Right back to it

Just two days after winning the first leg of the Galfond Challenge, Run It Once founder Phil Galfond embarked on his second match. On Tuesday, he faced off against hedge fund manager and serious amateur poker player, Bill Perkins.

The two men are playing $100/$200 Pot-Limit Omaha. In a change, though, the competition is on partypoker, rather than on Galfond’s own Run It Once. The challenge is slated to last for 50,000 hands, twice as many as Galfond’s contest with VeniVidi1993, or until one person loses $400,000.

Galfond’s $1,000,000 versus Perkins’s $250,000

The side bet in this match is substantial: Galfond’s $1,000,000 versus Perkins’s $250,000. After the first session, Galfond is down about $6,000.

Slower, lighter feel so far

The action on Tuesday felt much more casual than did Galfond’s sessions against VeniVidi1993. He and Perkins were playing just one table instead of two, which allowed for easier focus.

Galfond also had his webcam on and because the game was on partypoker, the stream had to be from his, rather than a third-party, perspective. As such, viewers could see Galfond’s hole cards. The stream was on a slight delay, however, so Perkins was not able to see his opponent’s hand live.

One disadvantage of the game not being on Run It Once is that viewers do not have the luxury of real-time hand counts and win/loss tracking. It was not clear how many hands were played or who won what. Galfond estimated he was down a bit less than $6,000 when the session ended after finding himself about $50,000 in the hole early on. partypoker will provide the stats later.

Tough act to follow

Round two of the Galfond Challenge begins just as Phil Galfond is coming down from the high of an epic comeback against VeniVidi1993. Galfond and VeniVidi1993 started their heads-up match on January 22 and in less than three weeks, Galfond was down an astounding €900,240.17 ($988,148.62).

even paid VeniVidi1993 each day they had been scheduled to play just so he could get his head right

Galfond then decided to take a break from the challenge. He even paid VeniVidi1993 each day they had been scheduled to play just so he could get his head right. Galfond considered quitting and sacrificing a €200,000 ($219,530) side bet, but he decided to continue.

The challenge resumed on March 4 and from there, Galfond soared. He took the lead on April 6 but was behind by €8,171.67 ($8,967.35) going into Sunday, just 698 hands away from the 25,000 limit. With 75 hands remaining, he won a massive pot to give himself a large enough lead where he could fold his way to the win.

In the end, Galfond came out €1,671.58 ($1,834.34) ahead and won a €100,000 ($109,765) side bet.