High stakes pro Phil Galfond, founder of Run It Once Poker is getting challenged yet again in his Galfond Challange series. This time it’s the controversial former hedge fund manager Bill Perkins who is trying his luck in this wild high stakes game. The Challenge is played at €100/€200 PLO over a total of 50,000 hands or until either one of the players has lost a total of €400,000. Clearly these mind blowing stakes were not enough for the gamblners, seeing as they also agreed on a massive side bet where Galfond needs to pay up $1,000,000 if ending as the loser. Perkins on the other hand, gets a bit of a handicap with only having to put up $250,000 if he finishes last of the two.

Instead, a tweet from Bill Perkins, who is known to have wagered on his friend Negreanu, set Polk off on a rant, and he confirmed that he and Negreanu have called on impartial judge Phil Galfond to make a call. Bill Perkins hosted his own game on “ Perks of the Trade ” with whopping $500/$1,000 blinds in a game that featured Haralbos Voulgaris, Rick Salomon, Phil Galfond, Doug Polk, and Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates among others.

Phil Perkins Poker

1. Bill Perkins was born in 1969 and is a film producer, hedge fund manager and amateur poker player. Even though he studied Electrical Engineering at the University of Iowa, he always wanted to start his own company. He studied intensively for many years, and he started his first company back in 1997.
2. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us.
3. After finishing the match between Phil and VeniVidi1993, which draw the attention of thousands of players for several months, playing against Perkins wasn't enough for Galfond. Probably because of this, since April 27, 2020, another parallel challenge began, this time against ActionFreak.

The match will be played out over at partypoker but the exact date and time is yet to be announced.

Bill Perkins was born in New Jersey back in 1969 and had a very succesful carrier as a hedge fund manager before entering the poker scene. While Perkins should be considered the clear underdog in the match, he is far from an amateur. Last year Bill managed his way all the way to the 6th place in Triton Million for Charity event in London, cashing in a a total of £2,200,000.

Phil Perkins Poker Player

Perkins said: “All my life I’ve been attacking challenging situations and this one seems to be the most formidable in quite some time. Not only does Phil have strategic knowledge, he has heart and mental fortitude. I look forward to playing the role of underdog.

Phil Perkins Poker

The Galfond Challange

The side action and stoploss for the Galfond Challange differs depending on the opponent that Phil Galfond is facing. The stakes however have been the same in both the previous challange as well as the upcoming announced ones. In his opening match, Phil took on “Venividi1993” in a real roller coaster game. Phil, who at one point saw himself down over €900,000 ended up ahead to secure a tidy €1,472.08. Seeing as the side action for this match was €200,000 vs €100,000, its safe to say the extra €100,000 made it worth Phils time in the end.

Galfond said: “This challenge is different to my others because of the $400,000 finish line. A lot of people are expecting me to win this one, but they shouldn’t underestimate Bill or the swings of PLO. Anything can happen.”

The challange can as always be railed through the partypoker-client, or live stread over at Twitch.tv/RunItOncePoker