Page 1 of Tweets by poker pro Phil Galfond with up to date Twitter posts. Phil Galfond is beginning to run away with the third Galfond Challenge. (Image: Twitter) The third installment of the Galfond Challenge has taken fans on quite a roller coaster ride.

As Polk says in his latest Twitter update. Phil Galfond vs. This battle is a lot closer and has gone a little further into the challenge. An odd Twitter row broke out between some of poker’s great and good after Phil Galfond revised his opinion on fellow Phil of the Hellmuth variety from good to great. Luke Schwartz went full beast mode on Twitter at Phil Galfond after Phil announced he was seriously considering throwing in the towel in his opening PLO Challenge match against VeniVidi1993 after.

Table Of Contents

What Is the Galfond Challenge?

High-stakes poker professional Phil Galfond has issued a challenge to the poker world with the Galfond Challenge. The founder and owner of Run It Once poker will be taking on at least six opponents in a series of individual high stakes heads-up matches that are played out of the course of weeks, or sometimes even months.

The heads-up matches will be played in Pot-Limit Omaha over a predetermined amount of hands, with blinds at €100/€200 or even higher. Both players have wagered money on the side in addition to the money won/lost during the matches itself.

Who Are Phil Galfond's Competitors?

At the time of writing, six players have lined up to take on one of the PLO end bosses of the game. These six competitors are Bill Perkins, Dan 'Jungleman' Cates, Chance Kornuth, and Brandon Adams, as well as high-stakers 'Venividi1993' and Ioannis 'ActionFreak' Kontonatsios. Five of these six will contest Galfond on the digital felt, while Adams will only play Galfond in heads-up live poker.

Galfond has defeated both 'VeniVidi1993' and 'ActionFreak', while sporting a lead over Perkins and Kornuth in their ongoing matches.

Phil Galfond Twitter Post

What Is At Stake in the Galfond Challenge?

The Galfond Challenge features high-stakes Pot-Limit Omaha cash game poker with swings that can go up into millions of dollars. In addition, the loser will pay the winner a side bet that's been negotiated upfront, often a six- or seven-figure amount. Galfond is laying odds with most of his opponents.

The Matches in the Galfond Challenge

Phil Galfond vs. 'Venividi1993'

An epic showdown between Phil Galfond and 'Venividi1993' came down to a final €100/€200 Pot-Limit Omaha session. Galfond, who had found himself on the ropes multiple times throughout the challenge and was even trailing over €900,000 at one point, completed the ultimate comeback on the final night. Galfond was up €12,500 with about 75 hands to go, allowing him to blind off to win the €100,000 side bet from his Dutch opponent.

Phil Galfond vs. Bill Perkins

In the aftermath of winning his 25,000-hand match against 'Venividi1993', Phil Galfond didn't waste any time with either celebrations or preparations for his ongoing Challenge series. Instead, two days after wrapping up his epic victory, Galfond sat right back down at the tables and traded the first blows with opponent No. 2, high-stakes tournament vet Bill Perkins.

Similar to the 'Venividi1993' match, the stakes are $100/$200 Pot-Limit Omaha but this time with Galfond laying $1 million against $250,000 that he'd win across either 50,000 hands or a $400,000 stop-loss. Action kicked off on partypoker

After just 862 hands, Galfond has opened up a $90K lead. The action in this challenge has been dormant for a while as Galfond focused on his other matches, while Perkins launched his new book Die With Zero.

Phil Galfond vs. 'ActionFreak'

Galfond's second series of matches against Ioannis 'ActionFreak' Kontonatsios provided much less drama than the first one. Galfond took an early lead in the challenge and rode it all the way to victory. Entering their final session, Galfond held a €237K lead over his opponent.

While 'ActionFreak' was able to recoup some of his losses, he ultimately had to shed with €114K of his own money after the 15,000 hands had concluded. Galfond and Kontonatsios had an even money side bet of €150K riding on it for a total profit of €264K and two for two for the Run It Once founder.

Phil Galfond vs. Chance Kornuth

After a quiet summer, the action flared up again in the Galfond Challenge with Galfond starting his series of heads-up battles against Chance Kornuth. The duo will play 35,000 hands against each other with the action kicking off on WSOP.com due to Kornuth living in the United States.

The Run It Once founder is laying a mighty price to his fellow coach: €1 million against Kornuth's €250,000. After 15% of their match completed, the favorite Galfond took a comfortable lead. However, a crushing streak of wins by Kornuth turned the match on its head and left him up a significant margin, almost $350K.

After a long stretch of close to break-even play, Galfond finally put together a three-session run in which he profited more than $300,000 to reduce his deficit back to five figures. Kornuth stringed together three wins after that, but none were particularly large.

On. Dec. 9, Galfond moved back into the lead with an $88K win and he never looked back. He won five of six sessions going into the holiday break, and his lead stood at $352,000. After an early January hiccup, he resumed his winning ways and more than doubled that total, leading Kornuth to concede the match with just under 10,000 hands remaining.

