Everybody knows that if you play poker, or even if you don’t, your poker face can contribute to about half of your wins or losses. Indeed, our facial motility is very active and very difficult to control. Responsible for a substantial part of our communication habits, our facial expressions are some of the most essential data transmission channels. They convey a lot of essential emotional information. And even if you try to keep yourself emotionless, there always are tiny movements of your facial muscles that you cannot fully control.

Someone who can trace these movements and read your facial micro-expressions will get some important information you would prefer to conceal. Reading your face means reading your cards, in every sense. But poker players trying hard to keep their faces immovable and unreadable often appear stone-faced and cold. Sometimes, especially if you are bluffing, it can be better to act more trustworthy – just in order to make your opponents believe that you really have a good hand.

Phil Ivey Poker Face Commercial Song

The Phil Ivey-Borgata baccarat saga finally concluded last week after more than a six-year legal battle. According to court documents filed July 2 in the United States Court of Appeals for the. Poker pro Phil Ivey is appearing in a commercial for the new Chrysler 300 for a second time, this time taking on a prominent role. The commercial — called “Best in Class” — shows scenes of Ivey and the car being promoted in what appears to be Las Vegas. There are tight shots of Ivey.

So, if there is no way to fully control your facial expressions, how do you make sure your face is ‘poker enough’ and not ‘poker too much?’ Is there anyone who can do it? Let’s take Phil Ivey, for an example – a man whose facial expression is rightfully believed to be one of the poker-est facial expressions in the world. How does he do it?

Phil Ivey – Full Tilt Poker Face Commercial

There was a funny banned commercial of Full Tilt featuring Phil Ivey. Phil, wearing a black suit and white shirt, comes back home, walks up the stairs, enters his bedroom and freezes in the doorway seeing his wife…well…doing things with another man. Phil chews his gum, expressing nothing, his eyes moving here and there as he takes in the scene.

Another man comes in, passing by Phil and apparently willing to join the company in the bed. But Phil’s face remains fully impenetrable. A voiceover follows, inviting you to play poker with the best professionals on Full Tilt.

Phil Ivey Poker Player

Maybe this is what it is all about: your face is not a wooden mask. You cannot and need not fully suppress your facial motility. But you should remain calm. And nobody should know, or figure out, what you are planning on doing. With that face in the commercial, Phil’s character could turn around and walk away, incurious and uncaring, or equally, pull out a gun and shoot them all, because you never know what to expect from people wearing such faces, really.

Classic Poker Face of a Poker Genius

What is the main feature of Phil’s poker face? The first thing you notice is a deep, piercing stare. It gives you an eerie impression that you are not only read but also seen through. This feeling could paralyze your own ability to read Phil’s face.

Phil Ivey

His face is calm and his emotions are under full control. Not many people can still have the same facial expression, regardless if they are winning or losing hundreds of thousands or even millions, and practically not reacting to the cards they see.

He stays focused and concentrated. There is nothing else on his face but focus. This is the face of a man who thinks deeply and quickly, and who makes the best possible decisions in a given situation, irrespectively of winning or losing, getting lucky or not, having good or bad cards. This is the face of the man who is one of the best poker players in the world.

The news continues to roll in regarding Phil Ivey's long-running court battle with Borgata, and if you're Ivey or a fan of Ivey, that news continues to be negative.

While Ivey appeared to be cooked after his ongoing appeals in 2017 came up dry against both Crockfords Casino and Borgata — he and gambling partner Cheung Yin 'Kelly' Sun took both for a combined nearly $20 million using 'edge sorting' in baccarat and punto banco — the fight has now spilled over well into 2018.

First, Gemaco Inc., which manufactured the cards on which Ivey observed small defects in order to ascertain their values to gain an edge, wriggled free of any wrongdoing in a March decision.

Then Ivey and his legal team pushed for a stay of execution on the payment of $10.1 million to Borgata, arguing the payment of such a massive sum would do irreparable harm to Ivey's bankroll and block him from being able to continue earning a living through his gambling skill.

In that vein, he's been firing away on a heavy tournament schedule that included the $1 Million Big One for One Drop. Overall, Ivey has $2.4 million in cashes since his return to the live tournament scene in 2018.

The Latest Developments

Last week, CardPlayer reported that Borgata hit Ivey with a cross-appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Borgata requested all parts of the original decision, in which the casino alleged fraud and sought huge reparations, that didn't favor it be re-examined.

As for what exactly that means for Ivey, a pair of outlets have reported that Ivey's risk may be significantly upped due to the development.

According to USPoker, Ivey could be on the hook for about $30 million, as the casino originally requested treble damages, a tripling of the at-issue amount.

Meanwhile, VegasSlotsOnline has reported that Borgata wishes to reconstruct Ivey's sessions and essentially rake in their expected value from his baccarat hands. The casino claimed its mathematical edge over the roughly 1,800 hands Ivey played amounted to about $5.4 million.

It appears Borgata has not taken kindly to Ivey's attempts at stalling and clinging to the money he won from it. The casino has loaded up its legal war machine and put Ivey squarely in the crosshairs. Whether Ivey will escape further damage and finally claim a legal victory or finally take a knockout blow remains to be seen, and PokerNews will continue to keep an eye out for further developments in this marathon story.

Phil Ivey Arrested

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  Phil IveyBorgataPoker and the Law

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