The high stakes poker world is hardly spinning around like a seagull, right-wing smashed by a serial killer’s slingshot, but boy oh boy has the Phil Galfond challenge attracted more eyeballs than a strip poker livestream.
On November 19, in a bid to make Run It Once Poker more crop circle than Arctic Circle, Phil Galfond, issued a high stakes heads-up challenge to every single player in the universe.
Galfond wanted to face rival online poker training coaches in sessions of €100/€200 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) and offered similar but negotiable terms for all other forms of poker to mere mortals.
With the tap turned on, a trickle soon became a tsunami with a high volume flicking in their interests with the zeal of a chain smoker flicking his dimps into an ashtray.
The first of these epic heads-up battles take place at 8 am (PST), January 22, where Galfond squares off, fingers and thumbs, with ‘VeniVidi1993.’ The pair will compete at stakes of €100/€200 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO), four hours a day, five days a week, until they reach a ceiling of 25,000 hands.
‘Veni Vidi1993,’ is the bookies favourite with PokerShares offering odds of 1.74, with Galfond an outside bet at 2.13, There’s also a side bet up for grabs with Galfond’s €200k versus VeniVidi’s €100k.
You can watch the entire squabble on Twitch/RunItOncePoker.
Here are the rest of the jigsaw pieces.
No dates on these, yet.
The Action
ActionFreak – €150/€300 PLO over 15k hands. Jungleman – €100/€200 PLO over 7.5k hands Brandon Adams – $100/$200 PLO over 40hrs of live poker Chance Kornuth – €100/€200 PLO over 25k hands Bill Perkins & The Thirst Lounge – €100/€200 PLO over 50k hands or a €400k loss
Side Bet Info
VeniVidi1993 – Side bet of Phil’s €200k to VeniVidi’s €100k ActionFreak – Side bet of Phil’s €150k to ActionFreak’s €150k Jungleman – TBD Brandon Adams – Side Bet of Phil’s $150k to Brandon’s $100k Chance Kornuth – Side Bet of Phil’s €1m to Chance’s €250k Bill Perkins & The Thirst Lounge – Side Bet of Phil’s $800k to Bill’s $200k
PokerShares Odds
Galfond (2.16) v VeniVidi1993 (1.73)
Galfond (2.25) v ActionFreak (1.66)
Galfond (1.91) v Jungleman (1.95)
Galfond (1.60) v Adams (2.40)
Please Sir, Can I Have Some More
There’s still time for more action.
With only Chance Kornuth taking up the online coaching challenge, it seems the attention has swerved to an online poker room battle. Rob Yong surfaced first, accepting that he would have ‘little chance of winning,’ but respects Galfond’s PR initiative, and would like to support it.
Negotiations between the RunItOnce Poker founder and partypoker associate are currently underway.
Then Luke Schwartz got involved in the gob on gob action.
Solve for why @PhilGalfond trying to promote theese pigeon challenges . Not a single fuker cares wether u can beat some online nobody like venvidi at this pigeon solved online omaha shit . Let's set a challenge any LIMIT or big bet mix game of your choice me v u il give you odds
A Galfond versus Schwartz battle would boost the live stream for sure, and according to an interview with PokerNews, aired on January 13, Galfond believes the match will go ahead.
One dynamite match shelved would have pitted Run It Once Poker with GGPoker. In the wake of Luke Schwartz’s early Twitter back and forth with Galfond, Bryn Kenney got involved, and it ended with Galfond offering Kenney a seat.
Kenney, however, declined.
Too much of a solver game now, don’t play HU anymore and realized how much time I’d have to spend not nearly worth it. But I remember u quitting me hu plo and hu nl back when I was playing both after smashing u around 1 session of each
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that “doing well is the result of doing good. That’s what capitalism is all about.” I don’t know if Joao Vieira is a man who focuses on doing good, but thanks to capitalism, he has found something that he does well.
In the past 12-months, the Portuguese star has plagued the poker populace with outstanding displays, both online and live, and he rounded off the partypoker MILLIONS UK with another tick in the win column after sending 94-victims to the infirmary in the $10,300 buy-in, $1m GTD No-Limit Hold ’em (NLHE) High Roller.
The event landed partypoker with a $30,000 overlay. Still, Rob Yong’s democratic approach to running a poker company means the series ends with smiles on everyone’s faces, after another brilliantly organised event. He builds them, and people come.
Vieira’s win comes on the back of his best year in live tournament poker, earning $1.36m, 12-months after his previous best annual haul of $876,766. The Winamax pro’s crowning achievement in 2019 was winning his first World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet: taking down the ultra-competitive 815-entrant $5,000 NLHE 6-Handed for $758,011 (his personal best score).
The multi-faceted Vieira also grabbed most of the oxygen in the major online festivals during 2019, winning two titles at the PokerStars Spring Championships of Online Poker (SCOOP) and three at the World Championships of Online Poker (WCOOP).
