Phil Galfond Extends Lead Over Kornuth As He Prepares to For Another Challenge

October 2nd, 2020 | by Jason Reynolds

Phil Galfond has extended his lead over Chance Kornuth and moved a step closer to winning a $250,000 side bet.

Phil Galfond has extended his lead over Chance Kornuth in their high-stakes online PLO match. (Image: Run It Once)

The two high-stakes pros have been battling on WSOP.com for more than a week. An initial surge by Galfond was negated by an upswing for Kornuth a few days later.

However, in recent days, Galfond continued to impose his will on the $100/$200 Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) match and moved into a healthy lead.

Phil Galfond Getting It Done Against Kornuth

The pair have now played 5,600 of 35,000 hands. Galfond is in the lead with a profit of 149,000/$174,500, but there’s a long way to go until he can claim the $250,000 prize.

Indeed, with Kornuth set to win $1 million if he finishes with a profit, he’ll be fighting hard until the end. What’s more, we’ve already seen how these matches can flip.

Galfond was down almost $1 million in his first challenge match against VeniVidi1993. However, he reversed the deficit and, eventually, walked away with the win.

Highlights from the fifth session (see video above) show that Kornuth is far from down and out. In a hand where he flopped a set of kings, Kornuth played it tricky by check-raising on the turn.

Galfond called with two pair on a 10♠5♣K♠A♣ board. The 9♦ on the river didn’t change anything and a sneaky $11,000 bet from Kornuth forced a call from Galfond. That pot was worth almost $40,000, but it wasn’t enough to swing the match.

Galfond played a steady game throughout and won the majority of medium and large pots. When the session was over, he’d scooped more than $55,000 to extend his lead in the challenge.

Fighting Battles on Two Fronts

If Galfond wins, it will be further confirmation that he’s one of the best to ever do it. However, it will be even more impressive given that he’s working on the Mike Postle case.

With the alleged cheat and his suspected co-conspirator, Stones Hall poker director Justin Kuraitis, cleared of any wrongdoing in the eyes of the law, the case looked to be over. However, Galfond recently explained that comments made after the fact have rubbed him up the wrong way.

Watch @PhilGalfond address @JFKPokerTD's Twitter madness, his decision to take on Mike Postle, @ChancesCards's performance in the #GalfondChallenge, and more! On The Rake with @MarleCordeiro & @JamieKerstetter https://t.co/Dvxtar4bJv pic.twitter.com/I5d8aO8PV6
— Run It Once Poker (@RunItOncePoker) September 30, 2020

As such, he’s doing whatever he can to see that the saga is brought to a fair conclusion that proves beyond doubt that Postle was cheating or he wasn’t.

That won’t be easy, particularly when he’s got $1 million at stake in his match against Kornuth. However, Galfond is a master of multitasking for high stakes. So, at this stage, it would be foolish to bet against him winning both cases.