With almost 80% of their epic contest in the books, Phil Galfond is within punching range of his nemesis VeniVidi as the two men head towards the climax of their Galfond Challenge meeting.
The first meeting in this series of at least five matches, the Galfond Challenge could hardly have got off to a more intriguing start. Down $900,000 after around 40% of the match, Galfond went deep into the tank, and emerged declaring that he was ready to resume play.
Since that decision, and his lowest ebb in terms of losing, Galfond has bounced back in spectacular style. Having won consistently over the last fortnight, Galfond is now within range of VeniVidi, with the difference between the two men just €154,287.93 in VeniVidi’s favor.
With Galfond now closing in on parity, what are the chances he gets there, or even overtakes VeniVidi on the home straight? Well, of the 25,000 hands that were scheduled to be played, the two men have only completed 19,363 of them. With just 5,637 hands to go, the market for the outright win on Poker Shares has VeniVidi as the favourite, but not a huge one.
One man who won’t be able to contain his excitement if Galfond does complete the full comeback is Joey Ingram, whose most recent video about the return of one of his poker heroes has already enjoyed 20,000 views:
In the wake of this video, VeniVidi announced – well, Galfond announced on the anonymous player’s behalf – that he would be taking two more additional days off. Since VeniVidi didn’t give much notice, Galfond spoke with Joe ‘Stapes’ Stapleton in an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session on Twitch for the fans who were looking forward to seeing their hero in action.
With VeniVidi enjoying a couple of days off, Galfond opened up the chances of someone else challenging him in a miniature version of the Galfond Challenge. He’s already had one taker.
Alright. Announcing the first (of many???) #MiniGalfondChallenge!
Tomorrow at 10am Pacific, I'll be playing 800 hands of $200/400 PLO vs. AmSoGood on Stars. No sidebet – just glory.
No stream from us, but I hope someone out there will sweat & stream for the fans! 🙏
— Phil Galfond (@PhilGalfond) March 30, 2020
With the poker world unable to get enough of the Galfond vs VeniVidi challenge, the overall series is in great stead for a long, enjoyable run. Indeed, in between poker events having turned from live tour spectaculars into online festivals with added money, Galfond’s challenge will provide a bridge of content for poker fans craving some live action.