Dusk till Dawn (DTD) has been a decent venue for Vieira in the past 12-months. The last time he was in town he finished 7/105 in the same event and made money in the Main Event a feat he replicated this time around finishing a respectable 64th place.
Vieira currently tops the Portuguese All-Time Money List with $3.8m.
Vieira defeated the in-form Kahle Burns in heads-up action. The recently crowned 2019 Global Poker Index (GPI) Australian Player of the Year (PoY) banked the $165,000 consolation prize three days after winning the $25,500 NLHE Super High Roller for $350,000.
Burns overcame a heads-up deficit versus Igor Kurganov to win that $25,500 event, and the Raising for Effective Giving (REG) co-founder, also made money in this one, finishing in sixth place.
There was also a place on the podium for Alex Foxen. The GPI World #1, and 2019 GPI PoY winner, finished third, his seventh major final table in the past four weeks.
partypoker was also well represented at the final table with two members of Team partypoker puffing up pillows in Joni Jouhkimainen (4th) and Joao Simao (5th).
Here are the final table results.
$10k Final Table Results
Joao Vieira – $250,000
Kahle Burns – $165,000
Alex Foxen – $115,000
Joni Jouhkimainen – $90,000
Joao Simao – $70,000
Igor Kurganov – $55,000
Michael Sklenička – $45,000
Fahad Althani – $35,000
Anton Suarez Wins The $10,300 MILLIONS UK Main Event.
The $5m GTD Main Event attracted 530-entrants, clearing the guarantee by $141,000. Anton Suarez banked the $1m first prize after overcoming a final table housing the World Poker Tour (WPT) Champions Club member, James Romero (3rd), and the former MILLIONS Main Event winner, Maria Lampropulos (8th).
Suarez rarely contemplates live tournament poker, but he did win a €2,150 NLHE Hyper-Turbo Knockout event during the European Poker Tour (EPT) in Prague a few weeks ago. He finished 5/130 in a €10,300 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) event during EPT Barcelona in the summer.
High rollers who went deep in this one include Patrick Leonard (17th), Sam Grafton (31st) Niall Farrell (38th), and Adrian Mateos (40th).
MILLIONS Main Event Final Table Results
Anton Suarez – $1,000,000
Christian Rudolph – $620,000
James Romero – $420,000
James Clarke – $311,000
Fredrick Andersson – $230,000
Weijie Zheng – $170,000
Jack Hardcastle – $130,000
Maria Lampropulos – $100,000
Jonathan Karamalikis , the man with the confidence to call himself ‘xMONSTERxDONGx’ is a bulldozer of late, pushing bodies to the wrong side of the rail with the efficiency of the world’s busiest graveyard.
In October, Karamalikis started dropping guillotines in the Victorian Poker Championships in Melbourne, finishing 6/112 in an AUD 1,100 No-Limit Hold ’em event, before winning the 422-entrant AUD 2,300 Main Event for $136,604.
From the Crown Casino’s parking lot to the Star Sydney, and Karamalikis has done it again, finishing 20/203 in the AUD 5,000 Challenge at the World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) Sydney, before taking down the 53-entrant AUD 20,000, AUD 1m GTD No-Limit Hold ’em High Roller for $258,350.
It’s Karamalikis’s most significant score since finishing runner-up to Patrick Leonard in the 2017 $10,400 Bellagio Cup – an event where the Australian pocketed most of the money after a deal ($523,343), and he didn’t have it easy.
The final table included some of the brightest bulbs lighting up the street lamps in the land of Australian poker. Michael Egan followed up his win in a $2,750 No-Limit Hold ’em event at the recently held World Poker Tour (WPT) Cambodia with a sixth-place finish. Qiang Fu followed up his third-place finish in 2018 with a fourth in this, and Roger Teska finished third. Teska won the 2018 MILLIONS World $25k for $2m, and recently won a WPT title, winning the WPT Gardens Festival in July for close to $400k.
The heads-up play fell between Karamalikis and Ryan Otto.
Otto has only two Hendon Mob scores on his resume. The first came in November 2019, when he won an NZD 3,500 No-Limit Hold ’em event at the Skycity Festival of Poker in Auckland, and now this. In contrast, Karamalikis was featuring in his 24th heads-up encounter, winning a smidgen over half.
Here are the ITM Results.
ITM Results
Jonathan Karamalikis – $258,350
Ryan Otto – $159,833
Roger Teska – $104,718
Qiang Fu – $72,338
Mladen Vukovic – $53,048
Michael Egan – $40,647
After posting his Sydney win, Karamalikis flew to Melbourne and made a deep run in Event #1: AUD 1,300 No-Limit Hold ’em Opening Event at the Aussie Millions, finishing 3/1665 in the AUD 1m GTD event, earning a further $87,282. Michael Egan followed him and finished fourth for $63,055.
