Tag: Phil Galfond

When Phil Galfond sent his heads-up challenge shivering throughout the poker stratosphere, some expected the odd starling to reply. Instead, he received a murmuration of interest.

Millions of dollars would be on the line, won and lost through high stakes cash games, across a variety of formats, both live and online. Add side-bets into the equation and all the hogs in the yard stop searching for walnuts, and instead, start looking for ways to open a Twitch channel.

The Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) star, ‘VeniVidi1993,’ became the first person to step into the arena. €100/€200 were the stakes. Heads-Up Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) the game. January 22, first blood, and Veni, not Phil, has been crushing the action.

The pair have duelled through 7,583 hands, throughout 11-sessions, and Veni has won all but one of them, with Galfond picking up a measly €2k win on the day the Poker Gods decided to pick him up out of the mud and dump him on a beach somewhere.

The damage is $574,394.83.

Galfond: Beaten & Bloody?

Not yet.

After speculation that Galfond was stuck like glue to an elevator floor heading for a stop called ‘Out of Your Depth,” he took the time to respond to his fans.

In a series of Tweets, Galfond urged people to keep their powder dry. He is taking a good kicking, but downswings like this are part of poker life, and he wants to take the opportunity to teach his followers how to handle them.

“Nobody is immune to the psychological effects of a string of consistent losses, myself included,” Galfond wrote.

It was an illuminating self-assessment rarely seen in public. The more unusual considering the three-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet holder still has 18k hands to play, and a myriad of future challenges to come.

Humility and vulnerability aside, Galfond has not walked through his mistakes. Still, he has admitted that he has been making them despite trying to keep a ‘positive attitde’ in his play.

Galfond’s advice to people experiencing a similar situation is twofold. First, identify the emotion that’s creating the feeling that’s leading to the mistake, and then work on turning down the volume. It’s an aspect of the game that Galfond feels is crucial, and he hires poker’s mental game coach, Elliot Roe, to help with that.

Secondly, Galfond insists that while in the storm of emotional turmoil, you have to focus on logic and rational thinking. You have to ask yourself: “Is this the right play, or is it just the play I want to make for bad (emotional) reasons?”

Knowing When to Quit

Despite wanting to use the experience to coach his followers, Galfond doesn’t want to go broke. Top pros need to assess their performances, and their opponent’s performances to understand when they’re dog enough to quit.

Once again, humility comes to the fore as Galfond admits that he has often thought too long about whether his opponents are much better than him, and then dissects his thought process when applying that same internal question to his current scrap.

“Whatever the (unknowable) truth is about how VeniVidi1993 and I match up, I can be confident I am running poorly. But, if I’m a significant underdog, this has maybe been a bottom 15% run. If I’m a significant favourite, it has been more like a bottom 0.5% run.

“So, if I knew nothing but the results so far, I could conclude that it’s something around 30 times more likely that I’m a significant underdog than a significant favourite (and a sliding scale for edges in between that.”

“I then need to factor in m educated (but somewhat inherently biased) opinion of how I am playing compared to him. Had I somehow been unaware of the results thus far, my opinion would be that I’m a favourite. And to be clear – by that, I mean that I think I am probably a favourite. I always am aware that I could be wrong.”

The tweets end with Galfond remaining steadfast – he will keep on fighting, and anyone who knows him wouldn’t expect anything less.

The reasons for Galfond continuing his tussle with Veni are numerous and astute. He wants to continue teaching his followers how to handle a downswing while in the midst of one. He knows that he is running bad, and is hoping the tide turns. He is still shaking off that ring rust, and with more challengers in the wings sharpening their axes, he needs the action. He has side bets, and if he quits, he forfeits them, including losing an additional €200,000 to Veni. And he has an online poker site to promote.

But.

Most.

Of.

All.

“As difficult, exhausting and risky as it is to battle a tough player at very high stakes, I absolutely love this shit.”

