Ivo Donev (born 25 December 1959) is a

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

n, with Austrian passport, who is a professional

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

and

poker Poker is a family of Card game#Comparing games, comparing card games in which Card player, players betting (poker), wager over which poker hand, hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, with varying rules i ...

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, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

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, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

. 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 (born 1951) 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 ...

, 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 lif ...

and practiced using poker

computer software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

. Donev won a bracelet in the $1,500 Limit

Omaha Omaha ( ) is the List of cities in Nebraska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's List of United S ...

event at the

2000 World Series of Poker The 2000 World Series of Poker (WSOP) was held at Binion's Horseshoe. Events There were 23 preliminary bracelet events at the 2000 World Series of Poker. Future Poker Hall of Famer Phil Ivey won his first career bracelet in Event #14. Main Ev ...

(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) a former professional poker player and the youngest member of The Hendon Mob, a group of professional poker players. He resides in Finchley with his wife Jackie a ...

. 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 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

$1,500 Limit Omaha - 1st place ($85,800) *

2001 The year's most prominent event was 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. The United States led a Participan ...

$2,500 Seven Card Stud - 10th place ($5,530) *

2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

$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 60 ...

$1,500 Limit Hold'em Shootout - 6th place ($16,560) * 2004 $2,000 Pot Limit Hold'em - 3rd place ($47,700) *

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

$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) * 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 - 23rd 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) Source:

Personal life

He has two children, and lives in Lochau bei

Bregenz Bregenz (; ) is the capital of Vorarlberg, the westernmost states of Austria, state of Austria. The city lies on the east and southeast shores of Lake Constance, the third-largest freshwater lake in Central Europe, between Switzerland in the wes ...

, Austria. His life and career is discussed in the

James McManus } James "Jim" McManus (born March 22, 1951) is an Americans, 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 ' ...

book '' Positively Fifth Street''.

References

External links

Card Player profile

Hendon Mob profileWPT profile

WSOP profile
* {{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