It will be interesting to see if Karamalikis will return to Sydney to compete in the Australian Poker Open (APO). The Star Casino rolls out the red carpet for Poker Central for the first time, and once the APO is over, the AUD 250,000 Super High Roller Bowl Australia provides a fitting climax to a hectic month of poker in the land down under.
What’s orange and sounds like a parrot?
A carrot.
Image from The New York Times
People working for the National Parks and Wildlife Services (NPWS) in Australia are currently dropping them from the sky, feeding wildlife whose food supply has been turned into ash by the raging wildfires.
The last time you saw a carrot in poker, Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson, was slicing through them with the ace of spades. That’s before Ferguson became one of the most hated men in poker, of course.
Putting things into perspective, Australia is burning.
The Pinnacle begins in the land that’s proving to be more pavement than porcelain and the Aussie Millions. Melbourne’s annual showcase goes ahead despite the poor air quality – the perfect time to spend the whole month in a casino.
The air quality in Melbourne has reached hazardous levels. Contrasting view from my apt. pic.twitter.com/bKwALPcYYD
The 2020 tournament is still a little wet behind the ears. None of the events that burn a molten hole in your pocket has begun, but a few stars known to flick in the occasional $25k have started well.
You don’t see Dzmitry Urbanovich on the high roller scene that often these days, but the Pole took down Event #2: AUD 2,500 H.O.R.S.E, beating 42-entrants to win the AUD 28,755 first prize.
Toby Lewis rarely plays live events, but when he does, he kills it, especially in Melbourne. In 2018, Lewis wafted through 800-entrants on his way to a sweet-smelling $1,178,513 win in the Main Event, and last year he was the star of the show, winning the AUD 50,000 Challenge, and finishing runner-up in the AUD 25,000 Challenge, for a combined haul of $1m. Lewis made it three wins in three-years after taking down the 258-entrant Event #8: AUD 2,500 No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) Shot-Clock event for $102,182.
Moving from Melbourne to Sydney, and Jonathan Karamilikis won the AUD 20,000 NLHE High Roller at the World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) in the Star Casino Sydney. Karamalikis earned $258,350 for the win, and followed it up with a 3rd in Event #1: AUD 1,200 NLHE at the Aussie Millions.
One player who found the key to unlocking his form in the past 12-months is Kahle Burns. The 2019 Global Poker Index (GPI) Australian Player of the Year (PoY) is offering you a 2-hour group coaching session if you donate $500 to help combat the Australian wildfires.
Sticking with Burns, and what an incredible festival the partypoker MILLIONS UK turned out to be for the man who came so close to capturing the 2019 GPI PoY title.
The Australian star won the 37-entrant $25,500 NLHE Super High Roller for $350,000, before finishing runner-up to Joao Vieira in the $10,300 NLHE High Roller for $165,000.
Here are the ITM results from both events.
$25k ITM Finishes
Kahle Burns – $350,000
Igor Kurganov – $222,250
Ben Heath – $150,000
Preben Stokkan – $100,000
Steve O’Dwyer – $75,000
$10k Final Table Results
Joao Vieira – $250,000
Kahle Burns – $165,000
Alex Foxen – $115,000
Joni Jouhkimainen – $90,000
Joao Simao – $70,000
Igor Kurganov – $55,000
Michael Sklenička – $45,000
Fahad Althani – $35,000
The $10,300, $5M GTD Main Event attracted 530-runners, clearing the guarantee, and Sweden’s Anton Suarez was the first to the treasure chest containing $1m. High Rollers who made a deep run include Patrick Leonard (17th), Sam Grafton (31st) Niall Farrell (38th) and Adrian Mateos (40th).
During the MILLIONS UK festivities, Rob Yong announced a MILLIONS Cyprus sometime in May 2020 with a $5k, $5m GTD Main Event, and is also proposing a MILLIONS Invitational London. The £5.3k event would be a qualifier only event, freezeout, no late registration, and seven qualifiers per table, with one invited amateur VIP guest. If the game gets the green light, it will take place ahead of Triton London in August.
Yong also found the time to appear in a live high stakes cash game. ‘Tricket’s Game’ featured on the MILLIONS UK livestream schedule, and the hairdryer, Luke Schwartz, ended the night as the big winner, turning £25k into £200k competing against the likes of Yong, Sam Trickett and Leon Tsoukernik.
WPT Gardens Festival Update
Switching continents, like mosquitoes, switch ankles, and the World Poker Tour (WPT) ensured there was high roller action on the North American menu despite the exodus to Australasia and Europe.
Jim Collopy defeated 14-entries to win the $245,000 first prize in a $25,000 NLHE High Roller, and Ali Imsirovic took the other one down, although details on entrants and prize money are proving to be elusive.
Darren Elias eats $25k WPT High Rollers for breakfast (maybe he was fasting last week), and recently the WPT’s Executive Tour Director, Matt Savage, named Elias as the WPT Player of the Decade.
Check out these stats.
$3,869,957 in prize money.
4 x titles.
5 x 3rd place finishes.
