Poker professional, Phil Galfond, made his name in the online poker industry by playing high-stakes cash games and victoriously crushing his opponents a few years back. Being one of the most successful online poker players in history, Galfond set his lifetime net profit to over $8 million in internet play.
In November 2019, Galfond issued a challenge to the poker community to face him in a series of high-stakes heads-up PLO play. The Galfond Challenge’s every session, presented by his own site Run It Once Poker will be live streamed for all to witness as part of the professional’s mission of keeping the poker dream alive. The first six challengers were Bill Perkins, Brandon Adams, Chance Kornuth, Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates, and online poker players ‘ActionFreak’ and ‘VeniVidi1993’. Apart from the money won from the arranged matches, Galfond and his challengers also set hefty side bets to compete for in the series of matches.
Phil Galfond’s Incredible Comeback against VeniVidi
As previously reported, the first player to challenge Phil Galfond is online poker player, VeniVidi1993. The initial match set the stakes to €100/€200 with a duration of 25k hands and a side bet of €200K : €100K between the players.
After 15 sessions of play, Galfond was already surprisingly down €900,000 after playing just under 10,000 hands of the scheduled 25,000 hand match. Admittedly unable to play his A or B game, Galfond requested a break until March 1st to gather his thoughts, regroup and possibly move on to another challenge. An extra €3,000 per day loss was agreed by both players as penalty when the match is to be put on pause.
Continuing with the challenge, Galfond makes an incredible comeback with three six-digit scores against VeniVidi1993 in their recent sessions. In the last session, Galfond recorded a huge profit of €140,979 in the €100/€200 PLO cash game session within 503 hands. Venividi1993, seeing that his opponent was on a momentum, reportedly had enough of the beating he was taking and called it a day early. The final tally cuts Galfond’s loss two thirds from the initial €900,000 to now a little over €300,000.
Galfond Challenge Day 28 – Highlights
Bombarded with a recurring loss, opponent VeniVidi1993 has decided to take a couple of days off to mentally reset. The first match is set to resume this coming Thursday with hopefully, both players ready with their best. With around 7,500 hands left to go, the Run It Once founder may find himself at a profit at the end of the first match if he continues to keep the ball rolling his way.
#GalfondChallenge Update:
VeniVidi1993 has decided to take a couple of days off to mentally reset.
We’ll resume the match on Thursday.
— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) March 22, 2020
Feeling great, Galfond tweeted “Reminder: I took time off after a rough stretch & had your support & respect for it. Veni seems to be taking this run at least as well & he’s like a decade younger than me. Feel free to root for me but win or lose, I hope Veni comes away from this w/ the respect he deserves.”
