Table Of Contents In the RunGood Poker Series Tulsa $800 Main Event, a total of 517 entrants smashed the initial guarantee, creating a $361,900 prize pool. Of those, 63 players cashed, each hoping to end the day with a shiny black ring on their finger. After ten hours of play, only one player’s dream became reality. Kansas’ Brian Craig started the day in 15th place, holding a modest chip stack. He stayed steady throughout the tournament, gradually building his momentum.

Table Of Contents Tom Vogelsang has been a force to be reckoned with in high-stakes No-Limit Hold’em tournaments for the past few years, traveling the European circuit to play five- and six-figure buy-ins. However, Vogelsang also knows his way around four cards, most notably winning a $25,000 buy-in Pot-Limit Omaha tournament in 2022. Today, he added a Diamond Poker Series PLO trophy to his collection by winning the €5,200 Opener at the PLO Grand Slam, conquering a field of 225 entries on his way to victory.

Table Of Contents The Grosvenor Portsmouth Gunwharf was the venue for the first 888poker UK Poker League (UKPL) stop of 2025, and it did not disappoint. The £560 buy-in UKPL Portsmouth Main Event drew in 273 entrants, and Jordan Daniels emerged victoriously after being part of a four-way deal at the final table. Thirty places were paid, with the money bubble bursting on Day 2. Seasoned pros Jack Hardcastle, Thomas Clack, and David Docherty were among the first in-the-money casualties.

Table Of Contents After an enthralling day of action in the $3,300 Main Event at the 2025 Merit Poker Western Series, Umberto Ruggeri has been crowned the champion after overcoming a record-breaking field of 791 inside the stunning Crystal Cove Hotel and Casino. The Italian player battled through countless emotional highs and challenging moments to claim the coveted trophy after cutting an undisclosed deal with Mihai Niste and Muhtar Taysi when three players remained.

Table Of Contents The massive $1 million guaranteed XL Winter Series Mystery Bounty Main Event has an $888 buy-in, but if you are able to log into your 888poker account this morning, you have a chance of playing in this tournament for free. The Mystery Bounty Main Event needs almost 1,200 entries to hit the seven-figure guarantee, but the current attendance stands at 1,006. With that in mind, 888poker is showing its generosity by running two special XL Winter Series Mystery Bounty Main Event freerolls that have 25x $888 seats across their prize pools.

Table Of Contents The Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT), which kicked off Season 16 in the New Year, wrapped up its stop at Bally’s Black Hawk Casino on Sunday night. The $1,110 buy-in Main Event attracted 636 entries over a trio of starting flights and awarded a $615,420 prize pool. Walking away with a $127,849 top prize and his first MSPT title was established poker pro Faraz Jaka, the patriarch of JakaCoaching.

Table Of Contents Nick Schulman’s recent win in a PokerGO Tour (PGT) high roller brought out the calls for 2025 Poker Hall of Fame induction (as if he hadn’t already done enough). No doubt the now six-time PGT and World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner is HOF worthy. He’s crushed it on the felt the past 20 years and in the broadcast booth, mostly on PokerGO, for what seems to be a decade now.

Table Of Contents Kristen Foxen won the $10,100 PokerGO Tour (PGT) Kickoff Series finale for the second consecutive year on Saturday, and it paid $197,625. The almost certain future Poker Hall of Famer dominated a final table that included Jeremy Ausmus, Andrew Moreno, and four other high-stakes crushers. Intense Poker Action at Final Table Foxen ran over the final table, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing. She began Saturday’s Day 2 session at the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas with more than double any other stack.

Table Of Contents The third championship in the Global Poker Championships (GPC) Season 2024-25 is here, with the Grizzly Games VIII roaring into action from January 27 and running through to February 16. The Grizzly Games VIII comes off the back of the hugely successful Eagle Cup VIII and GOAT VI in 2024 and serves as the perfect warm-up for the upcoming Rattle Snake Open VIII and the GPC Season 2024-25 Finals: Gold Coin Final hosted online and the live Sweeps Coin Showdown in Las Vegas later this year.

