The 40-year-old poker star started his training site in 2012. After over four years of running the poker school is closing down on May 1st.
When Phil Ivey started his operation he had great ambitions for the project, even turning it into his own online poker room -sadly he didn’t get to follow through his plan.
For years people could buy membership on the site which allowed them to access instruction videos on No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha – not only from Ivey, but other well-known names in the poker world as well. Patrik Antonius, for example, is still on the front page wearing Ivey League gear. The real appeal of the project, however, was the opportunity it offered to actually play against these big names. The membership cost either $9 a month for a "Bachelor’s Degree" package, and $75 a month for a "Master’s".
The latest thing on the website, however, is a blog post informing the visitors of the nearing end, titled "Ivey League The End of The Road". It reads:
"With the current state of online poker as of May 1st we will no longer be posting new video content. The video library will remain online as we process prorated refunds for everyone who paid for yearly subscriptions. Month to month subscriptions can be cancelled anytime. We would like to thank everyone who was a part of Ivey League and wish everyone the best with their poker journey’s going forward.
Team Ivey League"
It is interesting – and somewhat ominous – that they cite "the current state of online poker" as a reason for closure. Although there has been some speculation about reviving the Wire Act in the US which would effectively kill online poker in the country, but that is far from being anything more than something Attorney General Jeff Sessions says he’ll look into. Meanwhile there are many other poker players who run succesful poker training sites and are not thinking about closing any time soon, like Doug Polk at UpSwing Lab or Jonathan Little at Pokercoaching.com, so overall the online poker environment is far from being inhabitable in America.
You can still watch a library of videos on the Ivey League’s YouTube channel here. They have a mere 4,000 subscribers and haven’t been active for two years.
