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Poker Player profile: Phil Galfond
Phil Galfond plays exclusively at Full Tilt Poker. Click here now to join omgclayaiken at the tables.
If the name Phil Galfond doesn’t ring a bell, perhaps the screen-name he uses at Full Tilt Poker will: “OMGClayAiken”. Galfond is one of the top online poker players in the game today, and has had some crossover success at the WSOP and on GSN’s High Stakes Poker.
The 24 year old Galfond has put together a pretty impressive resume including winning the $5,000 PLO with re-buys tournament at the 2008 WSOP; considered to be the toughest final table of all time. Galfond defeated three icons of poker; Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, and Johnny Chan; three of the best, and most well known, players in the world John Juanda, David Benyamine, and Kirill Gerasimov; and two of his online poker peers Brian “tsarrast” Rast and Adam “Houdinin” Hourani. The win netted Galfond $817,000, and with only a couple of years of live tournaments under his belt he is already approaching the $1 million career earning plateau.
In early 2009 Galfond launched the much anticipated BlueFirePoker.com. BlueFire is an instructional site featuring training videos, which are completely overseen by Galfond himself. Galfond focuses on the content while his partners take care of the day-to-day operations like memberships and site design. Bluefire features one of the brightest poker minds in Ryan Fee “Fees” on its site. “Fees”, only 20 years old, is one of the most sought after coaches in poker, and his contributions to forums such as 2+2 are legendary (Google Fees guide to 6-max for a glimpse).
Galfond is also considered one of the best poker minds out there; with an uncanny ability to explain advanced concepts into simple instruction: Perhaps his course selection in college has something to do with that –Psychology, Logic, and Bayesian probability.
In an effort to prove the skill level of poker –and push along legalization-- BlueFire recently challenged President Barack Obama, or any member of Congress, to play one of its instructors in a match of any stakes. If the BlueFire team member were to lose the site would pay out $1 million to the charity of choice!
Galfond started his poker career in 2004, playing small stakes Sit & Go Tournaments; and by 2005 the 20 year old was beating the highest stakes Sit &Go’s on the Internet (upwards of $5k buy-ins). In 2006 Galfond made the switch to cash games, starting at 5/10 NLHE. His rise through the cash games ranks was as meteoric as his rise through the Sit & Go ranks; and Galfond now plays 200/400+ NLHE and PLO, mainly on Full Tilt.
Galfond routinely plays against the best players in the world day in and day out in these games: Gus Hansen, Tom Dwan, David Benyamine, and many others. Galfond and Tom “durrrr” Dwan are not only competitors in these games, but the two became fast friends: I can only imagine the poker conversations these two players have over dinner!
The start of Phil Galfond’s poker career has been nothing short of astounding; accomplishing many feats, in just 5 years, that most players would like to amass in a lifetime on the felt.
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