38 cashes.
12 final tables.
2 WPT Tournament of Champions final tables.
Rounding out the Top 10.
Anthony Zinno
Mohsin Charania
Eric Afriat
Noah Schwartz
Sam Panzica
Marvin Rettenmaier
Chino Rheem
Darryll Fish
Alex Foxen/Ryan Tosoc
WSOP Championship Events
The high rollers spoke, and the World Series of Poker (WSOP) listened and acted.
The schedule for the $10,000 Championships is out, and there will be a unique leaderboard in situ for the first time. The 2020 series will boast 16 Championship events, with 14 of them freezeout (The Short-Deck and No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw have a re-entry rule). There is a $10,000 NLHE Online Championship event for the first time, and the $10,000 Heads-Up Championship goes the way of the Berlin Wall (the WSOP confirm there will be a heads-up event, but at a lower pay scale).
Daniel Negreanu is a fan.
Fantastic list of championship events. Great job WSOP!
Most importantly, of the 16, only two (Short deck and 2-7 NLHSD) are reentry. Even better, they are limited to just ONE reentry.
Maybe it’s the post-Xmas spirit, but nobody has been slinging used condoms in poker’s Twitterverse this week. So, we have no ‘Beef’ to bring you, but we do have a debate.
Rob Yong wants to know if you run it once or twice?
The poll attracted 4,663 votes, with 57.9% voting to run it once. Here is what some of the stars had to say.
I prefer to run it once on television cuz: more pain. More pain makes for a better show. But in real life, (especially high stakes) I don’t mind to run it twice. Reduces variance.
Fedor Holz shares the books that have made a difference in his life including ‘Freedom From The Known,’ by Jiddu Krishnamurti, ‘Being Aware of Being Aware’ by Rupert Spira, and Yuval Noah Harari’s entire back catalogue.
We’ll have to wait and see whether Bill Perkins’ new book ‘Die With Zero’ ends up on Holz’s bookcase, but in the meantime, the Triton Million final tablist is turning his dream of creating a chess tournament into a reality. Perkins has teamed up with Chess.com to put on a match during the Skylar Chess Festival in Houston. The event takes place April-May 2020, and Perkins has stumped up $150,000 in prize money.
And just incase you feel like grumbling over the quality of your sushi, today.
I agree 100% with Daniel. I think I'm over the top on the subject because when I came out of that cancer hospital when I was 27, the miraculous recovery from 3 months to live to cancer free, made me realize how valuable our time is. https://t.co/tjgc11LA9A
The script for the 2020 World Series of Poker (WSOP) still has an echo, but it’s diminishing in volume. The first announcement came before Christmas with a dozen glitz and glamour events creating a solid foundation, and now it’s time to add something more substantial.
Over the years, the $10,000 buy-in WSOP Championship events have become some of the most decadent desserts in this recipe book, and high Rollers feast on them like insomniac-ridden locusts,
Sixteen $10,000 Championship events spanning 24 variants of poker ensures not a superfluous song exists amongst this scintillating symphony. Daniel Negreanu will be pleased to know that the format of 15 of the 17 events is ‘Freezeout,’ with a single re-entry during the open registration period available for the Short-Deck and No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw events.
Kajagoogoo once sang:
“You’re too shy, shy, hush-hush, eye to eye.”
If that’s you, then you’re in luck.
For the first time in WSOP history, there is a $10,000 WSOP Championship No-Limit Hold ’em event available online at WSOP.com, meaning you don’t have to leave the front door to win a sliver of gold. And don’t think for one minute that you’re looking at the vanishing point. I can see $25,000 High Roller online events filling the pages of this recipe book before too long.
Speaking of $25,000+ events, and so far the WSOP has kept their powder dry except for the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship (PPC). The game most pros believe is the most illustrious outside of the WSOP Main Event begins on Monday, June 22.
The 5-day, 6-handed event, with 100-minute levels undergoes a splash of paintwork with the addition of No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw taking the number of games up to nine.
The History of the PPC
2006: David ‘Chip’ Reese beats 143-entrants ($1,716,000) 2007: Freddy Deeb beats 148-entrants ($2,276,832) 2008: Scotty Nguyen beats 148-entrants ($1,989,120) 2009: David Bach beats 95-entrants (1m276,802) 2010: Michael Mizrachi beats 116-entrants ($1,559,046) 2011: Brian Rast beats 128-entrants ($1,720,328) 2012: Michael Mizrachi beats 108-entrants ($1,451,527) 2013: Matthew Ashton beats 132-entrants ($1,774,089) 2014: John Hennigan beats 102-entrants ($1,517,767) 2015: Mike Gorodinsky beats 84-entrants ($1,270,086) 2016: Brian Rast beats 91-entrants ($1,296,097) 2017: Elior Sion beats 100-entrants ($1,395,767) 2018: Michael Mizrachi beats 87-entrants ($1,239,126) 2019: Phil Hui beats 74-entrants ($1,099,311)
The one omission from the schedule is the $10,000 No-Limit Hold ’em Heads-Up Championship. We reached out to the WSOP for comment, and Seth Palansky, Vice-President, Corporate Communications for Caesars Interactive Entertainment Inc., sais:
“We are still putting the pieces together for rest of schedule. I do anticipate us having a Heads Up event in 2020, it just won’t be at the $10k buy in amount it has been in recent years.”