Results

Day 1: 655 hands, VeniVidi1993 won €72,572.68
Day 2: 715 hands, Phil Galfond won €2,615.26
Day 3: 557 hands, VeniVidi1993 won €84,437.52
Day 4: 581 hands, VeniVidi1993 won €17,544.87
Day 5: 726 hands, VeniVidi1993 won €155,063.52
Day 6: 703 hands, VeniVidi1993 won €13.31
Day 7: 823 hands, VeniVidi1993 won €52,057.13
Day 8: 940 hands, VeniVidi1993 won €60,743.37
Day 9: 446 hands, VeniVidi1993 won €12,706.51
Day 10: 696 hands, VeniVidi1993 won €100,993.30
Day 11: 741 hands, VeniVidi1993 won €15,647.36
Total: 7,583 hands with VeniVidi1993 +$574,394.83.

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.

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.

We’ll bring you further news when we receive it.

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?

RIO Poker’s success is everything to Galfond.

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)

I help people stop drinking alcohol.
I have a podcast.
I have a movement.
I have a training course that’s central to my philosophy.
Earlier this week, someone on this course told me that my work was insular and plagiarised while demanding a refund. At the same time, another person wrote to me concerned that my ‘strong’ personality was getting in the way of my message.
My immediate reaction was to twist.
Change course.
Lower my voice.
And then a third person sent me this:
“You have a unique USP, which I believe will be found to be the most successful way of giving up alcohol known to man.”
I decided to stick.
Human nature as it may be; trying to be all things to all people is as folly as eating soup with chopsticks. We all want universal love and acceptance. And if you keep twisting each time a piece of shrapnel like feedback opens up another wound, you become another cog in this brutal industrialised, zombified system of ours.
Oh god.
How the fuck is Phil Galfond going to create an online poker room?
Phil Galfond: From Player to Instructor to Creator

Phil Galfond
Phil Galfond

In the year that Osama Bin Laden finally found out if all that afterlife nonsense was right, an online poker player going by the name OMGClayAiken began competing in the high stakes cash games on Full Tilt Poker. Two years, later and the account peaked at $10.1m, profit.
That Full Tilt Poker account eventually settled at $6.6m, profit before Black Friday pulled the plug.
Galfond has also won $1.4m profit playing on PokerStars as MrSweets28 and close to $3m playing live tournaments including two World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets.
While tearing the high stakes online poker room’s arsehole, Galfond also showed that he was one of the best teachers of poker, after creating content on the online poker training site BlueFirePoker. An internal dispute saw Galfond leave his position, and it’s the best thing that could have happened to him. Galfond created Run It Once an online poker training site many believe to be the best ever produced.
Retire.
Join the theatre; play Tarzan with Farah in the role of Jane.
Hike into the Ugandan mountains and watch Gorillas pleasuring themselves while eating their poo.
Nope.
Not, Phil.
With all of this going on, he decided to stick his reputation inside a Blendtech, after announcing plans to launch the Run It Once online poker room. In the ensuing two years, he has continued to compete at the highest level in the game, create great content for his fans, win a WSOP bracelet, lead a team of online poker developers in a different continent, and even find time to make a baby.
You can’t dress it up any other way.
Phil Galfond is a high stakes rock star.
Run It Once Poker: Coming Soon. Really
Galfond announced plans to launch Run It Once Poker back in August 2016 with a preliminary launch date of Q1, 2017. He never made it. Four months ago, Galfond began sharing further details on the project with his prospective customers in a series of blog posts, and late last week, we received Episode #5 “Phil Plays.”
Unlike the previous four episodes, which were all written, this one is an 18-minute video of Galfond playing for real money on Run It Once Poker in beta mode.
Thanks to his four previous posts we knew that Run It Once Poker would be HUD-free, competitors wouldn’t know who you were, and avatars would display emotions depending on how the game was flowing.
We also knew that the core currency would be euros, you would have your tables selected randomly, and that the launch would arrive in two phases with cash games beginning this summer, and tournaments following sometime later.
More recently, prospective Run It Once Poker players voted to have a six-table cap and for specific designs relating to the table surface, front and back deck design, and tagging colours.
In the video, we get to see the software for the first time, and the first thing that leaps out at you is how similar it looks to Full Tilt Poker (FTP). Given that there has never been software as aesthetically pleasing to the eye, or as responsive to playability than the FTP client, this is a peacock feather in Galfond’s cap.
It looked beautiful.
While playing (folding) Galfond talked through recent developments. There are close to 40 people working in Malta trying to root out and terminate as many bugs as they can find. Even Run It Once ambassadors are getting in on the act.
The Run It Once team have been playing real money games since April in beta mode, and although Galfond believes they have searched and clicked everywhere on the site, they will have to launch without things being 100% tickety-boo.
And on to that launch.
The summer deadline is a miss.
Galfond is non-committal on a fresh start date, for a good reason, but will welcome 1,000 beta testers to start competing on the site for real money on September 13. If you want in, then head to the Run It Once website and sign up for a free account, and become part of the randomised selection process.
Early feedback from beta users has led to Galfond’s team redesigning the avatars to make them bigger. The players felt the tweak was necessary to magnify the emotions and the colour of the players’ shirts (Run It Once doesn’t have a typical colour tagging system, you colour the avatar’s clothing).
There are also plans to change the betting buttons and slider with Galfond stating that it makes him feel calm when he knows the software’s operability is reacting to him.
Galfond also showed you how the ‘Sitting Out’ policy works. When you decide to leave a game, a countdown appears in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. Set for 12-minutes, and it does feel like an eternity when one-tabling, but Galfond points out that when six-tabling, it could take quite a long time to finish all hands, and feels 12-minutes is the right pitch for now.


