Phil Galfond: From Online Poker Prodigy to High-Stakes Champion
Phil Galfond is a professional poker player, coach, and businessman, regarded by many as one of the game’s best players. He’s also one of the best-known and most-loved players in poker, with an amicable approach that has won him a lot of fans over the years.
The journey that took Phil Galfond from a promising talent to a renowned pro is an interesting one, and like all poker careers, it’s one that has included many ups and downs.
Phil Galfond: Poker Prodigy
Phil Galfond made his name as an online poker player during the early 2000s. At this time, online poker was booming. Chris Moneymaker won a ticket to the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event in a cheap satellite tournament, and then scooped a 7-figure sum by winning the event. In doing so, he inspired countless thousands of players to follow in his footsteps.
Phil Galfond was one of them, as well as one of the many top players able to take advantage of the influx of players into popular poker domains. Adopting the online moniker “OMGCLAYAIKEN”, he turned a $100 deposit into $100,000 during his junior year of college, and this set him on the path to becoming one of the game’s greats.
Incidentally, Galfond said that he used the now-famous nickname as a way to make his opponents embarrassed when they lost to him. At the time, according to Galfond, many players used macho names, so it provided a nice change of pace and helped him to stand out. It certainly did that, as it has gone down as one of the most iconic names in online poker history.
A Respected Live Player
In the late 2000s, Galfond made the transition to live poker. One of his biggest wins at this time came in a $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event at the 2008 WSOP. The young poker pro faced off against a table full of big-name poker pros, including John Juanda, Phil Hellmuth, and Daniel Negreanu. In the end, he walked away with a prize of $817,781, and cemented his status as a promising Pot-Limit Omaha player.
Over the years, Pot-Limit Omaha became Phil Galfond’s best game. He scooped many big online and offline Omaha events after his 2008 success, including success in a 2018 WSOP Omaha event that earned him a $567,788 payout. In the decade between these two bracelet wins, he won a $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Single Draw Championship, and to date, he has 3 WSOP bracelets.
Phil Galfond High Stakes Poker Experience
Many of Galfond’s successes came in high-stakes poker events, including online and offline tournaments and cash games. He was also a regular on High Stakes Poker, which is hosted by the GSN network and has aired over 171 episodes since 2006.
In a famous hand from season 7 of the show, Galfond went up against an amateur player named Bill Klein. Klein called a bet from Galfond to see the river, hoping to land a flush. He missed, leaving Galfond with a straight. Klein made a $150,000 bluff bet, and when Galfond folded, Klein showed the bluff and received praise from other players at the table.
Phil Galfond Poker Training
Whether you’re playing online poker vs computer opponents, as in video poker variants, or you’re trying to improve your tournament game for variations like Texas Hold’em, Galfond is a great source of information.
In 2012, the poker pro launched Run it Once Training, alongside some other poker pros. The training site welcomed over 100 coaches and countless members, and within a few years, it had grown into one of the biggest poker training communities on the web.
You can also access Phil Galfond poker training through his YouTube account and official website. The Run It Once network is still available, as well. The brand was acquired by Rush Street Interactive in 2022, but the deal included Galfond and his team, and they still work as coaches on the platform.
Summary: How Galfond Became an Online Great
If you’ve spent any length of time digging through coaching sites and blogs, whether you’re looking for the basics on hand values or learning how to read opponents in poker, there’s a good chance you will have come across Phil Galfond’s work.
He got his start as a young man playing online poker games under an amusing nickname, but he quickly transitioned into a live poker professional that accumulated tens of millions in tournament and cash game winnings over the course of a couple of decades.
Like many other great poker players, Phil Galfond has been more than happy to share stories of his success and provide tips that help others on their own journeys. The difference is that he has built entire communities off the back of this education, and his strategies and general advice have helped many others to quickly adapt to online and offline poker.
Poker Common Queries
How much has Phil Galfond made in poker?
Official statistics put Galfond’s total live poker earnings at about $3 million. But that doesn’t include his online winnings, which are known to be considerably greater than his live cashes. We’ve seen several different claims on this front, with statements saying that he has won anywhere from $10m (these seem to have been taken from older articles without realizing they are outdated) to $30 million. We think the latter is likely to be closer to the real figure, though we wouldn’t be surprised if it was much higher.
Is Phil Galfond a good poker player?
He is a very good poker player and has the credentials to prove it. Galfond is also a true student of the game. He is constantly learning and improving, while also helping others to improve their game.
Is Phil Galfond the best poker player ever?
Although he is one of the game’s greatest, we’re not sure many would have him as their number 1. However, if you were to list the greatest online poker players ever or even the greatest Pot-Limit Omaha players, his name would likely be near the top of the list.
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