Ivo Donev (born 25 December 1959) is a
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
n, with Austrian passport, who is a professional
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...
and
poker
Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...
player.
Chess
His father, Hristo Donev was a national master at chess.
Ivo Donev won the 1989 CSSR International Chess Tournament, progressing him to International Master status. When he and his family emigrated to
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
in 1990, Donev taught for a chess school at $10 per hour to support his study of
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
. Ivo Donev is the author of the chess book "The most important ideas in the end game" in German language.
Poker
Donev studied the poker books of
David Sklansky
David Sklansky (born December 22, 1947) is an American professional poker player and author. An early writer on poker strategy, he is known for his mathematical approach to the game. His key work ''The Theory of Poker'' presents fundamental pr ...
,
Mason Malmuth
Mason Malmuth is an American poker player, and author of books on both poker and gambling. He is the owner of Two Plus Two Publishing, which publishes books and runs an online gambling discussion forum.
Malmuth was born in 1951 and grew up in C ...
, and
Tom McEvoy
Thomas K. McEvoy (born November 14, 1944, in Grand Rapids, Michigan) is a professional poker player, author and member of the Poker Hall of Fame, 2013 inductee. He is best known for winning the 1983 World Series of Poker Main Event.
Early life ...
and practiced using poker
computer software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...
.
Donev won a bracelet in the $1,500
Limit
Limit or Limits may refer to:
Arts and media
* ''Limit'' (manga), a manga by Keiko Suenobu
* ''Limit'' (film), a South Korean film
* Limit (music), a way to characterize harmony
* "Limit" (song), a 2016 single by Luna Sea
* "Limits", a 2019 ...
Omaha
Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest city ...
event at the
2000 World Series of Poker
The 2000 World Series of Poker (WSOP) was held at Binion's Horseshoe.
Preliminary events
Main Event
There were 512 entrants to the main event. Each paid $10,000 to enter the tournament. The 2000 Main Event was the first time the total entries o ...
(WSOP), where he took home $85,800 for his first-place finish.
In 2002, Donev made his one and only appearance on
Late Night Poker
''Late Night Poker'' is a British television series that helped popularize poker in the 2000s. It used "under the table" cameras that enabled the viewer to see each player's cards.
The show originally ran for six series between 1999 and 2002 ...
. He finished 5th out of an impressive field including
Peter Costa,
Dave Welch and
Ram Vaswani
Ram "Crazy Horse" Vaswani (born 1 September 1970 from Finchley, Greater London) is an former professional poker and snooker player and the youngest member of The Hendon Mob, a group of professional poker players. He resides in Finchley with his ...
. In 2003, Donev finished as a semi-finalist in the
World Heads-Up Poker Championship The World Heads-Up Poker Championship (WHUPC) was an annual elimination-format poker tournament of heads-up no limit Texas hold'em matches. The tournament was co-created by Late Night Poker's Nic Szeremeta, PokerInEurope's Jon Shoreman, and gaming ...
.
He was a professional chess player before starting his poker career. His currently #1 in the Austrian All-Time Money list, and was the first Austrian to reach $1,000,000 in major tournament winnings.
World Series of Poker Money Finishes
*
2000
File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...
$1,500 Limit Omaha - 1st place ($85,800)
*
2001
The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...
$2,500 Seven Card Stud - 10th place ($5,530)
*
2002
File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...
$1,500 Pot Limit Hold'em - 10th place ($5,670)
*
2004
2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO).
Events January
* January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...
$1,500 Limit Hold'em Shootout - 6th place ($16,560)
* 2004 $2,000 Pot Limit Hold'em - 3rd place ($47,700)
*
2005
File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...
$2,000 Pot Limit Hold'em - 18th place ($6,955)
* 2005 $2,500 Limit Hold'em - 21st place ($5,145)
* 2005 $2,500 Pot Limit Hold'em - 10th place ($11,730)
* 2008 £2,500 WSOPE - H.O.R.S.E.- 2nd place ($95,543)
* 2009 $3,000 - N L Holdem- 64th place ($6,929)
* 2010 $2,000 - Limit Holdem- 26th place ($6,237)
* 2010 $2,500 - Limit/NL Holdem- 51st place ($4,512)
* 2011 $1,500 - H.O.R.S.E.- 83rd place ($2,899)
* 2011 $1,500 - Limit Hold'em Shootout - 55th place ($4,118)
Justin Pechie wins limit shootout
ESPN.com, 28 June 2011
* 2016 $1,500 - H.O.R.S.E.- 22rd place ($6,188)
* 2017 $50,000 - 8 Game - 4th place ($419.337)
* 2017 $1,100 WSOPE - NL Holdem - 76th place ($1,640)
* 2017 $550 - Pot Limit Omaha - 23th place ($1,578)
* 2017 $1,100- No Limit Holdem - 34th place ($1,302)
* 2019 $1,500 - H.O.R.S.E.- 68th place ($2,638)
* 2019 $1,500 - 8 Game - 29th place ($4,841)
* 2019 $1,000 - No Limit Holdem - 49th place ($12,281)
* 2019 $1,500 - Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo- 78th place ($3,175)
* 2019 $1,500 - Omaha Mix - 8th place ($16,075)
* 2019 $550 - Pot Limit Omaha - 5th place ($10,900)
* 2021 $210 -WSOP Online No Limit Holdem- 287th place ($1,438)
Personal life
He has two children, and lives in Lochau bei Bregenz
Bregenz (; gsw, label= Vorarlbergian, Breagaz ) is the capital of Vorarlberg, the westernmost state of Austria. The city lies on the east and southeast shores of Lake Constance, the third-largest freshwater lake in Central Europe, between Switze ...
, Austria.
His life and career is discussed in the James McManus
}
James "Jim" McManus (born March 22, 1951) is an American teacher, writer and poker player living in Kenilworth, Illinois. He is a professor in the Master of Fine Arts program for writers at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Poker and ''Positi ...
book ''Positively Fifth Street''.
References
External links
Ivo Donev's homepage
Ivo Donev Hendon Mob tournament results
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Donev, Ivo
1959 births
Living people
Austrian chess players
Austrian poker players
World Series of Poker bracelet winners
Austrian people of Bulgarian descent
Bulgarian poker players
Bulgarian chess players