A closer look at Ivey Poker: What it is and what to expect

If you’ve been watching ESPN’s 2013 World Series of Poker coverage you’ve likely noticed the slew of IveyPoker.com patches being worn by tournament players, and if you’re like most people you’re probably still not quite sure what IveyPoker is. Hopefully this column will be able to explain it to you.

The Beginning of Ivey Poker

Before IveyPoker.com had a product (pretty much before they had anything but a homepage on the Internet) they did have a sizable roster of poker pros sporting IveyPoker.com patches. The roster continued to grow as the site started announcing its “Mission Statement” which essentially said that it would become an online poker client where you could receive training pros from the Ivey Poker pros.

Ivey Poker the Game

Earlier this week on Facebook and Twitter Phil Ivey (or the person who posts on the IveyPoker.com social media accounts) announced, “I will be launching the mobile apps in a few weeks… Apple and Android,” signaling the next step in the IveyPoker.com client, which to this point was a social media game.

While the poker client itself is likely to be hemorrhaging money at this point, it’s also the backbone of what the site and company could become down the road.

Ivey Poker the Training Site

The only area of the site that is likely to be bringing in any revenue is the online training site Ivey League. Ivey League came about when established online poker training site Leggo Poker was purchased by Ivey Poker (which seems to have some very deep-pocketed investors) and rebranded.

Like Leggo Poker before them, and their current peers in the online poker training site industry, Ivey League charges a monthly fee for access to their content which is focused on video training.

The Future of Ivey Poker

Like most US-friendly online poker products the chances are pretty high that the current versions of Ivey Poker (social media and now an app) were developed as precursors to real-money online poker clients as more and more states legalize and regulate online poker and gambling.

My assumption is that everything the company is doing at this time is an effort to build their brand and potentially develop a loyal player base through the Ivey League training site arm of the company.

Will it Work?

And here of course is the million-dollar question; a question I don’t have the answer to.

You could easily point to the failed attempts by sites like Zynga or even the Epic Poker League as companies that assumed they could patiently wait for online poker to be legalized in the US, but Ivey Poker is a bit different. Ivey Poker appears to be taking what works from across the online poker world and combining it all into a single product –I’m surprised they haven’t released their own tracking software to be honest.

Ivey Poker is using a bastardized version Full Tilt Poker’s old mantra of “Learn, play and chat with the pros” and upping the ante with a legit online training site. The sponsored pros would also seem to be more along the lines of affiliates who will really be put into action if the site becomes a real-money online poker room.