Phil Ivey's 'Jesus' Challenge?

October 08 2007, Barry Carter

Chris Ferguson is well renowned for the 'Jesus Challenge' whereby he started with a bankroll of $0 and turned it into $20,000 by playing in free rolls and then working his way up the micro stakes. The multiple WSOP bracelet winner inspired hordes of online poker players to replicate his challenge.

Now it seems a new 'high stakes player – low stakes challenge' has been set. Both Chris Ferguson and Phil Ivey were guests on podcast show The Poker Edge where Ivey mentioned he might be in line to do a similar and much more lucrative challenge, namely turning $5000 into $1 million without busting.

Ferguson admits he went bust a few times at the start of the Jesus challenge, but Ivey would not have this luxury. He has reportedly tried something similar before starting with $1000 but never got going. There has been no mention of a time deadline as yet for the challenge.

Ivey is probably the most commonly agreed upon player when his peers consider who the best all round poker player in the world is. There is very little doubt that he has ability to pull off this feat. The question is more on his motivation; will he have the patience to grind out lower stakes when he is used to playing so high?

The side action this generates will be the answer and if a substantial wager is made it should be enough to get this challenge going. Ferguson himself has said he would give Ivey some action. Either way, it would be fascinating to see just how big the waiting list got on a $2/4 table that Phil was sat at.

[I] Play with Phil, Ferguson and some of the biggest names in the game at Full Tilt Poker [I]

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