An exciting new documentary on poker legend Phil Galfond’s career has been released on YouTube. The four-part series features many of his rivals from the last two decades talking about how much they respect his character and game.
Episode One opens with Phil Galfond talking about his typical routine of waking up at 5:25 am to get a few worth of his business work done before he is disturbed.
It is immediately obvious how focussed the 39-year-old is on his work ethic, a common trait of successful poker players.
A selection of well-known figures in the industry then dive straight into factors that Galfond is best known for.
The most obvious being his nice guy demeanour and yet somehow managing to still be one of the most intimidating characters you could ever face at a poker table.
Looking back 20 years, readers will be hard pushed to find anybody that has commented negatively about the American on a personal level. This is extremely rare in poker.
Galfond’s peers then note how incredible it is that he not only reached the very top of PLO and NL hold’em, but he is still there today.
This is even more amazing when we learn that for five days of the week, he is working on business projects for 11.5 hours.
Jason Koon points out that Galfond’s raw aptitude for the game is so much higher than most peoples’.
How Did Phil Galfond Get Started with Poker?
Phil Galfond’s journey with the game we all love began in his Freshman year at college.
By the time of his junior year, he had turned his first $100 deposit into $100,000, leaving him struggling to take his studies seriously.
Naturally, his parents weren’t thrilled but they did support their son, no doubt feeling some confidence in his ability.
Two years after going full time with poker, Galfond’s $100,000 was now more than $1 million.
Most players would be thinking they had hit the life jackpot at this point, but he wanted more. And the next year things really ramped up another year. In 2008, Phil Galfond won an eye-watering $8,000,000 in online poker.
The next step he took was shifting over into PLO from NL hold’em. In the pre-Black Friday era, PLO was much less explored than NL, making it a perfect environment for a player who was capable of figuring things out for himself.
Phil Galfond the Poker Ambassador
One of the effects of being such a great player and highly respected figure in the industry was Galfond’s shift into a non-official ambassadorial role.
Put simply, literally everybody liked the guy and trusted him to the nth degree.
He was the most sought after figure people contacted for advice and dispute resolution.
As he grew into this role, his relationship broke down with a coaching site he was producing videos for, leaving him wondering about starting his own website.
His reputation as a coach was top drawer and he loved teaching others by utilising his natural ability to explain complex concepts in a way less talented players can understand.
Hence, Run It Once training was born and quickly became the top site in the game. This happened by charging more than his rivals but reinvesting the money in order to attract the best coaches to work for him.
In fact, Galfond states that for the first six years of operation, not a cent was spent on marketing. His reputation did all of the work.
Run It Once Poker
As the Run It Once team gained confidence in their ability, online poker was in the midst of a minor crisis.
The sale of PokerStars to Amaya Inc from the Scheinberg family was followed by a raft of unpopular changes leaving Phil Galfond worried about the prospect of the market leader turning the game into an unbeatable casino-style effort.
The thought of nobody being able to beat the game was the impetus for Run It Once Poker. The team quickly put together a plan to build the best poker site in the world, in all areas.
As is often the case, the early days were not covered in glory. The technical director quit in the early stages and the replacement communicated to Phil Galfond that the project was a complete mess and would require a long time to put right.
In fact it was in such a state that four years would pass until 2018 before fears of a project meltdown were allayed.
Galfond says that they did for a time consider shutting down the operation, and even looking back that might have been the best decision.
The site was burning a whopping $300,000 per month and the team had spent years in a perpetual state of being two to three months away from launch.
No holidays and 80-hour weeks were beginning to take a toll on the team.
After a successful launch, the harsh reality of having to replace up to 30% of the players they brought in raised the stress levels even more, but in 2020 growth started to kick in.
This was pushed by the Covid-19 lockdowns which actually helped online poker enormously. But once the world opened up once again, there was a massive crash in traffic.
It was obvious right away that Run It Once Poker was no longer a sustainable business and the search for a buyer began immediately.
A deal was provisionally drawn up that would see the external investors made whole and Galfond left “okay”.
It was a long, drawn out process that saw the team face complications with the European VAT but then one day, Galfond received a message that the deal was off. Completely out of the blue.
In total, Phil Galfond sank more than $10 million into the project and now he was facing financial ruin.
And then tragedy struck. Under the most pressure he has ever faced in his life, Galfond received the heart-breaking news that his father had passed away suddenly.
The situation couldn’t have been worse but eventually his prayers were answered when a new, less lucrative deal was put together with Rush Street Interactive to shift the business over to the US market.
This covers the first two episodes of the Phil Galfond documentary. Two more will follow in the coming weeks.
- Get the best rakeback deals
- See the best poker promotions
- View the latest poker news
- Get the best No Deposit Poker Bonuses
- Benefit from the biggest poker bonus
- Calculate your rakeback with the rakeback calculator
Terms and conditions apply. New customer offer and 18+ only. Should you require help regarding your betting pattern, please visit www.begambleaware.org.
