Phil Galfond: The Man Behind OMGClayAiken

Phil Galfond’s fellow players have plenty to say about his game. Ask them about the man himself, though, and there’s much more to the conversation. In his documentary series, they describe a deep thinker, a patient teacher and someone whose opinion they seek when an issue matters to them.

Galfond first made his name playing high-stakes pot-limit Omaha as “OMGClayAiken.” With Run It Once, players who knew him as an opponent could sit down and listen to him explain how he thought through a hand. In time, they began asking what he thought about issues facing the game itself.

Galfond hadn’t planned on any of that. When he left college, he was just trying to make a living playing a game he couldn’t stop thinking about. Running a business would come later, and so would the question of how much room poker could take up once he had a family.

Who Is Phil Galfond?

Phil Galfond, known online as “OMGClayAiken” on Full Tilt Poker and “MrSweets28” on PokerStars, is an American professional poker player, coach and entrepreneur. He made his name in high-stakes pot-limit Omaha and went on to co-found Run It Once Training and launch his own online poker room.

His career includes three World Series of Poker bracelets in three different formats, appearances on televised cash games and the series of heads-up matches known as the Galfond Challenge.

How Did Phil Galfond Start Playing Poker?

Growing up in Maryland, Galfond played cards with friends for fun. He began to take poker more seriously at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Near the end of his freshman year, he started playing sit-and-go tournaments online and reading poker books to improve his game. As he began making money, he started to see poker as something he could do for a living.

In the first episode of his documentary series, Who Is This Guy?, Galfond recalled turning $100 into a $100,000 bankroll by his junior year. By then, he was earning money at the tables and finding it harder to take college seriously. He eventually dropped out to play full-time. His parents weren’t thrilled, but they supported his decision. He’s still grateful they did.

Becoming OMGClayAiken

The screen name was hardly intimidating. The player behind it soon was. Galfond moved from sit-and-go tournaments into high-stakes no-limit hold’em cash games. Pot-limit Omaha later became his main game, and “OMGClayAiken” became a familiar name to anyone following the biggest online cash games.

He spent long hours playing and studying, often talking through decisions with other players. His documentary looks back on a group of young pros who shared a house during the World Series and learned the game alongside one another. Much of their time went into online poker.

The surroundings were less glamorous than the stakes might suggest. His longtime friend and business partner Dan Quinn remembered Galfond’s office with two computers, two monitors and a collection of empty water bottles.

Quinn recalled how differently they handled losing. After a bad hand, he might throw his mouse against the wall. The angriest he remembered seeing Galfond was after a big losing session. Phil picked up his mouse and dropped it back onto the desk.

Phil Galfond’s WSOP Bracelets and the Galfond Challenge

Fans who knew Galfond as “OMGClayAiken” got to put a face to the screen name on Poker After Dark. Cash games were at the heart of his career, but some of his biggest live results came at the World Series of Poker. He won his three WSOP bracelets in three different formats.

One of his most memorable matches played out online. In the opening match of the Galfond Challenge, he fell more than €900,000 behind against “VeniVidi1993.” He took a break, returned and gradually chipped away at the deficit. After 25,000 hands, he finished less than nine big blinds ahead.

Why Did Phil Galfond Start Teaching Poker?

Galfond had found his place at the poker table. He found another in teaching. As one player recalled in Galfond’s documentary, he could spend 20 minutes breaking down a single hand. That gives you a sense of what he enjoyed about poker: working out why a decision made sense, then finding a way to explain it. That was what drew him to coaching. Starting a business hadn’t been the plan.

After making instructional videos for Bluefire Poker, Galfond co-founded Run It Once Training. The idea was to charge more than competing sites and use the money to bring in strong coaches. What set Run It Once apart was how much material it published. At a time when other training sites put out a few videos a week, Run It Once gave players considerably more to study.

Galfond had thought of himself as one of several successful online pros with similar credentials. That changed when younger players who’d learned from his videos started treating him as a mentor. It was a role he hadn’t set out to fill, but one he grew to take seriously.

From Run It Once Training to Run It Once Poker

The success of the training site gave Galfond the confidence to try running an online poker room. In A Bad Day, the second episode of his documentary series, he recalled working roughly 80 hours a week around the time Run It Once Poker launched in 2019. He even took customer support shifts himself.

Later, when a deal to sell the room fell through, Galfond and his co-founder Dan Quinn flew out to meet the prospective buyer and try to save it. The meeting went badly. Afterward, Galfond learned that his father had died and shared the news with Quinn on Slack.

In the months that followed, Galfond found himself losing his temper more easily. He’d always thought he was hard to anger. Now he wondered how much easier it had been to stay calm when life was going well. He stepped away from poker for a while because he knew he couldn’t count on the composure he’d brought to the table for years.

Life Beyond the Tables

Run It Once Poker’s software eventually became the basis for BetRivers Poker. For Galfond, the experience changed how he thought about money. Moving up in stakes and building a business had once been ways to see how far he could go. Facing the possibility of debt or having to sell the family home made him think more about what he already had.

Phil Galfond’s Wife Farah and Their Family

By then, poker was only one part of the life Phil and Farah had built together. When they first met, it still set the rhythm of his days.

Farah Fath Galfond, an actress and poker player, had been following Phil on Twitter before they got together. She liked how positive he was in a corner of the internet that could be anything but. They met after a show she was working on was canceled. She remembers how readily he accepted her at a time when she felt things were falling apart.

Phil was still grinding online then. When Farah visited him in Vancouver, he would often play into the early hours. For a while, he’d even kept what he called a 26-hour schedule: 12 hours asleep, 14 awake. His day started a little later each time. Once he and Farah were together, he knew that routine had to change.

They married in 2015, and their son, Spencer, was born in 2018. Farah admired how hard Phil worked, though she later described the months he spent trying to sell the poker room as the hardest period in their marriage. Even when he was home, much of his attention was still on saving the business.

In a PokerNews interview, Farah said one of her favorite things was watching Phil with Spencer. She described him as a fun dad who makes sure his son feels comfortable telling him how he feels.

Social Media & Online Presence

Follow Phil Galfond for poker strategy, hand breakdowns and updates on his latest projects. His YouTube channel also hosts his documentary series, which follows his career and family life away from the tables.

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