• Day 42-50: Kornuth Waves White Flag Down $726K

Phil Galfond vs. Dan 'Jungleman' Cates

Possibly the most-anticipated match of the Galfond Challenge, Galfond will take on Dan 'Jungleman' Cates in the near future. While details have to be fully fleshed out, such as the side bet, the duo has already played a mini-challenge with Galfond walloping his adversary for €86K.

Phil Galfond vs. Brandon Adams

The match between Phil Galfond and Brandon Adams will be different than the other five as this match will be fully played out in yet to be determined live setting. Instead of a # of hands, the two will play for a total of 40 hours before the winner is determined. Galfond is laying €150K against Adams' €100K.

Galfond Challenge F.A.Q.

A series of high-stakes poker matches against Phil Galfond, a poker professional, and owner of the poker site Run It Once.

Phil Galfond Poker

Phil Galfond is a highly respected professional poker player who's played the highest stakes on the planet. He's known under his aliases 'MrSweets28' and'OMGClayAiken' online and is especially feared for his Pot-Limit Omaha skills. Originally from Gaithersburg, MD, Galfond has won nearly $3 million dollars in live poker winnings according to The Hendon Mob, as well as countless more money in online cash games and tournaments. He also has three World Series of Poker bracelets.

Once a dominant player at the high stakes, Phil Galfond has stepped away from playing poker professionally to start his own poker site Run It Once. However, wanting to get back into the high-stakes ring, Galfond issued a challenge to the poker world to play him in a series of heads-up pot-limit Omaha matches.

Currently, six players have taken up the gauntlet to take on Galfond: Bill Perkins, Dan 'Jungleman' Cates, Chance Kornuth, Brandon Adams, as well as two high-stakes PLO players 'Venividi1993' and 'ActionFreak'.

'ActionFreak' is a Greek high-stakes player named Ioannis Kontonatsios, who is more famous under his moniker. 'Venividi1993' is a Dutch poker player that prefers to remain anonymous.

The Galfond Challenge features high-stakes Pot-Limit Omaha cash game poker with swings that can go up into millions of dollars. In addition, the loser will pay the winner a side bet that's been negotiated upfront, often a six- or seven-figure amount. Galfond is laying odds with most of his opponents.

The Galfond Challenge can be followed on the Run It Once Twitch channel, where all matches will be live-streamed. PokerNews often provides recaps of all the action.

Yes, players are able to bet on the outcome of the various Galfond Challenge matches.

Phil Galfond has won two of his Galfond Challenges so far, against 'Venividi1993' and 'ActionFreak'. Other matches are in progress or upcoming.

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Kornuth waved the white flag

There was much uncertainty from both Phil Galfond and the poker community as a whole when Galfond embarked on his “Galfond Challenge” a year ago. Once one of the best poker players in the world, Galfond had effectively retired from competitive poker to launch his very own online poker room, Run It Once. The Challenge was more or less a marketing tool, but in boosting traffic to his site, Galfond was risking his own money. No doubt he also wanted to see how his skills still stacked up to some of the world’s best, but it certainly felt like it was either a terrible idea or a genius one. Well, so far it has been the latter, as over the weekend, Galfond clinched his third match in as many tries when Chance Kornuth conceded his Challenge before reaching the predetermined hand limit.

The two men had agreed to play 35,000 hands of $100/$200 Pot-Limit Omaha. The player in the black at the end of the match would not only keep his winnings, but also nab a side bet from his opponent. Galfond risked a cool million for the side bet, versus Kornuth’s $250,000.

After a terrible downswing of more than two and a half months, Kornuth decided to cut his losses on Saturday, sacrifice the $250,000 side bet, and just call it a day. After 25,400 hands, Phil Galfond won $726,500, not counting the side bet.

Andrew Robl Twitter

The Galfond/Kornuth match got started in late September 2020 and it was Galfond who got out to a nice lead by early October. Kornuth went on a tremendous run into mid-November, however, building a lead of $344,500. From there, however, it was nothing but a struggle for Kornuth. On December 9, Galfond got out of the red for good, edging up to $28,500 to the positive. He won almost every session thereafter, profiting another $700,000 through this past Saturday.

Apparently, Kornuth had seen enough. They had fewer than 10,000 hands remaining, but it looks like Kornuth just didn’t see a path to profitability, so rather than trying to at least make back some of the money he had lost, he decided to just not risk getting into a deeper hole, shake his opponent’s virtual hand, and move on.

For his part, Galfond had nothing but praise for Kornuth, saying, “He tested my game in ways no other opponents had, exposing weaknesses I wasn’t aware of, and I’m stronger now for it.”

Insane comebacks are possible

Galfond himself is no stranger to massive deficits in these challenges. In his first one last year against VeniVidi1993, he was down nearly $1m. It was so bad that he decided to pause the challenge, even paying his opponent for each scheduled day they missed. He posted a long essay on Twitter, explaining that he had some soul searching to do, not sure if he was just having a ridiculous string of bad luck or if he was just honestly not as good as VeniVidi1993.

Galfond came close to quitting, but he decided to press on. It turned out it was the right decision, as he made a gigantic comeback, clinching the victory with just 75 hands remaining.

In his second challenge, Phil Galfond bested Ioannis “ActionFreak” Kontonatsios.