 World Series of Poker bracelets, he has yet to garner a WPT win.

First, Hellmuth lost a big hand to Nam Le which visibly angered him. He held Jh, 8c on a flop of Jd, 6h, 3d. The turn was Kh and Le moved all-in prompting Hellmuth to call. The river turned up a 10s and Le won the hand with top pair as he showed Kc, 3c. This doubled his chip stack on a questionable move considering he had nothing going into the flop. Hellmuth was basically on tilt after this and bowed out to Charles Moore later on in 6th place and left cursing Le under his breath.

Scott Montgomery, who at one point led everyone in chips, saw his pile decimated by Quinn Do only to finally be taken out by Le. Le had a K, J on a 7, 5, 5, 3, 3, board and won with the two pair/high card versus Montgomery’s mistake of going all-in with a off-suited J,8 combo.

In the ensuing action, Phil Ivey began to win some big pots (including a 3.14 million pot against Nam Le) and retake the chip lead. He also got into a very important elimination showdown hand vs. Le. Ivey caught a 3 on the turn to go along with his pocket 3’s making a set while Le got nothing to help his pocket aces and thus he was out of the tourney. On the very next hand, Ivey eliminated retired oil industry worker Charles Moore, who collected $625,630 for his efforts.

Quinn Do was now all that stood between Ivey and his first WPT title. And it wouldn’t be much of a barrier as Ivey held well over a 4-1 chip lead over Do at 10,820,000 to 2,480,000. On just the second hand of heads-up play, Ivey raised Quinn only to see Do call to see the As, 8s, 6s flop.

The turn produced Ac and Phil called all-in making Quinn lay it all on the line. Showing 9h, 8h Do knew he was doomed when Ivey showed Ah, 8d which was good for a full house making the river card of 4 meaningless. Phil Ivey had won his first ever World Poker Tour event!

A winner of five WSOP bracelets, Ivey was in the same boat as Hellmuth in regards to never winning the WPT. Both players can make cases for being Texas Hold’em poker’s best rounder but one has to wonder if Ivey’s new title might place him at the top of the game.

Often referred to as “The Tiger Woods of Poker”, Ivey may have cemented this nickname with this win giving him at least one in both of the major poker associations. And it’s doubtful that it will be the last as Phil Ivey’s skill is sure to capture him more big tournament wins in the future.