Phil Galfond Sues Bluefire Poker

September 24th, 2012 | 2:44 am

Phil 'OMGClayAiken' Galfond is suing the training site he was once the face of - Bluefire Poker.

By Matt Kaufman, Rakeback.com Poker News Editor

Phil Galfond is one of the most successful and most respected players in the history of online poker. Playing as 'OMGClayAiken' on Full Tilt Poker and 'MrSweets28' on PokerStars, he has earned millionsof dollars playing in the biggest games in the world.

For a few years, Galfond was heavily associated with poker training site Bluefire Poker. He was the face of the company and produced many videos and blogs for them.

Earlier this week, Galfond launched a lawsuit against Bluefire, claiming the company owes him compensation for work he did. He received over $200,000 for his work in 2010 but says he wasn't paid for the work he did in 2011.

Bluefire responded with a scathing statement by site co-founder William Murphy which described Galfond as difficult to work with and unreliable. Assuming Murphy's story is true, it certainly places a small stain on Galfond's otherwise completely clean reputation in the poker world.

The last few paragraphs of the statement directly respond to Galfond's lawsuit:

"That brings us up to yesterday. It was put out in the poker news that Phil is taking me to court with a claim that I'm withholding funds. Well, that's an interesting spin on it. Instead of saying, "I tried to bully BlueFire into taking a deal that no one would take, and they called my bluff so I'm going to take him to court since I won't make a reasonable agreement." Again, I found out through text (not from Phil) about the announcement. We still have not have received a lawsuit from Phil or his lawyer. Again, it went through the media, with a one-sided characterization of the events.

Just to be clear, and so you know: I have paid or have offered to pay Phil every single dime that we believe he is owed. His spin that we're trying to not pay him at all is inaccurate.

I decided the story should be told this time, rather than keeping quiet and allowing him to cause damage to BlueFirePoker which seems to be his intention. I'm not trying to say I'm perfect or that I'm right about everything. I do believe that I've tried to do the right thing as much possible and to make a deal that works for both of us. Phil--I'm not so sure of. I can't understand why he's dealt with this the way he has. I've tried to be reasonable, and it hasn't worked to this point."

Rakeback.com will report on any significant updates to this story.