It is not uncommon for poker pros to issue a challenge to fellow pros of the poker community in general. Players like to keep their name in the spotlight as well as bring attention to certain sites or poker brands. Phil Galfond is a poker pro who recently called himself a washed-up ex-pro when he issued two different challenges via Run It Once Poker. As the founder of Run It Once, Galfond is calling out coaches and anyone else via heads-up challenges to see who will emerge the victor.
Open PLO Coach Challenge
The first challenge issued is the Open PLO Coach Challenge. In this challenge, Galfond is calling out the coaches who are making training videos on other sites. He says the head to head will be similar to an unfinished challenge between Tom “Durrr” Dwan and Daniel Cates, with the players taking part in 50,000 hands. There will be a 3:1 on a side bet of 10 buy-ins and the action will take place at $100/$200 stakes or higher.
Galfond stated that he would be open to lowering the stakes if it helps to bring in players but he would prefer to play a bigger game so that viewers will be brought in to watch the action unfold.
Open Challenge to Anyone
For his second challenge, Galfond is opening it up to anyone who wishes to go head to head. He is looking for other challenges with a varying number of hands, probably less than 50,000. In this matchup, Galfond prefers to play $100/$200 to $300/$600 PLO. However, he is open to $25/$50 and will consider other games including PLO/Limit Games, PLO/NL and just NL.
He would prefer to play on Run It Once but would consider competing elsewhere. From the match, Galfond would create training content. An opponent that is willing to stream the match will get preference and possibly better terms for gameplay.
Not even a day went by before Galfond saw his challenged accepted by 11 different people. The names have not been revealed by the poker pro was surprised at how many players were interested in taking him on at the felt.
Via a Twitter post, Galfond stated that he was blown away by the response and if anyone was worried about the battles not taking place, they can rest easy because so many people have already accepted the challenge. The pro is now asking players to hurry up and lock in to participate so that he can share battle plans publicly.
It will certainly be interesting to see which players have decided to give the Galfond challenge a go. Will it be a long list of fellow poker pros or have a few amateur players decided to go for and see if they can best the poker pro?
Hopefully over the next few weeks, Galfond will release the names of those participating and at what stakes and game format the challenges will take place in.
