Background
His father, Hristo Donev was a national master at chess.
His father, Hristo Donev was a national master at chess.
Donev studied the poker books of David Sklansky, Mason Malmuth and Tom McEvoy and practiced using poker computer software.
When he and his family emigrated to Austria in 1990, Donev taught for a chess school at $10 per hour to support his study of computer science. Ivo Donev is the author of the chess book "The most important ideas in the end game" in German language. In 2002, Donev made his one and only appearance on Late Night He finished 5th out of an impressive field including Peter Costa, Dave Welch and Ram Vaswani.
In 2003, Donev finished as a semi-finalist in the World Heads-Up Championship.
A professional chess player before starting his poker career, he is currently number 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 Money Finishes
2000 $1,500 Limit Omaha - 1st place ($85,800)
2001 $2,500 Seven Card Study - 10th place ($5,530)
2002 $1,500 Pot Limit Hold"em - 10th place ($5,670)
2004 $1,500 Limit Hold"em Shootout - 6th place ($16,560)
2004 $2,000 Pot Limit Hold"em - 3rd place ($47,700)
2005 $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 - North L Holdem- 64th place ($6,929)
2010 $2,000 - Limit Holdem- 26th place ($6,237)
2010 $2,500 - Limit/Netherlands 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).