Phil Galfond

Phil Galfond was born in 1985 and grew up in New York. A naturally analytical thinker, he found his calling in online poker during the mid-2000s boom. Under the screen name "OMGClayAiken" on Full Tilt Poker, he built a reputation as the greatest pot-limit Omaha player in the world, running up profits that dwarfed those of almost any other online player during the game's golden era.

What set Galfond apart was not just results but thinking. He was among the first players to approach PLO with genuine theoretical rigor — studying game theory and expected value in ways far ahead of his time — and his frameworks influenced an entire generation of PLO players. In 2012, he founded Run It Once, a poker training platform that became one of the most respected in the industry, known for genuine instruction over hype.

In 2020, he undertook the Galfond Challenge — accepting high-stakes PLO battles against multiple challengers. After falling into a massive early deficit against one opponent, he staged one of the greatest comebacks in online poker history to win. His combination of intellectual rigor, elite competitive performance, and commitment to growing the poker community through education make him one of the game's most respected and admired figures.

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