Phil ‘OMGClayAiken’ Galfond
Phil Galfond who is best known by his Full Tilt Poker alias ‘OMGClayAiken’ was born in 1985 in Maryland. Despite being academically gifted, Galfond didn’t have any desire for University after he graduated from high-school; in fact he only went to five semesters before leaving. His real passion was for internet poker and he began playing around the clock to grind out results instead of having to get a 9-5 job. He began at PartyPoker, which is notorious for its easy-to-beat games, playing sit-and-goes. In his first year of playing poker full-time he ground a healthy bankroll by beating the $10 to $100 SNG’s and even took shots at the $1000 SNG‘s occasionally.
After almost a year of mainly focusing on sit-and-goes he was becoming bored of the games so instead he turned his attention to ring games. He began at the $5/$10 NLHE games and in only a few months he was playing $10/$20 NLHE, however his desire to play big games became too much and he paid for it – with almost his whole bankroll. He was taking shots at the $50/$100 NLHE games despite not being bankrolled for them and soon found himself back at square one playing the $5/$10 NLHE games trying to grind back his lost money. Wanting to take the game seriously and improve as a player, Galfond read various poker strategy articles as well as joining poker forums to learn from others.
Up until 2007 he had mainly focused on the NLHE games, and as his bankroll grew and he began conquering the higher stake games he was regarded as one of the best No-Limit Hold’em players in the world. However, the action at the NLHE games was drying up towards the end of 2007, with the high stake regulars opting to play Pot-Limit Omaha instead because there was more action. This forced Galfond to sharpen his PLO skills quickly, and that is exactly what he did as he began crushing those games too regularly beating Phil Ivey, Ilari ‘Ziigmund’ Sahamies and lots more.
Despite being a cash-game player, Galfond travels to Las Vegas every year for the WSOP playing both tournaments and high-stake cash games. Galfond has six cashes at the WSOP, two in 2006, two in 2007, and two in 2008. 2008 was by far his best results though because he was able to win his first WSOP bracelet, taking down the $5,000 PLO event for a staggering $817,781 confirming how good he is at Pot-Limit Omaha.
After having so much success Galfond found himself swamped with big-money offers from poker training sites all wanting him to become a coach and create videos for their site. Galfond refused however and decided to create his own poker training site – Bluefire Poker. Galfond has brought along other top cash-game players and their videos are regarded as the best in the poker training industry, just make sure to read a Bluefire Poker review before joining the training site.
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