WSOP Championship Leaderboard
During the debacle of the 2019 WSOP Player of the Year (PoY) award, where Daniel Negreanu won his third title, before seeing it handed to Robert Campbell through a points tally error, someone in the poker Twitter universe suggested a WSOP Championship Leaderboard.
Well, it’s happening.
We don’t have any details yet, but we’ll bring them to you when they arrive on our desk.
One thing about 2020 you know for sure – Kahle Burns will not be tiptoeing through live poker tournaments.
Coming into the final month of 2019, Burns led the 2019 Global Poker Index (GPI) Player of the Year (PoY) rankings, only for Alex Foxen to put in an incredible performance at the World Poker Tour (WPT) Five Diamond World Poker Classic, to snatch the win.
Burns may not have won the big one. Still, a career-high annual haul of $4.3m ensured he took the GPI Australian PoY honour. Burns won four tournaments in 2019 including two World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets: €25,500 No-Limit Hold ’em Platinum High Roller and the €2,500 No-Limit Hold ’em Short-Deck events at the World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE).
2020 begins as 2019 ends.
The Australian wizard can add more socks to his drawer after topping the 37-entrant $25,500 No-Limit Hold ’em High Roller at partypoker’s MILLIONS UK in Dusk Till Dawn (DTD), Nottingham for $350,000.
Here is the nutshell action.
The Nutshell Action
Eighteen sandals, Gucci shoes and trainers found their way beneath the final table.
Only ten of those toes would earn any money.
Rainer Kempe was the first pearl to fall from the neck, roll through the rail, and into the gutter after he moved his final 11 big blinds into the middle holding Qs7s. Preben Stokkan called and beat him with AhQh.
When it comes to the high stakes action, you don’t get more pious than Yair Bitoun, but the wolf ran out of howl in 8th place. Bitoun fired pocket sixes from a gun labelled ‘under’, and Luke Reeves found those magical aces to cut the field down to 7.
Igor Kurganov took the chip lead after the next duel with Steve O’Dwyer.
O’Dwyer opened to 300,000, holding AcQc on the button, and Kurganov three-bet from the small blind holding KsTc. O’Dwyer called, and soon the pair were staring at a Kh7d4d flop like a couple of monks staring at lipstick stains on their habits. Kurganov bet 575,000, and O’Dwyer made the call. The turn was the 5h, and Kurganov bet 1,700,000; O’Dwyer called. The river card was the 7c – and both players meekly checked, handing Kurganov the chip lead.
We reached the bubble after the king of the King’s Resort saw his pocket kings cracked by the AhQs of Reeves. An ace on the river ending the alliteration of the letter ‘K’.
Despite sending two final tablists to solitary confinement, Reeves didn’t don his cape and become the superman this show needed. Instead, he bubbled. Kurganov picked up pocket queens in the small blind at the same time Reeves looked down to see pocket fours in the big. The pair got it in, and Kurganov’s queens held to send everyone but Reeves into the money.
O’Dwyer picked up the quaintest bag of bills when he made a stand holding KsJh only for Kurganov to end the defence of his title after calling and winning with a raggedy ace. Ben Heath eliminated Preben Stokkan when AK battered Ah8h, and Heath followed him when Kurganov’s Ks5s beat Jc9s when all-in, pre.
The heads-up encounter between Kurganov and Burns began with Kurganov in the lead, but it ended the other way around. The final hand saw Kurganov’s pocket fours lose to AsTh, as Burns turned a Broadway straight to collect his first title of 2020.
ITM Finishes
Kahle Burns – $350,000
Igor Kurganov – $222,250
Ben Heath – $150,000
Preben Stokkan – $100,000
Steve O’Dwyer – $75,000
There was a time when Robin Hood would glide through Sherwood Forest, robbing the rich, and giving his loot to the poor. Sherwood Forest is in the county of Nottinghamshire, UK, the home of poker’s Dusk till Dawn (DTD).
DTD is no Sherwood Forest. Owner, Rob Yong once famously called it a ‘shed on an industrial estate.’ But on Thursday, January 9, for one night only, it will be filled to the brim with the robbed rich, only none of it will find its way to the poor.
As I hold you spellbound with my words, some of the top players are slaloming their way through the partypoker MILLIONS UK schedule, and on Thursday there will be some relief for the lovers of cash games.
Some of the most charismatic high stakes poker players in the business will emerge from their live tournament cocoons, to flutter into’ Trickett’s Room,’ for a night of high stakes action.
