The latest in the long line of Phil Galfond’s PLO Challenge matches, against Brandon Adams, ended this week due to a dispute over excessive tanking, the battle now switching to an online format.
I am down 48k with 15.5 hrs remaining. @PhilGalfond is changing strategy, as expected, but he is also using the clock to maximum advantage, taking full time for every decision on every street.
— Brandon Adams (@badams78) July 29, 2021
Galfond Challenge vs. Brandon Adams will be taking place online
The pair were contesting a 40-hour-long live PLO heads-up match, playing at stakes of $100/$200, with big side bets as part of the agreement – Galfond putting up $100k to Adams’ $150k and the latter providing some Instagram Live coverage of the match…
Sieh dir diesen Beitrag auf Instagram an
After a slow start by Galfond, he surged into a $50k lead on day 3, and it was a fateful day 4 that saw the match paused, somewhat acrimoniously, by Adams’ complaint.
The argument played out publicly on Twitter, with Galfond responding to Adams’ complaints of “excessive tanking” by claiming his opponent had also used the shot clock to his advantage…
2. (cont)
He took the full 15s preflop for essentially every decision since the start of the match.
For the last two days, when he was planning to check or fold river IP, he would stand up and stretch for the full 30s before checking.
…
— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) July 29, 2021
Adams accuses Galfond of tanking
With Adams stating he was using his pre-flop time “memorize the cards, then I play”.
He added: “Phil, I love you, but your estimate of my time management is simply grossly wrong, and it is verifiable via video,” offering to “post the raw footage on YouTube or google drive”
Phil, worried about being free-rolled just because he was leading and using his time to help retain that lead, asked the pertinent question: “…let’s assume I’m wrong… Why is some clock management okay and more of it not? Am in the wrong because I’m being open about it? I could have just taken 8s pre, 20 on flop and turn, 30 on the river and it seemed normal.”
Adams wasn’t impressed, replying: “It is always in someone’s interest to take max time for every hand. If that happened, the match would be absurd. It would be like a WSOP Main where everyone stalled until forced to act.”
Eventually, the duo had to call in the experts for an objective ruling, with Max Silver and Ike Haxton doing the duties, aided and abetted by Mike McDonald, Dan Smith and a Twitter feed full of thoughts, suggestions, idea and the usual social media trolls.
The upshot of all this was that they would quit the timed match and resume with a set number of hands, the independent arbiters agreeing on 338 of those.
It was far from the end of matters, however, as a little later – with Galfond now only $16,500 ahead with 236 hands left to play – the match was halted again.
Brandon and I weren’t enjoying playing challenge end-game poker, so we reached an agreement.
Sorry for the headache, @MikeMcDonald89! https://t.co/n0pHwoymNe
— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) July 30, 2021
Phil Galfond is up $145,000
Playing online highstakes heads-up PLO is, of course, Phil Galfond’s forte, having already defeated “Venividi1993”, “ActionFreak” and Chance Kornuth, as well as taking a lead over Bill Perkins and crushing Daniel “Jungleman” Cates in a mini-match precursor to their still-to-be-played full Galfond Challenge encounter.
The original sidebet has been scrapped, and a new one set to reflect Galfond’s online prowess – the RunItOnce boss putting up $400k to Adams’ $100k.
Now three days into their online battle, Galfond has pulled out to a $145,000 lead, courtesy of a huge day 3 win, having won |$75k on day 1 and lost $40k on day 2.…
+$110k on Day 3 of the online challenge! We’re going to take a break for a few weeks and resume on August 22nd.
— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) August 2, 2021
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