So Galfond is also twisting but in response from core loyal followers and not a group of disbelievers. Galfond and his team at Run It Once have decided that if they are going to be in this race, they want a horse that’s like no other, and after reading all of his blog posts, understanding the mission and values of the company, and now seeing the gameplay in action, I have a feeling Run It Once Poker is going to be unique.

We can frame poker’s pride and hang it on the wall.
The bitch is back.
The propeller is whirring noisily.
It’s time to take off.
The 49th Annual World Series of Poker (WSOP) has been a spectacular success. Hoards of people have managed to evade sexist mobile phone sellers on their way to millions of dollars in prize money, and more bad beats than The Handmaids Tale.
And it’s not ended yet.
For the first time in history, the organisers moved the $10,000 WSOP Main Event forward. It’s a sound move that gives those who fall out of that competition a reason to live and provides the $1m Big One for One Drop with the Rolling Stones like presence it deserves.
And it was a humdinger.
7,874 entrants created a prize pool of $74,015,600, making it the second-largest WSOP Main Event in history behind the incredible Internet-driven Jamie Gold win in 2006.
The winner will pick up $8.8m.
Each final table member earns $1m minimum.
But we have a long way to go before we can talk about a winner.
Until then, I want to get you up to speed on bracelet wins for three men who each have a role to play in our high stakes economy.
We will begin with a legend of the online high stakes world, and a man often touted as the next Daniel Negreanu, when it comes to the perfect ambassador for poker.
 

Phil Galfond Wins Event #60: $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo Championship.
Phil Galfond won his third career bracelet after beating 237 players in a format of poker he has never played online, and has only played during mixed game action in the live realm.
Speaking to PokerNews after his win, Galfond said, “I was figuring it out as I went.” 
A man who has earned close to $11m playing cards at the highest stakes in the business is apt to do that.
Galfond rose to prominence in the game as one of the most fearsome competitors in online cash games earning a $6.6m profit playing cash games under the handle OMGClayAiken on Full Tilt. He is also up $1.4m profit competing as MrSweets28 on PokerStars.
Not only is Galfond one of the best high stakes online poker players in the world, but he is also one of the most excellent coaches. After building an impressive reputation on BlueFirePoker, Galfond created RunItOnce (RIO), an online training site providing top quality coaching for the best players in the world. He is also in the midst of creating RIO Poker, an online poker room, due for release this summer.
You won’t see Galfond playing many live tournaments, preferring to compete in the more lucrative cash games. He has only cashed in three events that carry a buy-in of $25k+ or more.
Back in 2008, he finished 70/545 in the $25,500 buy-in World Poker Tour  (WPT) Championship banking $39,570. In 2011, he got his money back in the $25,000 buy-in NBC National Heads-Up Championship with a min-cash. In 2013, he finished runner-up to Steve Sung in the $25,000 High Roller at the WSOP for $744,841, in what remains his most significant live score to date.
He has won three career titles, and all of them ended up with a bracelet. In 2008, he defeated 152 entrants to win the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha for $817,781. Galfond’s second piece of gold came in 2015 when he beat 77 entrants in the $10,000 2-7 Draw Lowball No-Limit Championship for $224,383.
He has won $2.9m playing live.
 
