Poker is a funny game, isn’t it? One minute, you can be down and out, not able to do anything right, and the next minute you can be flying high, hitting every card you need. Such has been the case for Phil Galfond in the first matchup of the Galfond Challenge. In February, he was down €900,240.17 to VeniVidi1993, but now, with fewer than 3,000 hands remaining, he is in the lead.
Down but not out
While the enormity of the run might be surprising, it isn’t downright shocking to many in the poker world. Galfond’s downswing was so steep that it was seen as completely out of the ordinary. And if he could fall that low, there was no reason to think that he couldn’t rise back up.
Of course, it was still an extremely difficult thing to do. And Galfond wasn’t sure if he could even get up off the mat, let alone comeback all the way to being profitable. Saying that he had reached his “mind’s limit,” Galfond wrote on Twitter:
The most difficult thing about an extended downswing isn’t the loss of money – it’s the loss of hope. It’s the gap between the result and your expectations, and how it changes your vision of your poker future. For example, I’ve lost €900k, but when comparing my expectation for how this year would go to my new expectations, I’ve lost much more. For some people, they question whether or not they’ll be able to ever win again.
So Galfond decided to take a break from the challenge to reassess. In doing so, he paid VeniVidi1993 a penalty for each scheduled day that was missed. At the beginning of March, Galfond made the decision to not quit (and give up another €200,000 in the side bet).
Extended upswing
What a difference a month makes. From January 22nd to February 9th, a span of 15 sessions, Galfond came out on top just once. From March 9th through April 7th, however, 21 sessions, he has won 15 times.
April 2nd was the first time Galfond actually took the lead in the challenge, as he was up by about €170,000 at one point that day, but he profited “just” €113,680.87 and therefore still finished the session in the red.
On April 6th, though, Galfond finally had the lead at the end of the day, profiting €121,486.95.
He is now up €46,484.37, a turnaround of nearly a million Euro.
The two players are in the home stretch of this initial challenge, with just 2,311 hands remaining. In an interview after the April 2nd match, Galfond said that he won’t really be doing any “scoreboard watching” until there about 500 hands remaining. At that point, the side bet becomes a factor if it’s close. Until then, he said he won’t change his play style and risk making -EV decisions just to try to hang on for a one-Euro win.
While €46,000 is a ton of money to most people, it’s only about two buy-ins in this game and many sessions have ended with one player winning much more than that. So really, it’s anybody’s game at this point.