The Set-Up
The live cash game begins at 18:30 (GMT) on partypoker’s Twitch channel, with a 30-minute security delay. The former World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet and World Poker Tour (WPT) winner, James Dempsey, will provide the commentary, aided by anyone with a pulse who knows a thing or two about poker.
Many moons ago, partypoker dominated the airwaves with some of the best high stakes televised action in the business, and the lineup in this one has that same nostalgic feel.
DTD named the poker room after ‘Sam Trickett’ in honour of the man who began life playing low-stakes tournaments and cash games in that ‘shed on an industrial estate’. Trickett will have a seat.
If there is a God then when it came to creating the mould for a poker TV personality, he carved it in the form of one Luke Schwartz. The WSOP bracelet winner is one of the funniest and outrageous people in poker, and will he will appear as a tick alongside Trickett in the pro-column.
Three non-pros are in the original lineup.
DTD owner, and high stakes cash game reg, Rob Yong, will take a seat alongside, King’s Resort owner, Leon Tsoukernik, and the legendary Yair’ The Wolf’ Bitoun.
As the night unfolds, you can expect the cast to change.
The Format
The format is £100/£200 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO), but the players reserve the right to increase or decrease the stakes should they wish. It’s an elevator that never goes down.
The Future
partypoker is calling this solo venture a ‘dress rehearsal’ for a new online version of ‘Trickett’s Room’ coming soon to the online poker room – A ‘members only’ area where players will compete in games at stakes of $10/$10 and above.
Selected games will air on partypoker’s Twitch channel with commentary from a host of the game’s top stars.
Do you want a seat?
Grab your bow and arrow, email trickettsroom@partypoker.com, and hope you don’t end up in the role of Friar Tuck.
Alex Foxen
There’s no more crab-stepping.
The peeps at the Global Poker Index (GPI) H.Q., have finished their number-crunching – the names of the GPI Players of the Year (PoY) are in, and the high rollers dominated.
The coveted GPI PoY award went to Alex Foxen, who also ended the year at the top of the GPI World Rankings. It’s the first time that someone has ever defended a GPI PoY title, an incredible feat considering the calibre of opponent he frequently faces.
There are never any lame ducks in this one, but the 2019 GPI Poy race was the tightest the ranking system had ever seen. Going into December, and the European Poker Tour (EPT) Prague and the World Poker Tour (WPT) Five Diamond World Poker Classic in Las Vegas, the statisticians at the GPI couldn’t see the woods for the trees.
The thickest trunk belonged to Kahle Burns, but the Australian failed to make a showing at either of those events. Bryn Kenney temporarily took the lead with a few scores at EPT Prague, before Foxen put in a stunning display at the Five Diamond to finish the year at the summit.
Foxen made six final tables in $5k+ events, including winning the 1,035-entrant Main Event for $1,694,995 – a victory that garnered him 690.65 GPI PoY points, and cemented him as the #1. Had Foxen hit the rail before the money, then Sean Winter would have taken the sword, shield and throne.
Foxen finished the year with $6,346,433 in live tournaments earnings, the second successive year he has finished with more than $6m ($6,632,556 in 2018). He cashed in 40-events, with over half of them, final tables appearances.
Here is the final leaderboard, and a list of previous winners.
GPI Player of the Year
Alex Foxen – 3806.09
Sean Winter – 3679.19
Bryn Kenney – 3647.19
Kahle Burns – 3641.81
Stephen Chidwick – 3637.94
Rainer Kempe – 3499.77
Sam Greenwood – 3487.10
Manig Loeser – 3434.91
Timothy Adams – 3377.88
Ali Imsirovic – 3377.59
Former PoY Winners
2019: Alex Foxen
2018: Alex Foxen
2017: Adrian Mateos
2016: David Peters
2015: Byron Kaverman
2014: Daniel Colman
2013: Ole Schemion
2012: Dan Smith
The Best of the Rest
It was also the second time that both Foxen and his beau, Kristen Bicknell, finished atop their respective gender-orientated piles. Bicknell won her third GPI Female PoY title at a canter and remained the world’s #1 female player by a country mile.
GPI Female Player of the Year
Kristen Bicknell – 3,175.37
Maria Ho – 2,518.42
Jessica Dawley – 2,102.14
Kitty Kuo – 2,034.73
Maria Lampropulos – 1,832.67
Loni Harwood – 1,830.33
Natalie Teh – 1,810.58
Li Yan – 1,797.09
Kelly Minkin – 1,702.88
Nadya Magnus – 1,685.19
Bicknell may have finished at the highest echelon of the Female Rankings, but she didn’t win her country award. That honour fell to Sam Greenwood, who had an outstanding year. Greenwood was one of a glutton of high stakes players to earn PoY honours.
