Phil Galfond | |
---|---|
![]() Galfond, after winning the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha w/Rebuys event at the 2008 WSOP | |
Nickname(s) | OMGClayAiken (Full Tilt) MrSweets28 (PokerStars) Jman28 (2+2) |
Residence | North Potomac, Maryland, U.S. |
Born | January 16, 1985 39) | (age
World Series of Poker | |
Bracelet(s) | 3 |
Final table(s) | 8 |
Money finish(es) | 24 |
Highest ITM Main Event finish | 141st, 2010 |
World Poker Tour | |
Title(s) | None |
Final table(s) | None |
Money finish(es) | 2 |
Phil Galfond (born January 16, 1985) [1] is an American professional poker player. Galfond won three World Series of Poker bracelets, in the $5,000 buy-in pot-limit Omaha with rebuys event in 2008, the $10,000 no-limit 2-7 single draw championship in 2015 and the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship in 2018. Due to his success as a high-stakes online player, he appeared on multiple seasons of GSN's High Stakes Poker .
He is currently the owner of real money poker site Run It Once Poker and poker training site Run It Once Training where he also is a coach.
Galfond is originally from North Potomac, Maryland and attended Thomas Sprigg Wootton High School and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He formerly resided in New York City, where he installed a slide as his access between the two penthouse apartments he purchased. [2]
Galfond married actress Farah Fath on May 15, 2015. Their son, Spencer, was born in December 2018. [3]
As of February 2020, Galfond's total live tournament winnings exceed $2,900,000. [4] His 24 cashes at the WSOP account for $2,876,895 of those winnings. [5]
Galfond won the $5,000 pot-limit Omaha with rebuys event at the 2008 World Series of Poker, earning $817,781. He defeated Adam Hourani during heads-up play. The final table featured a number of well-known professional players including Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, John Juanda, Kirill Gerasimov, Johnny Chan, David Benyamine, Brian Rast as well as online star Adam 'houdini' Hourani. [6] [7] Galfond went on to win a second WSOP gold bracelet in 2015, topping a field of 77 entries in the $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Single Draw Championship to win $224,383. [8] He then earned his third gold bracelet in 2018, winning the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship for $567,788. [9]
Year | Event | Prize Money |
---|---|---|
2008 | $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha w/ Rebuys | $817,781 |
2015 | $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Single Draw Championship | $224,383 |
2018 | $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship | $567,788 |
Galfond has two World Poker Tour in-the-money finishes. He finished in 70th place in the $25,000 buy-in World Poker Tour World Championship in April 2008, earning $39,570. [10] In December 2012, he finished 24th in the $10,000 buy-in WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic for $31,714. [11]
Galfond finished in 18th place at the 2006 World Series of Poker Circuit event in Grand Casino Tunica, earning $22,895. [7]
Galfond is well known for online poker where he plays high-stakes cash games primarily $200/$400 stakes and above in no-limit Texas hold 'em and pot limit Omaha tables on Full Tilt Poker under his nickname "OMGClayAiken," and on Pokerstars under the screen name "MrSweets28." [12] [13] With a lifetime net profit of over $8M in Internet poker play, he has been one of the most successful online poker players in history (as of May 2011). [14] According to Galfond, he chose “OMGClayAiken” as the antithesis of the “macho” screen names that are prevalent in online poker in hopes that other players would be embarrassed to lose to him. [15]
Due to the legal actions against online poker, which are known as Black Friday, that took place on April 15, 2011, in the United States, Galfond moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada so he could continue to play poker online.
In February 2013, Galfond's all-time online earnings on Full Tilt Poker came to over $10,000,000. [16] [17]
In November 2019, Galfond issued a challenge [18] to the poker world to play high-stakes heads-up pot-limit Omaha (PLO), deemed the Galfond Challenge. [19] He issued the challenge in two parts: one challenge was open to PLO coaches and the other was to everyone else in the poker world. Several opponents stepped up [20] and details were ironed out for a series of high-stakes poker matches that would be played on Galfond's online poker site, Run It Once Poker. The first six challengers were Bill Perkins, Brandon Adams, Chance Kornuth, Dan 'Jungleman' Cates, and online poker players 'ActionFreak' and 'VeniVidi1993.' In addition to the money won or lost on the poker table, Galfond and his challengers had large side bets that they were competing for.
After being down €900,000+ to poker professional VeniVidi1993, Galfond came back to win his first challenge by securing a €1,472 overall win and the side bet of €100,000.
In his match against Actionfreak, Phil Galfond ended the 15.000 hand battle with a €114,000 overall win. This win netted him the sidebet of €150,000. [21]
Albeit considered standard theory today, Galfond was among the first players to utilize hand ranges instead of a fixed hand approach when analyzing opponents' holdings. Although not exact, this method allows for more accurate readings and positive EV play.[ citation needed ]
As of August 2023, Galfond's total live tournament winnings were nearly $3,000,000. [22]
In 2012, Galfond started the poker training site Run It Once Training with fellow high-stakes players, Ben Sulsky, Di Dang and Hac Dang as coaches. As of September 2019, 125 coaches had produced content for his training site.
