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Phil Ivey’s edge-sorting exploits to get Hollywood treatment

Phil Ivey is an acclaimed poker celebrity worldwide. Throughout his career, he has won 10 WSOP bracelets and one WPT title and even finished on the Final Table of WPT tournaments 9 times. He is often regarded by his peers and the community in general as the best all-around player in the world.

Back in 2010 to 2012, the legend was involved, with his casino partner Cheung Yin Sun ‘Kelly’, in something called as ‘edge-sorting’, a technique used to identify face-down cards by nuances in their back patterns. Both used the technique to earn over $9.6 million in Atlantic City’s Borgata Casino playing Baccarat, a popular card game.

A lengthy legal battle ensured between Borgata and the partners-in-crime where the latest development is that Borgata finally received permission to hunt for Ivey’s properties in Nevada, where he spent most of the time and has many assets there.

In a recent development, the film production company that put out Crazy Rich Asians (2018) a few months ago, Ivanhoe Pictures, have decided to convert Ivey and his partner’s adventures into a movie, Hollywood style. The movie will be primarily based on Kelly since she was the mastermind behind the whole shebang.

Ivanhoe has partnered with Sharp Independent Pictures to finance and co-produce this movie, titled The Baccarat Queen. The initial seed for the idea was an article titled The Baccarat Machine published in Cigar Aficionado.

Ivanhoe Pictures president John Penotti said, “‘The Baccarat Queen’ is a truly captivating story that will feature a diverse international cast, a goal that Ivanhoe continues to pursue as global storytellers. We are thrilled to partner with Sharp as we tell this exciting, high-stakes tale of cunning and revenge.”

The movie’s deal was negotiated on behalf of Michael Kaplan, the author of the original piece in Cigar Aficionado, by Peter Miller of Global Lion Intellectual Property Management and Orly Ravid of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp; on behalf of Kelly by Michelle Chang at Ramo Law; on behalf of Sharp Independent by Paul Almond of Fischbach, Perlstein, Lieberman & Almond; and on behalf of Ivanhoe by SK’s Brian Kornreich.

It remains to be seen whether Ivey or Kelly themselves will be featuring in the movie or at least be making cameos. Keep reading GutshotMagazine.com for more such updates as well as for general poker news from around the world.

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