The second heads-up challenge went significantly more smoothly for Phil Galfond than did the first one. On Tuesday, Galfond wrapped up his challenge against Ioannis “ActionFreak” Kontonatsios, coming out on top with a €114,765.66 profit.
It was a similar setup to the one against VeniVidi1993, just shortly and for higher stakes. The game was €150/€300 on Run It Once Poker, Galfond’s online poker room, for a duration of 15,000 hands. The side bets were equal this time: both players put up €150,000. The winner keeps their profits from the cash game and gets paid the side bet from the loser.
Because it was 10,000 hands shorter and Galfond didn’t need a month-long break, this challenge also lasted just one month, starting on April 27 and spanning 20 sessions.
Through ActionFreak won the first day, earning €11,162.32, Galfond blasted off the next three sessions, highlighted by a €310,594.59 win on April 30. All of a sudden, he was up by €416,442.58. It was a far cry from what happened against VeniVidi1993, when Galfond found himself in a more than €900,000 hole within three weeks.
Of course, this is poker and anything can happen, as we saw when Galfond made his insane comeback last month to eek out a low four-figure win against VeniVidi1993 on the challenge’s final day.
He and ActionFreak went back and forth for a bit, with ActionFreak scoring a €254,686.10 win on May 11 to cut Galfond’s lead to under €200,000. He then won three of the next five meetings to close to just over €100,000.
While €100,000 is not nothing – I would consider selling an inconsequential body part for that much money – keep in mind that the buy-in this poker game was €30,000 and they were playing two tables at once. It only takes a few big hands to bridge a €100,000 gap. In fact, nearly half of the 20 sessions ended with one player winning more than €100,000.
Two of those sessions were the next two. Galfond won about €345,000 combined in the back-to-back days last week, effectively icing the challenge. And it was a good thing he did, too. ActionFreak won three of the final four sessions, each time winning well over €100,000. Galfond needed that lead and the one six-figure win he had to break up ActionFreak’s last-minute streak to ensure he came out on top.
“I’m pretty disappointed that I didn’t finish stronger, but I’m happy to walk away from a very tough match with the win,” Galfond said on Twitter afterward.
It has not been announced who the next challenger is going to be, though a few more opponents are already lined up. Galfond is currently in the middle of a challenge against Bill Perkins, but they have only played two sessions since mid-April because of Perkins’ busy schedule.