Well you know what they say: good things come to those who wait. And Ivey has been waiting for this a long time. Not only has he not made a WPT final table since April 2005, he has also never actually won a WPT event before, despite making the final table on six occasions. This time however, he is confident things will go his way.

“I’m the chip leader, so I plan on winning this tournament,” said Ivey at the end of the penultimate day’s play. “I think I’m going to have to be very unlucky not to win,” he added.

Only someone as talented and respected as Phil Ivey could get away with such a prediction at this stage of an event, and despite the support he has amongst the poker community you can bet there are at least five people who strongly disagree with his assessment.

The person with most to say is likely to be Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken, a hugely talented tournament player who starts the final table of the Mirage Poker Showdown in third place but only fractionally behind Ivey and second placed Cory Carroll. He is an experienced World Poker Tour competitor with numerous cashes including a final table to his name, and he will be hoping to continue his good form of 2007 by taking down the $1,066,295 first prize here tomorrow.

Carroll meanwhile, knows what its like to win major tournaments, having won the main-event at the World Series of Poker Circuit event from Caesars’ Palace just two weeks ago. Jonathan Little is yet another former WPT final table’ist, along with Amnon Filippi, while Richard Kirsch has well over $150,000 of tournament winnings to his name. In short: Ivey will not have things all his own way.

The chip counts are as follows:

Phil Ivey: $1,395,000

Cory Carroll: $1,235,000

Darrell Dicken: $1,203,000

Jonathan Little: $956,000

Richard Kirsch: $810,000

Amnon Fillipi: $571,000

Payout:

1st: $1,066,025

2nd: $561,369

3rd: $259,369

4th: $172,912

5th: $129,684

6th: $100,865