Last month, Phil Galfond announced that his Run It Once online poker room was set to launch this summer, with the US pro stating at the time that there would a number of “fun features. Phil Galfond broke his lengthy silence on his new upcoming online poker room ‘Run It Once’ a few days ago to reaffirm his ambitions and present players with a new window for launch, which is this summer. It was all the way back in 2016, just after the WSOP when Galfond first announce his ambition. Phil Galfond has put together a team and is going to launch an online poker room during the first quarter of next year. He has not given details of anything as of yet, so we don’t know if it will be a skin of a network or independent, if it will use brand new client software or recycle an older product. Galfond originally announced he was working on an online poker room last September, when the high stakes/high volume community’s anxiety over the ongoing changes at PokerStars was at its peak. The project, RunItOnce Poker, is ambitious.

The online poker industry is ultra-competitive. There are hundreds of poker sites from which to choose; starting a new one to compete with them, including such giants as PokerStars and 888poker, seems like a fool’s errand. But poker pro Phil Galfond announced yesterday that he intends to make a go of it and he ain’t no fool.

That’s right. Phil Galfond has put together a team and is going to launch an online poker room during the first quarter of next year. He has not given details of anything as of yet, so we don’t know if it will be a skin of a network or independent, if it will use brand new client software or recycle an older product. He has said, though, that it will not be open to players in the United States, which is not surprising; there is absolutely no reason to court legal problems from the get-go.

In a lengthy blog post on his poker training site, Run It Once, Galfond explained that he motivated, above all else, to do things right. He has an idealistic vision for his online poker room, wanted to combine fun, profitability, customer focus, transparency, and “something for everyone” into one, perfect package.

“A poker site should value poker players,” he began. Expanding on that, Galfond wrote:

It should value the casual player for the money he’s willing to put on the line to play a game he loves. For choosing poker over other hobbies, and for choosing their site over other sites.

It should value the enthusiast and semi-professional for the liquidity they provide and for growing the game. For spreading the word, across different mediums, about their favorite site.

It should value the professional for embodying the dream that brings so many people to poker. For proving that poker is a game of skill. For promoting the game of poker to their fans, students, followers or subscribers.

A poker site needs to believe in the dream of poker as a career. It shouldn’t cater to professionals over other players, but it must make every policy change with the viability of the dream in mind.

He went on to say that the software, of course, needs to be something that adds to players’ enjoyment of the site, as opposed to just being a vehicle for virtual cards, and that players’ input on the software and “user experience” should be welcomed.

Fairness was also a key point for Galfond.

“Not fairness for the sake of public image and profits, but fairness for fairness’s sake. It shouldn’t let honest players, professional or recreational, be taken advantage of by others exploiting unenforceable rules,” he said.

“A poker site should understand that it doesn’t have to lose for the players to win,” wrote Galfond, explaining that the relationship between the poker room and its players doesn’t have to be an adversarial one.

“Poker operators, professionals, and non-professionals all have their goals/wants/needs and these lists aren’t mutually exclusive. It is possible for policy changes to be a win-win-win, or a win-win-tie. The search for these changes should be never-ending.”

Considering the plan is to launch within the seven months, it is very probable that this has been in the works for quite some time. This, in addition to Galfond’s impassioned treatise, would also lead me to believe that Run It Once Poker (if that’s what it will be called) will not just be a skin of an existing network. Regardless, it will all be quite fascinating to see how it all plays out.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. May 5, 2018 10:14 am

Phil Galfond Poker Room Games

Last month, Phil Galfond announced that his Run It Once online poker room was set to launch this summer, with the US pro stating at the time that there would a number of “fun features and distinct policies” for players to enjoy.
This week, Galfond subsequently wrote a detailed blog entry revealing more details as to the policies being implemented on Run It Once Poker, with one of them sure to stir debate amongst a segment of professional players, namely the banning of Heads-Up Displays (HUDs) on the site.
The Trouble With HUDs
HUDs are software programs used by online poker players to track and analyze the hand histories of their opponents, and identify relevant information across a range of different categories, including Preflop Raise, Aggression, 3Bet, Fold to 3Bet, Continuation Bet Flop, and Attempt to Steal Blinds, to name but a few.
In the live arena, many top professionals are able to use their memories and a grasp of these concepts to exploit their opponents’ weaknesses at the table, but experienced online players are simply able to set up a HUD to provide the relevant information. This has not only placed recreational players at a severe disadvantage against their more skilled opponents, but has also left many amateur players feeling disillusioned about the game, leading a number of major sites to limit or ban their use, including Party Poker, Unibet Poker, and to a lesser extent PokerStars.
Bridging the Divide
Recreational players are seen as the life blood of the industry, as without this important group of players there will be no fresh money flowing into games. As Galfond explains in his blog post, the divide between professional players and recreational players has increased over the years, with more advanced HUDs contributing to the ever widening skill gap.
While Twitch streams and training videos have helped recreational players to develop a better grasp of poker strategy and tactics, seeing their favorite pros exploiting opponents by checking out their statistics using HUDs can also put them off playing the game at all, and as Galfond explains:
“If I’m a recreational player and I see a Twitch streamer of Run It Once training video that looks like this [a screen covered in HUD stats] I’m thinking that I have no chance. A number of people even think that this is some kind of bot (which it’s definitely not, guys!). I wonder how many people have quit online poker simply from seeing something like this.”
Reducing Unfair Advantages
In addition to preventing the use of HUDs, Galfond also detailed a number of other features designed to compliment its no-HUD policy, and vastly reduce the advantages skilled players may have over their recreational counterparts.
Like many other sites, for instance, Run It Once will feature anonymous tables, but instead of being called Player 1, Player 2, etc, players will be assigned temporary IDs based upon a first name and a last initial, such as Simon C, thus allowing players to more easily notice if a player in seat 1 leaves and is replaced by a new seat 1.
However, players will still be able to keep a general eye on their opponents using a type of built-in HUD which does not display statistics, but instead groups players into one of eight playing styles, with the information pictorially communicated via their dynamic avatars. Galfond says that dynamic avatars are designed to create a similar experience as playing at live tables, and that their expressions will vary over the course of each poker session, just as in real life.
According to the Run It Once team, should a HUD manage to avoid the site’s detection system, table aliases and dynamic avatars will help reduce their effectiveness by as much as 90%
Prevention, Detection and Punishment
Summing up his post, Galfond said that the innovations mentioned will ultimately result in the site’s games being fairer, and ultimately contribute to a more positive playing experience for its customers.
“Along with prevention, detection and punishment, we think we have an effective way to enforce our no-HUD policy, which takes us one step closer to the level playing field that we aspire to offer at Run It Once Poker.”