Posts Tagged ‘Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond’

Tom Dwan wins $2 Million, then Loses Big

Tuesday, February 12th, 2013

Last month, we wrote a story about how Tom Dwan had been unsuccessful and largely absent from the online poker scene over the past couple of years. However, he’s recently returned to the internet poker scene in a major way and has seen some huge bankroll swings in the process. That said, let’s discuss some of this recent and very notable sessions.

A Triumphent Return

After bleeding out millions of his hard-earned poker winnings over the past two and a half years, Tom Dwan made a huge comeback. He won $1.25 million over a 25-hour session and made most of this money through 2-7 Triple Draw games. Some of the excellent players that he earned money off of during this session included Ben “Sauce1234” Sulsky, Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond and Hac “trex313” Dang.

Dwan wasn’t quite done yet though because he continued the winning by collecting another $871k on the tables. Some of the players that he faced off against during this session were Ben “Bttech86” Tollerene, Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond and “patpatpanda.” Thanks to two huge sessions, Dwan had earned over $2.1 million.

Hitting a Downswing

There’s no doubt that Dwan put himself back on the poker map following a $2.1 million profit. However, he lost some of this money over the past two days after dropping around $900k.

Despite losing nearly $1 million “durrrr” can’t be too angry about the losses. After all, he’s netted $1.1 million in a week and has $2.14 million in career profits at Full Tilt Poker. Sure this is a far cry from the $7.23 million peak that he was at in June of 2009. But Dwan has proved that he’s still capable of winning big in online poker, despite dedicating most of his time to live cash games in recent years.

US Online Poker Pros in Canada

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

Ever since Black Friday (April 15th), major US online poker pros have been pondering a move to Canada since they can no longer play at some of the biggest poker sites like PokerStars and Full Tilt (although nobody can play at FT anymore). And some pros are starting to act on these thoughts, including Cole South and Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond.

South was the first of the US online poker pros to make the jump to Canada in late May. He was involved in a session with the mysterious “Esvedra” who’s been rumored to be Canadian billionaire Guy Laliberte. During the session, Cole South won over $200k, which is pretty good for somebody who’s struggled over the past couple of years after dropping $6 million.

Moving past South, Phil Galfond is the latest person to make the jump to Canada since he’s been seen on PokerStars. Interestingly enough, Galfond didn’t play as high of stakes as he normally does; instead, he was found on the $25/$50 NLHE and PLO tables. Unfortunately, the return to online poker hasn’t been totally successful for Galfond since he’s lost $20k, but he didn’t seem too shaken up after tweeting, “After 3 months off of online poker, I’d forgotten about downswings. Oh well. Still happy to be playing. I love the game.”

One last person worth discussing in regards to the US online poker pros moving north includes Dan “Jungleman12” Cates. However, there’s a twist in Cates’ story since he was prevented from actually getting into Canada. The reason why is because he didn’t have a VISA, which is a must for self-employed foreigners in Canada. At this point, Cates is still waiting in Seattle until he can get into Canada.

 

New High Stakes Online Poker Scene

Friday, April 22nd, 2011

With US high stakes online poker players out of commission for a while following the Full Tilt and PokerStars shutdown, it will be interesting to see who will step up in the absence of guys like Phil Ivey, Dan Cates, Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond and Tom “Durrrr” Dwan.

Obviously Gus Hansen doesn’t really have to do any stepping up because he’s already at the top in 2011. Hansen opened up the year with over $2 million in profits by early February, and he doesn’t seem to have lost any of that momentum either since he’s up $4 million as we head into late April. Case in point, Hansen is a shoe-in to carry the torch for the Full Tilt high stakes scene with everybody else out of the picture.

Along with Hansen, Patrik Antonius has still been active at Full Tilt with him and Hansen recently tangling in Omaha Hi/Lo; Antonius ended up winning over $350k during the session. Hopefully we’ll be seeing more of this action simply for the sake of keeping internet high stakes poker alive.

Another guy to keep an eye on is Jens “Ingenious89” Kyllönen, who won almost $1 million the other day against several studs like Hansen and Andreas “Skjervoy” Torbergsen. Speaking of Torbergsen, he lost quite a bit of money ($1.1 million) on the same day that Kyllönen won a bunch; however, he will still be a force to be reckoned with as we head into the future of online high stakes poker.

One guy that we won’t be seeing for a while – at least in the US – is Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies, who vowed to not deposit at either Full Tilt or PokerStars again. But you should expect Sahamies to keep playing on European sites since the high stakes action is likely to pick up at rooms like Party Poker, the iPoker Network and Ongame Network.