While winning every poker session is every player's dream, but it is not always possible. Even the toughest and most successful pros out there have had some bad losses throughout their career.
Instead of getting a straight flush combination on every turn, players sometimes get a weak hand that they can't even bluff with. And that's OK! Statistically speaking, you simply can't win all the time.
But understandably, losing while playing online poker is a hard pill to swallow. So, to make it easier for you to deal with a bad beat or other unfortunate scenarios, we've gathered some spectacular poker losses you should know about!
Biggest Poker Fails and Losses
Phil Galfond
The first poker pro we'll mention is Phil Galfond. Like many pros in the industry, Galfond got acquainted with the game in his teens, and he became obsessed with mastering it ever since. He had a rather profitable career, with almost $3,000,000 on live earnings and a rather successful coaching website a part of his repertoire. But Galfond is probably mostly known for his highly publicized Galfond challenge, which saw him face off against some of the toughest poker players out there.
And even though Galfond has won all the challenges up until today, it didn't come easy to him. In fact, when he was playing against online poker megastar 'VeniVidi', he came really close to losing a substantial amount of money. The two agreed to play for 25k hands with €100/€200 stakes, and right from the first session – Galfond began losing.
Session after session, his deficit grew. And by the 15th session, he has lost more than €900,000 to his mighty opponent. But luckily, he didn't let his losses bring him down. After taking a short break to regroup, he began getting better and better in the game. By the time the challenge was completed, Galfond was €1,671.58 in the lead.
Galfond's spectacular comeback shocked the entire poker community, and his epic poker skills will be remembered for years to come.
Gus Hansen
Youth tennis champion. World-class backgammon player. And a successful poker pro. That's Gus Hansen for you! Also known as "The Great Dane", this poker pro has had a successful poker run for a while. While playing in cash tournaments, he won 1 WSOP bracelet and 3 World Poker Tour titles.
All in all, his live earnings sum to more than $10,000,000 – which is rather impressive. But even though Hansen had a decent start to his poker career, at some point he began tilting and wasn't able to recover ever since.
The Great Dane admitted in the past that he lost a million dollars in some live events, but his biggest downfall happened in the online arena. Apparently, by 2015, he lost over $20.7 million by playing online poker – one of the biggest losses ever for an online player.
Since then, Hansen took a step back from poker, as he probably understood things had to change.
Guy Laliberté
Sometimes, knowing when to quit is the most important skill a poker player can acquire. Ans apparently, Guy Laliberté – a Canadian businessman and founder of Cirque du Soleil – hasn't been able to master this particular skill.
Laliberté began playing super-high stakes poker around 2006. He participated in about 2 live games, winning more than $2,500,000 in the process. And while he was rather successful at live poker, you can't say the same about his online poker ventures.
Over the years, Laliberté opened six separate accounts to place bets online, and he kept losing and losing. Overall, it has been estimated that he lost about $31,000,000 while playing poker online. Unsurprisingly, that awards him the title of the biggest online poker loser as of today.
Better Luck Next Time!
The main thing we can learn from all three poker players is knowing your boundaries. Galfond kept losing, but he took a minute to get his bearings, and he managed to rise from the ashes.
The other two pros, however, insisted on placing bets. That resulted in millions of dollars in losses. They could have saved a lot of money by quitting earlier in the game, but they chose not to.
The bottom line is that you must know when to fold and when to soldier through the tough times. Do you think you're ready to take on this challenge?