Being concerned about the direction online poker was heading, Galfond announced the launch of poker site Run It Once Poker in August 2016. [23] [24] The site was launched in public beta in February 2019. [25]
In October 2020, Run it Once was one of several entities named in a $330 million defamation lawsuit brought by poker professional Mike Postle. [26]
In March 2022, Rush Street Interactive announced it had acquired Galfond's Run It Once poker brand and technology, in a deal which included Phil Galfond and his development team. [27]
Phillip Jerome Hellmuth Jr. is an American professional poker player who has won a record seventeen World Series of Poker bracelets. He is the winner of the Main Event of the 1989 World Series of Poker (WSOP) and the Main Event of the 2012 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE), and he is a 2007 inductee of the WSOP's Poker Hall of Fame. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest tournament players of all time.
Gustav Hansen is a Danish professional poker player from Copenhagen, Denmark who has lived in Monaco since 2003. In his poker career, Hansen has won three World Poker Tour open titles, one WSOP bracelet and the 2007 Aussie Millions main event, and was the season one winner of the Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament. Before turning to playing poker professionally in 1997, Hansen was already a world class backgammon player and a youth tennis champion.
Thomas James "T. J." Cloutier is a professional poker player from Richardson, Texas. He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2006. Cloutier was also briefly a professional football player in the Canadian Football League.
Kirill Gerasimov is a Russian professional poker player.
Rob Hollink is a professional poker player based in Groningen. He has won both a European Poker Tour (EPT) title and World Series of Poker bracelet, becoming the first person from the Netherlands to do so, first was at the EPT's inaugural Grand Final of the European Poker Tour in Monte Carlo in 2005 and then he won his first bracelet at the 2008 World Series of Poker in the $10,000 Limit Hold'em World Championship, becoming the first Dutch bracelet winner.
Willie Tann is an English professional poker player. Tann was born in Singapore and moved to England to study law in the 1960s.
Chau Tu Giang is an American professional poker player who is a three-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner and a three-time final tablist of the World Poker Tour with over $3 million in live tournament winnings alone.
Nenad Medić is a Serbian professional poker player with a World Series of Poker bracelet and World Poker Tour Championship title. He resides in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Medic plays online poker under the alias Serb2127.
Thomas Dwan Jr. is an American professional poker player who played online in the highest-stakes No-Limit Texas hold 'em and Pot-Limit Omaha games, primarily on Full Tilt Poker under the screen name "durrrr". Dwan has won prize money in live poker tournaments and has appeared on NBC's National Heads-Up Poker Championship, the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons of Poker After Dark, the third, fourth, and fifth seasons of Full Tilt Poker's Million Dollar Cash Game, and the fifth, sixth, eighth and ninth seasons of GSN's High Stakes Poker.
Richard "Chufty" Ashby is a professional poker player from England. He was given the name 'Chufty' by his friends at University, due to Ashby's frequency of using the term "chuffed".
Suk-Min "Steve" Sung is a South Korean professional poker player residing in Torrance, California who is a two time World Series of Poker bracelet winner and a three time final tablist of World Poker Tour Championships.
Peter Vilandos was a Greek-American professional poker player. He was born in Greece and then resided in Houston, Texas. He won three bracelets at the World Series of Poker.
James Dempsey, known online as Flushy, is an English professional poker player from Brighton, England, who won a World Series of Poker bracelet at the 2010 World Series of Poker in the $1,500 Pot Limit Hold'em event and a World Poker Tour title at the 2011 Doyle Brunson World Poker Classic.
Christopher Bell is an American professional poker player from Raleigh, North Carolina who won the 2010 World Series of Poker $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better event. He has also made three final tables at the World Poker Tour (WPT).
Brian Hastings of Hanover Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania is an American professional poker player known for his six World Series of Poker bracelets and for his profitable online cash game sessions against the Swedish poker player Viktor Blom, better known by his Online-Poker name Isildur1.
Benjamin Sulsky is an American professional poker player from Durham, New Hampshire, currently considered one of the best online cash game players in the world. Sulsky plays under the aliases Sauce123 on PokerStars and Sauce1234 on Full Tilt Poker. He specializes in Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) and No-Limit hold'em (NLHE).
Anthony Zinno is a professional poker player from Cranston, Rhode Island. He has won three World Poker Tour (WPT) titles and four World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets.
Jason Koon is an American professional poker player from Weston, West Virginia, known for his accomplishments in live and online poker tournaments.
Paul Volpe is an American professional poker player from West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Loren Klein is a professional poker player who has won four World Series of Poker bracelets. He began playing online in about 2007 and began live play in 2011 following Black Friday in 2011. He won World Series of Poker bracelets at the 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 World Series of Poker. Klein was the third player to win bracelets in three consecutive years since the poker boom.