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Run It Once (RIO) founder Phil Galfond’s ‘Heads-Up’ challenge has taken the poker community by storm! The three-time WSOP bracelet winner had announced the challenge on his blog on November 19.
Since then, the challenge has been accepted by four reputed poker personalities. The first was entrepreneur Bill Perkins, followed by high-stakes PLO regular Fernando ‘JNandez87’ Habegger and online phenom ‘VeniVidi1993’. Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates also joined the list of challengers a few days back.
Galfond found a fifth challenger in poker player, self-published author and Harvard University lecturer, Brandon Adams. A WSOP bracelet winner himself, Adams is scheduled to play 40 hours of live poker at stakes of $100-$200 PLO sometime next year.
Just as the list of challengers was ticking upwards, news came through that Habegger had backed out of the challenge claiming that he won’t be able to give enough time to the challenge to maximize the EV of his backers.
Is that really the case, or was Habegger just scared of facing arguably one of the best online PLO players in the game? Read on to find out!
Fernando’ JNandez87’ Habegger Backs Out of HU Challenge
High-stakes PLO specialist Fernando ‘JNandez87’ Habegger was the first non-RIO coach to accept Phil Galfond’s HU challenge. He was going to be Galfond’s second match in the challenge, and on December 9, both players had agreed to play 50,000 hands of $100-$200 online PLO with Galfond putting up $1 million on the side to win Habegger’s $200,000. Yesterday, Habegger tweeted that he was backing out of the challenge as he hadn’t correctly assessed the amount of time it would require for him to maximize the EV of his backers.
Update on the @PhilGalfond HU Challenge pic.twitter.com/F2pBenfsq9
— JNandez (@JNandezPoker) December 17, 2019
In his tweet, Habegger claimed that he would have no problem getting staked, but his “responsibility for maximizing my shareholders EV would call for a much more extreme preparation and execution than I originally intended.”
Needless to say, this announcement got him a lot of flak from the poker community with former nemesis Doug Polk tweeting a very sarcastic ‘lol’ in response.
— Doug Polk (@DougPolkPoker) December 18, 2019
Pretty soon, Habbegger’s back out was being mocked on social media.
Jnandez after Phil accepted. pic.twitter.com/GffGP1zdBd
— †Δy (@itstay14) December 17, 2019
This is pretty embarrassing. And to talk about the challenge on stream as if you had inside info on who he was studying with etc when he posted the chat logs that he didn’t even tell you.
— Christopher George (@CeeGeePoker) December 17, 2019
I want a full refund of my jnandezmastermind annual subscription. When I signed up I didn’t realize I was actually paying to watch videos of Nandos Chicken. After speaking with my backers they want their money back too
— Russell Thio (@russell_thio) December 18, 2019
Playing 50k hands of 100/200 vs one of the best in the world would “take more extreme preparation and execution than you originally intended”? What kind of coach doesn’t realise the commitment? Amazed Phil isn’t holding you to the sidebet. Soft.
— Tim Marsters (@TurnRiva) December 18, 2019
Can we be real that there was a 0% shot that you could beat @PhilGalfond over a statistically significant sample, so any side bet odds were irrelevant. Like nothing embarrassing about saying you can’t beat one of best in world at PLO.
— Zachary Neugut (@ZacharyNeugut) December 17, 2019
After you realize you don’t want to take the L pic.twitter.com/nAzRjxLaVt
— Jair (@MrJairr) December 17, 2019
We could keep sharing the tweets of people criticizing Habegger, but we’re going to go a little soft on him. The poor chap seems well on his way to becoming an internet meme for the next few days.
Brandon Adams Takes Up Galfond’s HU Challenge
An academic, an author, and a poker pro, Brandon Adams has quite the glittering resume. The Miami, Florida resident added a WSOP bracelet to his list of achievements when he took down the Event #74: $3,200 WSOP.com ONLINE No-Limit Hold ’em High Roller earlier this summer for $411,560.
Besides being an accomplished online player, he is also known for the 2011 prop bet that he took up against Finnish poker pro and former tennis player Patrik Antonius. The duo had decided to play a best of three tennis match, where Antonius had $295,000 on the line to Adams’ $30,000! Unsurprisingly, the former professional tennis player won the bet, and the YouTube video of the match is a great watch.
Adams is back to his betting ways, and this time he will be squaring off against Galfond. While the latter’s other competitors will be playing against him on the virtual felts, Adams will be Galfond’s first live competitor. The two will play 40 hours of live poker at stakes of $100-$200 PLO. Galfond is laying 1.5:1 with his $150,000 on the line against Adams’ $100,000. The match will is expected to take place sometime in the summer and might be streamed.
Will Adams be able to win this challenge? Only time will time!