Australia – Kahle Burns
England – Stephen Chidwick
USA – Alex Foxen
Portugal – Joao Vieira
China – Yake Wu
Canada – Sam Greenwood
Malaysia – Chin Wei Lim
Japan – Tsugunari Toma
Finland – Juha Helppi
Turkey – Orpen Kisacikoglu
Taiwan – Pete Chen
Colombia – Farid Jattin
Bosnia – Ali Imsirovic
Germany – Rainer Kempe
Italy – Dario Sammartino
Hong Kong – Danny Tang
Spain – Adrian Mateos
Austria – Matthias Eibinger
Russia – Anatoly Filatov
On a broader geographical scale, Foxen picked up the GPI Americas PoY award, Stephen Chidwick was the PoY in Europe, Danny Tang won a highly competitive Asian award, and Farid Jattin took the honours or Latin America.
I’m not saying that Phil Galfond is burning at a quarter-candle while everyone else is an electric lightbulb, but by his admission, he hasn’t been playing a bunch of poker lately.
Wives.
Children.
Beard manicures.
Online Poker Rooms.
So much to do, and so little time.
Let’s say, his white glove slap across the face of the poker community in the form of the ‘Galfond Challenge’, is likely to be returned with a few baseball mitts. HighStakesDB even led with an article entitled: Why The Galfond Challenge is Becoming a Disaster For Phil.
But is it?
2010: NYC. Nosebleeds @ FTP📈📉 2011: Black Friday. ➡️ Vancouver 2012:🚀@RunItOnce -2014: PLO @ Stars📈 2015: Marry @Farah_Galfond 😍. ➡️ Vegas.🏅 -2016: Live cash📈 2017-: Full-time on RIO. Live cash📉 2018:🏅, 🚀👶🏻 2019:🚀@RunItOncePoker
A mistake that business owners make is persuading people to buy their product through the means of logical and rational thought, and there’s a lot of that flying around the trapezes of the poker circus.
However, the messages that get goosebumps pimpling don’t ambush the brain; they attack the heart.
Feelings.
You can’t change a mind without first winning their hearts.
If you love poker, then it’s hard not to respect Phil Galfond and what he’s trying to do at RIO Poker. How will it make you feel to see him battling against so many diverse characters across different stakes and platforms with millions of dollars on the line?
Will a few hearts flutter?
Will a few hairs stand on end?
Will one or ten of you choose to compete on the site after seeing the silky software?
It’s hard to persuade people to do things they don’t want to do — what better way than showing them how exhilarating it can be.
And the poker community needs this challenge after the ‘Durrrr Challenge’ debacle. Coincidentally, Phil Galfond was the only player banned from challenging Dwan when the challenge first got off the ground. Galfond chose to allow all-comers into his home, but who are the ones he’s secretly hoping he doesn’t have to ask to leave their shoes at the door?
“There are some players that I am thinking, ‘Man that would be a challenge,’” admits Galfond before continuing. “If only the top players had taken on the challenge, I would have had to have taken some on. But I have too many challengers, so I don’t have to play the toughest. I still might, and I will play more tougher players than I need to, so I can challenge myself, and for publicity for the site – but I do have my pick.”
Future thinking or dwelling on the past is the primary cause of our anxiety because the brain doesn’t know the difference between our mental models and reality. In the spirit, of using this knowledge to his advantage, and priming the pump ready for an injection of poker fairy dust, I ask him to reminisce over his fiercest battles.
“My most famous battles have been against Isildur,” said Galfond. “My biggest winning day was against Viktor when I won $1.6m. We started at $300/$600 PLO and moved on to $500/$1k PLO at some point during the session. I’ve also had a million-dollar losing day against him.
“Back in the day, I also used to play a lot with David Benyamine and Gus Hansen. Gus had that heads-up PLO table that had one seat reserved for him, with one open, and I played him quite a bit. This one time, Gus asked Full Tilt to create a $2k/$4k O8 table for him, and instead, they made a $2k/$4k PLO table. I might have been the only one to play him there, and won small. That’s the highest stakes I have ever played.
“I mainly played Benyamine at NLHE. It may have been before my PLO days. I’ve had at least three seven-figure losses playing online within 24-hours, and I think one was largely against him, but I can’t say that with certainty, because it’s been so long.”
Galfond has seen it all, and also has the perspective of his perch on the throne of RIO’s online training site – so what are the skills and abilities that make a world-class heads-up player?
“What makes a world-class heads-up player are the attributes that surround reading your opponent,” says Galfond. “Reads on game flow, their mood and the way they play as the match progresses and getting a feel for that and staying one step ahead. Or making reads based on stats or showdowns about some leaks that they have. The next step is being able to logically determine the correct counter strategy to take advantage of that.
“As poker progresses, people are becoming more proficient with solvers, and are approaching optimal play a little bit more. At the highest level, the best player is the one that’s super closest to optimal play, but I don’t think anyone is close enough right now for that to be the most important attribute. I think we’re still quite a ways off that, and everyone has enough leaks that if you’re able to identify them and combat them, then these are the most important skills.”
