Galfond Challenge
Late last year, Phil Galfond shared a blogpost proposing an event similar to the infamous Durrrr Challenge that never ended a few years ago. Initially, Galfond called it "Phil's HU Challenge," and he was looking to play 100/200 to 300/600 PLO HU games.
Galfond is one of the most successful PLO players in history, with almost $7M in profits with his accounts "OMGClayAiken" and "MrSweets."
There are three categories in the Galfond Challenge and each player defines the conditions:
| Category | Player | Stakes | Hands | Sidebet |
| As Seen On TV | Bill Perkins | €100/€200 PLO | 50k or €400k loss | $800k: $200k |
| As Seen On TV | Brandon Adams | €100/€200 PLO | 40 hours live poker | €150k:€100k |
| Clash Of The Coaches | Chance Kornuth | €100/€200 PLO | 35k | €1M:€250k |
| Online Superstars | VeniVidi1993 | €100/€200 PLO | 25k | €200k:€100k |
| Online Superstars | ActionFreak | €150/€300 PLO | 15k | €150k:€150k |
| Online Superstars | Daniel "Jungleman" Cates | €100/€200 PLO | 7,5k | TBD |
Before setting the final list of competitors, Fernando "JNandez" Habegger step back from his initial bet. Today began the match against the unknown player "VeniVidi1993", and will continue up to 25k hands.
Phil Galfond VS. VeniVidi1993
Galfond Challenge results
The online crusher VeniVidi1993, whose accounts represent almost $700k in profits in 700k hands played at PLO, agreed to play the Galfond Challenge with the following conditions:
- 25k hands HU PLO, €100/€200;
- Sidebet: €200k (Phil) : €200k (VeniVidi)
- Play 5 days a week, Monday to Friday;
- Players must auto top-up to 100bb;
- Ratholing is allowed from 200bb.
Today's challenge was streamed in real-time via Twitch, and the famous player Joey Ingram held a parallel broadcast. Joe Stapleton and Richard Gryko (RIO PLO Coach) were the commentators of the first session.
VeniVidi1993 Graph
Conclusions of the first Galfond Challenge session:
- Results: Phil down more €72k
- Viewers: 2,400 average
- Hands played: 655
- Time: 4 hours
- Tables: 2
- Rake: 1% up to a cap with 1€
- Odds: Phil Galfond 2.13, VeniVidi 1.74
There are no hole cards in the streaming and no live-score; the results were updated on the official website of the challenge a few hours after the end of the game.
Some players have commented about necessary improvements in the RIO platform to enjoy the Galfond Challenge:
- Fonts are not ideal; sometimes the characters are too close, too thin;
- There are no thousand separators;
- It's not clear who is acting;
- It is not possible to rail from the software;
- The hosts said they were having problems to commentate because the cards flash in the showdown very quickly;
- Sometimes the cards disappear when playing;
- Hand values are not displayed at the table.
RIO glitch
Phil Galfond joined a call after the game ended with Joe Stapleton to share his thoughts:
It was fun. It feels great to be back in action after 3-4 years. How about your competition? I think he played kinda similar to what I expected; he plays very well. I was looking today not to feel lost, I'm optimistic. I think it can get stronger.
Phil also said that he had a small reasonable loss, almost four buys-ins (€72k), which in real life is a lot of money, but in this stake isn't very much. After four hours of the game, the last pot was a €50k one with the Jc7h4d5d of Galfond beaten by the Th8hQsQd of VeniVidi in a board Tc9d3hTd6s
Galfond still has many hours of game in front of him; for example, the challenge vs. VeniVidi1993 can take up to 40 days of action according to today's results. And in total, there are seven challengers (one TBD). We will update the Galfond Challenge results and share the best sites to play nosebleed games online.
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