Table Of Contents The Global Poker Monsterstack Series IV has come to an end with some big winners on the social poker site. None of them, however, can top the prize won by “PaThePokerStars,” champion of the Sweeps Coin (SC) Main Event. Both SC and Gold Coin (GC) players competed in juicy online poker tournaments from January 6-19, winning GC, SC, and some pretty sweet Global Poker merchandise. The series featured 90 total events — 45 GC and 45 SC — including a series-ending Monsterstack Invitational.

Table Of Contents Like father, like son. Phil Hellmuth ended up at the same table as his son, Phillip Hellmuth III, on Thursday in a $5,100 buy-in PokerGO Tour Kickoff Series event, and the father and son duo were eliminated by the same player. John Riordan took out the 17-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner with ace-king against pocket jacks after hitting a set. He’d then eliminate the poker champ’s offspring with the same hand, the second time versus pocket nines, again hitting a set.

Table Of Contents At least $1 million is guaranteed to be won in the 888poker XL Winter Series Mystery Bounty Main Event, but you must hurry if you want to be in with a shot of capturing a slice of those seven figures because only four Day 1s remain. The 888poker XL Winter Series Mystery Bounty Main Event costs $888 to enter. Some 748 entries have been processed, with 110 progressing to Day 2, meaning another 431 players need to enter for the $1 million guarantee to be hit.

Matt Berkey, on Thursday’s Only Friends podcast, informed his audience that he’ll be taking on a new heads-up opponent, and it’s none other than sports card shop owner Jared Bleznick. Both players have previously competed in heavily publicized high-stakes battles. Bleznick recently defeated Patrik Antonius, the 2024 Poker Hall of Fame inductee, three consecutive times for a $350,000 profit on PokerGO’s High Stakes Duel. Berkey demolished the trash-talking Nik Airball at Las Vegas’ Resorts World in 2023 for $1 million, and it took him just 60 hours of play to win.

Table Of Contents The World Series of Poker Circuit at Harrah’s Pompano Beach kicks off in two weeks’ time. The festival will include 18 WSOPC ring events and almost daily satellite events. The first tournament will kick off on January 30. The event is the Double Stack Opener, a $400 no limit hold’em event with 40,000 starting stacks and a $50,000 guarantee. This guarantee is just one of $2,775,000 in total guarantees that include a $400,000 guaranteed $600 Mini-Main Event, a $250,000 guaranteed $1,100 Mystery Bounty, and the $1,000,000 guaranteed $1,700 Main Event.

Table Of Contents Irish online poker players are facing a major upheaval later this year when the Gambling Regulation Act 2024 comes into force. President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, signed the act into Irish law in October 2025, with it being fully implemented in October 2025. The Gambling Regulation Act 2024 is designed to bring Ireland’s gambling industry into the 21st century. Several welcomed changes revolve around player protection, including requiring all gambling operators to obtain licenses, establishing Ireland’s first gambling regulator, and a raft of player protections, including banning credit cards and credit facilities as payment methods.

Table Of Contents Popular British pro Patrick Leonard added $124,800 to his live poker tournament earnings and claimed the early lead on the 2025 PokerGO Tour leaderboard with a victory in the second event of the PGT Kickoff Series. Leonard was one of 96 entrants who ponied up the $5,100 buy-in; those players created a $480,000 prize pool that the top 14 finishers shared. Day 1 ended with only seven players in the hunt for the title.

Table Of Contents Oak Cliff Card Club in the Dallas area has a unique business model that might be of interest to Texas poker players. The card room, located about an eight-minute drive from downtown in the suburban town of Cockrell Hill, opens Jan. 25. This won’t be your typical Texas poker club, although the poker games will be just as juicy. The owners have a plan to build the business without charging hourly seat fees.

Table Of Contents Federal investigators claim high-stakes poker pro Gal Yifrach’s alleged illegal gambling operation continued for more than a year after being indicted in March 2022. A grand jury filed a superseding indictment against the 2018 World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner on Jan. 16, 2025 in the United States District Court Eastern District of California. The court document reviewed by PokerNews doesn’t have many noticeable changes from the initial indictment, other than two key differences.

