Run It Once Poker - Is Phil Galfond's Poker Site Vaporware?

Professional poker player and training site owner Phil Galfond made a post on April 12 stating that his Run It Once online poker room (named after his training site) was still in development. Phil pledged to be more transparent and communicative with the poker community, but given the lack of updates since Run It Once Poker was first announced in August 2016, many were skeptical. The new launch window is Summer 2018.

Phil followed up with more information on May 2, giving extensive details about how Run It Once will operate. This latter posting, entitled “Laying the Groundwork,” exceeds 4,000 words in length.

Run It Once History

Run It Once was conceived at a time when players were bemoaning the toughness of the games and the pro-unfriendly moves that many poker operators were making, like a reduction in rewards at PokerStars and a focus on recreational players, at the expense of high-volume regs, at many sites.

In his post announcing the new poker site, Phil Galford explained that an internet poker room should make all types of players feel comfortable from the newest rookies to the most seasoned veterans. He also highlighted the importance of software, fairness, and agility for the companies attempting to carve out a piece of the crowded market. RIO Poker would embody everything Phil thought a poker room should be. He gave a target launch date of “Q1 2017.”

Player response to this information was mostly positive although a few people had reservations about the enormous effort needed to successfully create a new online poker company. After an initial flurry of activity, Phil cut down on his communications, leaving many to wonder about the fate of the new poker site.

Near the beginning of 2017, Galfond wrote up an overview on how the staff at Run It Once Poker was growing, his experiences at the office in Malta, the weirdness he felt at being the ”boss,” and other similar topics. What was missing was any details about Run It Once Poker and its intended launch date apart from saying “…our original target of Q1 is likely out of reach.” This statement turned out to be quite an understatement.

As time went on, updates became less frequent and more laconic. The following tweet gives an idea of the quality of these notifications:

Now, that's a non-update if we've ever seen one. It's pretty much the equivalent of sending a “letter” in the mail consisting of a blank piece of paper.

This is the way things remained until April 12 of this year when Phil finally broke his near-silence.

Contents of Phil Galfond's Recent Posts

In his update dated April 12, 2018, Phil admitted to “significant missteps” that caused unforeseen delays. He laid out a new plan for opening the Run It Once Poker room in two phases.

Phase 1 will contain only cash games, not SNGs or tournaments. It's expected to go live in summer 2018.

Phase 2 will add tournaments and sit-n-gos. It will also expand the cash game stakes to include nosebleeds. Phil hinted that games at these vertiginous blind levels will use a special setup incorporating unique ideas to differentiate them from the offerings of competing sites.

In his May 2 post, Phil gave more info on the policies of the poker room. First of all, HUD software that displays opponents' stats on the tables will be disallowed. Phil also revealed that he didn't think HUDs should be banned if the ban couldn't be enforced, which implies that RunItOnce has sophisticated plans in place to detect this software and deal with users who attempt to circumvent the rules pertaining to it.

Usernames won't be displayed in-game. Instead, everyone will be assigned a randomized name that will be shown next to their nameplate. This is basically the same as anonymized games, like those at the PaiWangLuo Network.

Example of What an Anonymous Table Looks Like (at Bodog)

The use of names rather than player numbers will make it easier to remember who did what and will prevent confusion when a new player sits down. Moreover, anyone who leaves a game but then returns within a given timeframe will sport the same name that they had at the time they left. It's kind of like an anti-rathole timer for screennames.

Hand histories will be available 24 hours after a hand is played. They will reveal all hole cards. Remember, player names will be randomly generated and not the same from session to session, so this won't allow anyone's play to be tracked by their adversaries. This step is intended as a security measure to help customers detect and report collusion and other wrongdoing.

Reducing the value of HUDs even for those who attempt to violate the restrictions against them, Run It Once Poker will have dynamic avatars. The images representing each player will change during play, not according to the wishes of that player but rather based upon his or her stats. Which expression a given avatar will manifest will depend upon how that particular opponent has played while you were present at the table. These dynamic avatars replicate limited HUD features.

ProfRB's Opinion

We're glad to see that Phil Galfond has seen fit to finally share some news about the much-delayed Run It Once Poker platform. However, we're a bit disappointed by the specific minutia he chose to divulge.

We didn't get anything relating to what stakes would be offered, how the lobby would work, bonuses, rakeback, marketing strategies, or cashier processors. We did find out that the site won't be serving up online poker in USA markets.

Basically, we waited more than a year and a half to discover that Run It Once is replicating 80% of the recreational player model already functioning at Ignition Casino, Bodog, and Bovada although Phil intends to improve it somewhat.

What will we learn about the site 18 months from now? Perhaps by that time, after weighing all the pros and cons, discussing all options with his team, reading what the forums have to say, consulting his Magic 8 Ball, et cetera, Mr. Galfond might enlighten us as to whether or not Run It Once will have synchronized tournament breaks? That is, of course, assuming Phase 2 with SNG and MTT functionality is even accessible at that point.

Community Reactions

Despite the annoying length of time that Run It Once Poker has been in the planning stages without much in the way of updates, most forum dwellers expressed optimism and excitement upon reading Phil Galfond's recent posts. We feel that Phil is one of the few actors in the internet poker space who could inspire such confidence despite the extended delays involved in the launch of his new room. Check out the enthusiasm that poker fans still have for Run It Once Poker:

There are, however, some who feel differently:

Conclusion

We certainly hope that Run It Once achieves its lofty goals and changes the online poker landscape for the better. However, realistically speaking, we're more inclined to take a pessimistic view on this matter.

A site that caters to pros and recreational users alike while maintaining high standards of game integrity and that has the potential to dethrone PokerStars sounds good. But a site that caters to pros and recreational users alike while maintaining high standards of game integrity and that has the potential to dethrone PokerStars and that has already missed deadlines before and still hasn't opened its doors and is attempting to introduce newfangled innovations is another matter entirely. We expect that, even if the ambitious summer 2018 target is reached, Run It Once will still have to gain experience and learn many lessons before it will be ready to challenge PartyPoker and Unibet much less the leading online poker room, PokerStars.

Nevertheless, we'd like to do our part to assist Phil Galfond as he labors to bring Run It Once Poker to fruition. To that end, we've come up with a list of alternate site names that he may wish to consider. We feel that our proposals give a more accurate reflection of what the site is all about than the current branding does.

Run It Eventually

Run It Nonce (for all you Bitcoin-lovers out there)

Run It – Once We Figure Out WTF We're Doing

Run It on Another Site in the Meantime

Run It Once and Forever