Gossip Column: Phil Galfond’s Heads-Up Challenge is Blowing Up With ‘VeniVidi1993’ & Jungleman Confirmed as Latest Challengers

Phil Galfond Vs Dan Cates
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  • Namita Ghosh December 16, 2019
  • 3 Minutes Read

Run It Once (RIO) Poker founder Phil Galfond is likely to see his poker bankroll challenged to the hilt very soon, and what follows will be his own doing. Galfond looking to gain some traction for his online poker site, recently issued an open heads-up challenge to the poker community! The response as we can now fathom was more than overwhelming. Clearly, things are blowing up since, after locking in Bill Perkins and Fernando Habegger, aka JNandez as the first two contenders for the challenge, two new contenders have accepted Galfond’s high-stakes PLO competition. One of them is the online phenom, ‘VeniVidi1993’ and the other none other than Dan’ Jungleman’ Cates of the infamous “Durrrr Challenge” fame!

Galfond earlier today challenged Cates during a cash game session at Bellagio and made sure to record all of it on his mobile phone (to be posted later on twitter). Now not only did Cates accept the challenge, but he was more than confident of wiping out his challenger: “I’m here to teach you a lesson. I’m going to break your spirit. That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m not even trying to break your bankroll, I’m just trying to break your spirit,” Cates can be heard telling Galfond in the video.

While this is one challenge everyone in the poker community will be dying to see play out, some justice finally got delivered for a rogue poker pro. Danish poker pro and former EPT champion Peter Jepsen was convicted of hacking into poker players’ laptops and planting malware to gain access to hole cards and other vital information. Jepsen had gone on cheating this way unnoticed for a good six years between 2008 to 2014 before being discovered. He’s been sentenced to 30 months in prison and has been handed out a €3.5 Million fine.

 

Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates Accepts Galfond’s Heads-Up Challenge, Says He Will Take it Down in Style!

Did we hear that right? Yeah! Two of the world’s best poker players are soon going to lock horns in a heads-up duel! Run It Once (RIO) Poker founder Phil Galfond had recently challenged the poker community to come out and play high-stakes PLO against him. Galfond has issued what he calls his own ‘Durrrr Challenge’ to two categories of poker players – the non- RIO coaches and poker content creators and everyone else who plays poker.

Phil Galfond Vs Dan Cates
Phil Galfond Vs Dan Cates

Since November-end, when Galfond threw open the challenge, he’s got a lot of interest. He`d even picked out the first two challengers in Thirst Lounge streaming platform founder Bill Perkins and online phenom Fernando Habegger better known as JNandez.

The challenge is clearly blowing up, and so is Galfond’s list of challengers with two top pros – ‘VeniVidi1993’ and Dan’ Jungleman’ Cates, accepting the challenge!

We did notice that Galfond had predicted on Twitter that he may have up to seven challengers at the end of the week, and soon he announced that his next competitor would be Venividi1993’. He very quickly came out with a rough outline for the challenge.

But what caught our attention was Galfond’s next announcement. Earlier today, Galfond shared a video of Cates where he can be seen accepting the heads-up challenge, and he has much to say. “I’m not just going to accept your Heads-Up Challenge, I’m going to take you down in style… I’m just here for the glory. I’m here to teach you a lesson, I’m going to break your spirit. I’m not even trying to break your bankroll I’m just trying to break your spirit,” Cates said, replying to Galfond’s question if he was going to accept his heads-up challenge.

Now that sounds ominous coming from Cates, who is widely acknowledged as one of the best online poker pros in the business. However, the Galfond vs. Cates clash will possibly be one of the shortest heads-up matches in this challenge. Both will play only 7,500 hands of PLO on 1-to-1 odds, and in even better news, both will be live-streaming the contest.

As expected, the poker Twitterati came out with their own say on the upcoming duel. While some said that it was very typically a challenge that’d come out of Bobby’s Room, others agreed that Galfond’s challenge was building up to be quite exciting!

 

Former Poker Pro Peter Jepsen Convicted of Cyber Crime

Though poker is today accepted as a profession in many countries, issues like problem gambling and cheating continue to bring a bad name to the mind sport. And what do you say when someone as reputed as Peter Jepsen is found guilty of hi-tech cybercrime for cheating other players? Jepsen, who’s a native of Denmark, boasts of an EPT Main Event title to his name and was at one point, seen sharing the tables with the likes of top pros like Gus Hansen and Theo Jorgensen.

Peter Jepsen
Peter Jepsen

Back in 2008, the former high-stakes cash game pro cried foul, alleging that someone had placed a virus on his computer in an attempt to cheat. Eleven years later, it turns out that Jepsen himself was responsible for planting malware software onto his friends’ computers!

In all, a total of eight Danish poker pros complained against Jepsen to the police. Investigations later revealed that Jepsen would somehow manage to access his friends’ laptops and install malicious software in them. This software allowed him to later access their hole cards while they were playing online. Jepsen managed to sneak into some of the players’ rooms during an EPT Barcelona stop and installed the Remote Access Trojan (RAT) so that he could remotely access their desktop.

Evidently, Jepsen had some expert technical help, and he did it so well that his crime went undetected from 2008 to 2014. The court heard three witnesses during the trial, one of whom said that he’d been on a lake-side walk in Copenhagen when Jepsen confessed to having carried out the hacking.

Hearing out the evidence, the Copenhagen City Court sentenced Jepsen to four years imprisonment last week. Since the case has been going on for five years, Jepsen’s sentence was reduced to 30 months, taking into account the time that had already passed in the investigation.

The court also handed out a €3.5 Million fine to Jepsen, of which around €107,000 will be returned to some of the identified players who fell victim to Jepsen’s wrongdoings.

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