Final Table Results

  1. Phil Galfond – $567,788
  2. Michael McKenna – $350,922
  3. Ali Abduljabbar – $240,497
  4. Chad Power – $168,275
  5. Chris Lee – $120,263
  6. Marco Johnson – $87,830
  7. David “ODB” Baker – $65,579
  8. Chase Steely – $50,086

 

Chance Kornuth Wins Event #63: $3,200 WSOP.com Online No-Limit Hold’em High Roller.
Things will get very interesting indeed when more states allow fully regulated and licensed online poker. This year, the WSOP hosted a record four online events, with the High Roller buy-in set at $3,200.
How long before that’s $10,000?
$25,000?
$50,000?
$1m?
It will come.
In the meantime, a legitimate High Roller won the second iteration of the $3,200 Online High Roller.
Chance Kornuth defeated a 480 entrants (356 unique and 124 rebuys) field, 56 more entrants than this time last year when the former November Niner Thomas Cannuli took the title.
It was Kornuth’s sixth cash of the series, and to date, he has cashed in six events carrying a $25k+ buy-in
In 2016, he defeated 122 entrants to take the AUD 790,560 (USD 547,874) first prize by winning the AUD 25,000 (USD 19,000) Challenge at the Aussie Millions.
The following month, Kornuth finished runner-up to Mustapha Kanit in the 58 entrant field €25,750 European Poker Tour (EPT) Main Event in Dublin earning €360,150.
In July of that year, he finished eighth in a 63 entrant $25,000 buy-in ARIA High Roller for $60,480. In October 2016, he won a 19-entrant $25,000 High Roller at the World Poker Tour (WPT) best bet Bounty Scramble for $186,672.
There was only one score in 2017 as Kornuth finished seventh in a 117 entrant $25,500 High Roller at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open (SHRPO) for $93,600.
His latest HR score came in the CAD 25,500 (USD 19,000) buy-in High Roller at the partypoker MILLIONS North America Festival earning CAD 125,000 (USD 97,863).
Kornuth’s lifetime earnings exceed $5.9m.
His most significant score to date is $641,140 for finishing third in the 2015 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event.
He has won two WSOP bracelets, his first coming in 2010 when he beat 460 entrants to take down a $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha (PLO) event for $508,090.
 
Final Table Results

  1. Chance ‘BingShui’ Kornuth – $341,598
  2. David ‘bewater’ Goodman – $212,021
  3. Timothy ‘poker.’ Nuter – $144,168
  4. Noah ‘ ThePunter’ Bronstein – $99,809
  5. Frank ‘flcrivello’ Crivello – $70,625
  6. Taylor ‘ReadyGambo’ Black – $50,926
  7. Justin ‘kingfortune’ Liberto – $37,355
  8. Jonas ‘LobyPewis’ Mackoff – $28,016
  9. Pete ‘petechen’ Chen – $21,596

 

Jean-Robert Bellande Wins Event #58: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed
Jean-Robert Bellande is an integral part of the High Stakes live cash game scene. I like to think of him as a ‘gateway drug’ for the biggest games in the world – a bridge from mid to high stakes cash game action.
Talking to him in Montenegro, during the Triton Poker Festival, where he was organising and competing in high stakes live cash games, Bellande spoke humbly of his abilities, particularly in No-Limit Hold’em.
Bellande is a mixed game man.
So it was a shock to him and me both when he beat 621 players in a highly competitive $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em to win the first bracelet of his career, all the while sipping on a $400 bottle of plonk.
It was a sweet moment for one of the most loved men in the game. In 2008, he finished runner-up to Matt Graham in a $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout for $173,564. In June 2015, he finished runner-up to Mike Gorodinsky in the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship for $784,828, his most significant score to date.
He finished 12/87 in this year’s $50k for $88,627.
 
Final Table Results

  1. Jean-Robert Bellande – $616,302
  2. Dean Lyall – $380,595
  3. Andrew Graham – $254,684
  4. Tan Nguyen – $173,598
  5. Eric Blair – $120,669
  6. Kacper Pyzara – $85,570

The next big WSOP High Roller is the $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em schedule for July 13th. The WSOP experience ends with the $1m buy-in Big One for One Drop on July 15th.