Table Of Contents From January 9-21, Florida’s Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood hosted the 2025 Lucky Hearts Poker Open (LHPO), which was comprised of 54 events. The series catered to a combined 12,531 entrants and awarded $11,478,070 in prize money. Among those to win titles were Fabian Foster (Event #1: $600 Deep Stack NLH for $141,365), T.K. Miles (Event #31: $1,100 Deep Stack NLH for $45,350), Yuval Bronshtein (Event #44: $1,100 Mixed PLO for $24,588), Nick Pupillo (Event #47: $3,000 H.

Table Of Contents Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi has done a lot in poker, from amassing more than $17.6 million in lifetime earnings according to The Hendon Mob to winning six World Series of Poker (WSOP) gold bracelets – the latest an online bracelet from last summer – but one thing he’d never done was win a Charity Series of Poker (CSOP) Event. That all changed last weekend when he took down the CSOP $300 All In for St.

Table Of Contents The World Series of Poker Circuit Choctaw Durant ended on Monday, when the Main Event final table ended with all the chips in Eric Taylor’s stack. The series saw some other notable stories unfold, including Pamela Belote becoming the most decorated woman on the WSOP Circuit and David Yarbrough of Humble, Texas winning two events back to back. However, the biggest story of the festival was Taylor’s $259,721.

Table Of Contents The biggest event of the 888poker XL Winter Series, the $109 buy-in, $150,000 guaranteed Weekend Mystery Starter has crowned its champion. A field of 1,246 entries left a sizeable overlay on the guarantee, and Brazil’s “djjazz222” took full advantage of the added value, eventually coming out on top and taking home $11,010. Day 2 of the $150,000 guaranteed event saw the field whittled to a more manageable final table of eight.

Table Of Contents Andrew “LuckyChewy” Lichtenberger is the first winner of the PokerGO Tour Kickoff series as he held off red-hot Nick Schulman to win $117,600 and his seventh PGT title. The $5,100 buy-in event marked the start of a series with five high roller tournaments in PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas from Jan. 20-25. It drew 84 runners for a prize pool of $420,000. The final table included Poker Hall of Famer Erik Seidel (7th - $16,800), online all-star Patrick Leonard (6th - $21,000) in a rare PokerGO Studio appearance and two-time bracelet winner John Riordan (4th - $39,900).

Table Of Contents The votes are in for the 6th Annual Global Poker Awards and there are plenty of notable standouts. PokerStars ambassador and two-time award winner Caitlin Comeskey is nominated for four awards, while fellow GPA winners Joe Stapleton and Marle Spragg are both nominated in three categories. Among the players and industry figures nominated in two categories include Daniel Negreanu, Nikki Limo, Dara O’Kearney, David Lappin, Barry Carter, Barny Boatman and content creator Abby Merk, who was nominated for both Rising Star in Content Creation and Best Media Content: Short-Form Video for her entertaining collaboration with Comeskey at the 2024 World Series of Poker (WSOP).

Table Of Contents Years before he was federally indicted on tax evasion charges related to millions in poker winnings, Tom Goldstein’s high-stakes poker and gambling escapades were documented in Dan Bilzerian’s 2021 autobiography The Setup. The social media playboy, whose dad and former company are facing some legal issues stemming from his cannabis business, and the esteemed private attorney were longtime friends who met playing poker and later raced around a Las Vegas racetrack in luxury sports cars as part of a $385,000 prop bet.

Table Of Contents Poker has always had its fair share of colorful and sometimes questionable characters. When big money is on the table, it’s no surprise that a few shady figures might pull up a chair. Just look at the recent headlines: Lenard “Lucky” Adams facing allegations of scamming poker players or the indictment of Tom Goldstein—Al Gore’s former lawyer—who stands accused of dodging taxes by funnelling law firm fees into his personal account to cover poker debts.

The Michigan poker community received sad news over the weekend that Kevin Oswald passed away on January 18 at the age of 51. His cause of death is unknown at this time. Oswald only had one cash listed on his profile on The Hendon Mob, but it was a big one for $234,422. That came back in May 2024 when he topped a massive field of 2,717 entries to win the Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) Firekeepers $1,110 Main Event.

