Phil ‘philroyal888’ Mighall is hunting for a major live or online poker score

Despite ascending all the way up to #8 worldwide in the PocketFives Rankings, his highest mark ever, Phil ‘philroyal888’ Mighall is still hunting for that first signature win.

“It’s a great achievement and I’m feeling very proud,” he said of entering the top 10 of the rankings for the first time on June 8. He had been creeping up the leaderboard for several weeks and now finds himself knocking on the door of the top five. Getting there is a whole other story.

Sure, he has $1.9 million in career online tournament winnings and is a stone’s throw from $2 million. Sure, he already has a win and a runner-up finish in the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up for almost $200,000 total. And sure, he also has victories in a Powerfest event and the PokerStars Sunday Grand PLO in recent weeks. But it’s a big-time, career-defining score that still evades him.

“I have a lot of results, but not significant wins,” Mighall said. “I mean a big title. The Warm-Up win was big, but I mean a prestigious title like a SCOOP event or WSOP bracelet or an EPT win. I came very close during this year’s SCOOP to taking a tournament down.”

His Sunday Grand PLO win was good for $38,000. He triumphantly Tweeted when it was over:

The month before, he took down a Wednesday PLO tournament on PokerStars for another $25,000. During this year’s SCOOP, he made the semis of a $109 No Limit Hold’em Heads-Up event, narrowly missing out on his first SCOOP title.

“Getting a big signature score would mean a great deal to me,” he summarized.

Mighall’s success has come in part because of his fiancée, who works part-time and takes care of his child. Without her, being able to grind online in pursuit of a major title would not be possible.

“Having her free most of the time helps massively and gives me the freedom to play long hours,” he said.

Given his ability to play for extended periods of time, he said, “I think I can break into the top 10 worldwide on PocketFives pretty soon. The only problem is that I’m going to Las Vegas for five weeks, so that will affect my ranking greatly.” Worldwide-leading sites like PokerStars and partypoker are inaccessible from Las Vegas, making Nevada-regulated rooms like WSOP.com his only option.

In order to be able to spend time with his fiancée and kid, who would probably like it if they were paid attention to more often than not, Mighall grinds five nights and week and spends the daylight hours with his family. Every other month, he takes a break for a week in order to spend some quality time away from the tables and give his eyes a rest as well.

“I basically play every MTT above $55 online starting around 7:00pm most nights apart from Sundays, when I start at 3:00pm,” the UK player said. “I play Omaha and No Limit Hold’em mainly. When I take a break, I normally just hit somewhere close and hot.”

Over the years, Mighall has compiled over 1,200 in the money finishes in online MTTs and is averaging almost $1,600 apiece. He has a PLB score, the measure used to determine the rankings, of 7,086 points, about 1,100 off the lead. He’s the #2 ranked poker player in the UK and, once he gets that signature win, his confidence will likely be sky high.

If poker ever turns south, Mighall plans to bail out of the industry for something related to business, although he hasn’t exactly figured out what that will be. “I won’t be leaving poker anytime soon,” he said. “I’m talking about 10 to 20 years from now. Who knows, I might play forever.”

If he does play “forever,” he’ll build on a tournament resume that includes $1.6 million in career online winnings on the virtual felts of PokerStars, where he plays under his standard ‘philroyal888‘ user name. In the live world, he came within inches of a “major” score in the Phamous Poker Series last year in Las Vegas. In the series’ $1,150 Main Event on the Strip, he took third for $130,000 in a tournament eventually won by David Schultz. Mighall was the highest finishing non-American.