With so much money on the line; reputation, and the profitability of RIO Poker also in the lens – what are the unhelpful thoughts that go through Galfond’s head when it comes to achieving his goals?
“It’s a strange combination of having a lot of doubts in myself and yet being very determined to achieve my goals,” says Galfond. “I have never been a hard studier in poker, but in business, I have found a work ethic that I didn’t have before. I am hoping, as I focus on poker more these next months because of the challenge that my business work ethics rubs off on my poker one.
“I also have unhelpful thoughts around the belief that I am not good at studying or learning from the available new tools. I fear that I can’t digest the information, and it will end up hurting my game more than helping it. Fear of failure is a common problem, and in Elliot Roe’s Run It Once course, which I’ve been taking, I identified that as a big leak of mine. He has an exercise where you go through a fear like that and determine what you’re really afraid of and what you can do to combat the fear, which I found very helpful
The interest in the ‘Galfond Challenge’ has been phenomenal, prompting the thought – could RIO Poker be the new Rail Heaven?
“We have thought a lot about elevating RIO to the Rail Heaven of the past,” admits Galfond. “It’s always been a part of our plans, and we have changes planned in our software development to accommodate the high stakes playing and railing experience. The idea for this challenge happened pretty quickly, so the full experience that we have planned for the future is not available for this challenge.”
And who would Galfond like in a Rail Heaven cast?
“I want great players, but you need to give them an incentive to play with each other. Some of that comes from us, and some of that comes through recruiting non-pros, preferably those that are well known, to make the games better, and hopefully, we can offer something to them to make it worthwhile.
“If I had to give you names then I like to watch guys like Sauce battle. I like watching Berri Sweet, Ike Haxton, Trueteller – but I also think the fans would like to see guys like Ivey, Antonius; some of the old school high stakes players. Those are the names that immediately spring to mind, and now I am doing this high stakes challenge I will include myself in that cast.”
Now go and trim that beard, you’ve got hearts to win, Mr G.
Phil Galfond Challenge Lineup (Subject to Change)
VeniVidi1993 – €100/€200 PLO over 25k hands ActionFreak – €150/€300 PLO over 15k hands. Jungleman – €100/€200 PLO over 7.5k hands Brandon Adams – $100/$200 PLO over 40hrs of live poker Chance Kornuth – €100/€200 PLO over 25k hands Bill Perkins & The Thirst Lounge – €100/€200 PLO over 50k hands or a €400k loss
*Rob Yong has also accepting the challenge, and negotiations have begun.
Side Bet Info
VeniVidi1993 – Side bet of Phil’s €200k to VeniVidi’s €100k ActionFreak – Side bet of Phil’s €150k to ActionFreak’s €150k Jungleman – TBD Brandon Adams – Side Bet of Phil’s $150k to Brandon’s $100k Chance Kornuth – Side Bet of Phil’s €1m to Chance’s €250k Bill Perkins & The Thirst Lounge – Side Bet of Phil’s $800k to Bill’s $200k
PokerShares Odds
Galfond (2.16) v VeniVidi1993 (1.73) Galfond (2.25) v ActionFreak (1.66) Galfond (1.91) v Jungleman (1.95) Galfond (1.60) v Adams (2.40)
There’s a clue in the name as to why the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series is unique, but that distinction is about to change after partypoker declared an intention to enter the market.
partypoker associate, and Dusk till Dawn (DTD) owner, Rob Yong, declared on Twitter that the MILLIONS brand would expand to High Roller only events in 2020 with the creation of the MILLIONS Super High Roller Series.
It’s unclear whether the series will become a fixture in the poker calendar. Still, we do know that the MILLIONS Super High Roller Series ambushes the Casino Sochi in Krasnodar, Russia in March.
March 6-15 are the dates, with buy-ins ranging from $25,000 to $250,000, leaving those with slightly smaller purses sobbing into their saucy Sochi saucers.
An official press release is yet to hit the poker media airwaves, but Yong did declare that partypoker would partner with Poker Central on the project.
The schedule is still under lock and key, with the likes of Jason Koon and Ike Haxton strangling any waste from it. Reacting to a question from the former WPT & EPT Champion Andrey Pateychuk, to see the schedule, Yong responded that they would release it in January.
High Stakes Partnerships
partypoker and Poker Central had partnered before, most notably in November when partypoker allowed Cary Katz and his team to run the inaugural Super High Roller Bowl (SHRB) Bahamas as part of the MILLIONS World festival.
After several years of limiting themselves to a Las Vegas base with the SHRB, Poker Masters and the US Poker Open, Poker Central expanded into Asia with an SHRB China, before coupling the British Poker Open (BPO) with the SHRB London. The first Australian Poker Open and SHRB Australia take place in January.
Two players seem to be committed to the event include Jonathan Depa and Dan Smith. Depa is turned on by the promise of high stakes Short-Deck action, and Smith for the No-Limit Hold’em tournaments and snowboarding.