Table Of Contents PartyPoker last ran a live event in November 2023 when The Irish Poker Festival MILLIONS took place at the Intercontinental Hotel in Dublin. PokerNews is delighted to report that the popular online poker room is starting a new live tour, The PartyPoker Tour, with the first of five scheduled events coming in April. The inaugural PartyPoker Tour kicks off on April 19 at Aspers Casino in London before heading to Manchester235 Casino from June 17, then north of the border to Alea Casino in Glasgow from August 12.

Table Of Contents The Hendon Mob Championship (THMC) is set to launch its 2025 poker season with the return to Grand Casino Liechtenstein for the second Annual THM Winter Championship. Running from February 5-9, this festival hosts five trophy events, an estimated CHF150,000 in prize pools (approx. $164,645), and the first chance of the year to win a THMC Cape Town Million package. With the hosts nestled by the Alps, the THM Winter Championship offers players the chance to mix their love of winter sports with their passion for the game.

Table Of Contents The XL Winter Series exploded into action at 888poker over the weekend and one of 888poker’s ambassadors almost came away with a victory on the opening night. Aaron “abarone86” Barone was one of 39 entries in the $1,050 Super High Roller Special. When the dust settled, Barone had fallen at the final hurdle and banked $8,920, narrowly missing out on glory. Only seven of the field received a return on their initial investment, with Mexico’s “NUBIER” reaching the eight-handed final table but busting in eighth place, popping the money bubble.

Table Of Contents The $5,200 Titans Event at PokerStars is one of the toughest online poker tournaments. The high buy-in attracts elite-level grinders from far and wide, so coming out on top comes with a substantial top prize and plenty of kudos from the champion’s peers. The latest Titans Event drew in 59 entries, who built a $295,000 prize pool. $91,663 of that sum is nestled in the PokerStars account of Jonathan “Proudflop” Proudfoot, who defeated Austrian star “Phemo” heads-up to capture the title.

Table Of Contents Justin Gavri had a night to forget on the second High Stakes Poker episode of Season 14, a show that was released on PokerGO Monday night. The recreational high roller who ran into a number of brutal situations during Season 13 fell victim to multiple six-figure coolers in the latest episode. He wasn’t the only player at the table as he was joined in the $200/$400 no-limit hold’em game by the same opponents as last week.

Table Of Contents The 2024 DeepStack Extravaganza NYE series ran at Venetian Las Vegas from Dec. 25, 2024, into the new year through January 12, 2025. During that time there were 35 numbered events that catered to a combined 4,068 entrants and awarded $1,471,180 in prize money not including satellites. Among those to claim titles were Shawn Murphy (Event #3: $600 NLH Monster Bounty for $7,676), Iaron Lightbourne (Event #9: $600 NLH Monster Stack for $12,999), Chiori Gannon (Event #25: $400 NLH Seniors for $12,362), Allison Desouza (Event #27: $300 NLH Mosnter Stack for $22,971), and Gary Bolden (Event #30: $200 NLH Bounty for $2,573).

Table Of Contents After being branded as the bubble boy of the Warm Up event earlier in this series, Sergei Varnaev raised himself from the dust of the desert to claim the coveted title of the 2025 Merit Poker Western Series $5,300 High Roller. In true Wild West fashion, Varnaev rode through a battlefield of 174 players inside the luxurious Crystal Cove Hotel and Casino. The event boasted a guaranteed prize pool of $800,400, and it was Varnaev who showed the most grit and determination throughout to be able to lift the trophy and earn a career-best score of $200,000, proving that redemption is sweeter than gold.

Table Of Contents In 2024, Max Deveson played until the early hours of the morning to win the World Series of Poker Circuit Marrakech Main Event. This year, Justin Tsui didn’t even wait until midnight to be crowned the 2025 winner. Out of a record-breaking field of 1,523 entries, which generated a total prize pool of 19,421,500 MAD (approximately €1,877,955), Tsui navigated his way to the top, claiming his first WSOPC ring and a career-best cash prize of 2,700,000 MAD.

Table Of Contents The 2025 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT) exploded into action in Coventry during the past week, with bumper crowds seen in most of the events. Stefan Lazar will forever look back fondly on this opening leg, not least because he came out on top in two events, including the massive Main Event. Lazar had a shade under $10,500 in recorded live tournament winnings before GUKPT Coventry, with £1,020 being his largest haul.