Table Of Contents Yunkyu Song can start his World Poker Tour (WPT) Player of the Year title defense Feb. 18 in Cambodia, the site of the first Season 23 event. The schedule is now out for the first portion of the upcoming season, including both the WPT Prime Tour and Main Tour. Action begins Feb. 14 in Cambodia, a country located in Southeast Asia, with both Prime and Main Tour events to kick things off.

In 2024, Poker Hall of Famer and 1983 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champ Tom McEvoy released the 15th book of his career. However, what was different this time was that it was his first non-strategy book. Poker Pioneer, written with the help of Brad Smith (PR Director for the Casino Collectibles Association), is McEvoy’s autobiography, and it delivers on several fronts. In fact, it deserves a spot on your poker bookshelf right there with Phil Hellmuth’s Poker Brat and Mike Sexton’s Life’s a Gamble, especially if you’re a lover of poker history.

The wildfires around Los Angeles has caused devastation to the area, impacting the lives of thousands of people, including two prominent entertainers within the poker community. Actor James Woods, in a video on CNN, broke down in tears describing the fire that left his Pacific Palisades home in shambles. Jennifer Tilly, actress and poker player, along with her significant other Phil Laak, shared on Instagram that the couple left home to avoid the fires while staying at Commerce Casino.

Table Of Contents This past weekend, Minnesota’s Canterbury Park hosted a $400 NLH Monster Stack Event, which attracted 1,116 entrants and offered up a $368,280 prize pool. That made it the venue’s largest-ever standalone tournament, which was quite the accomplishment given it’s one of the Midwest’s longest-running cardrooms. The prize pool, paid out to the top 126 finishers, was originally slated to pay $61,000 to first place with the runner-up slated to receive $41,280.

Table Of Contents After over a dozen years as one of the most recognizable faces of Team Winamax has announced her departure. Gaëlle Baumann joined the roster five months before the 2012 WSOP, famous for her narrowly missing out on the November Nine, and departs almost 13 years later on good terms with “only good memories”. “I am very happy to have lived this whole adventure,” she told Winamax. “I only have good memories of all these years.

Table Of Contents The RunGood Poker Series (RGPS) is returning to Oklahoma’s Hard Rock Casino Tulsa this month for Mission RunGood: Tulsa, a stop that will feature 11 ring events over six days of tournament poker action. The RGPS Tulsa stop, running Jan. 21-26, will culminate with an $800 buy-in Main Event with a $100,000 guaranteed prize pool attached. PokerNews will be on-site to live report the Main Event action in Tulsa.

Table Of Contents The World Poker Tour (WPT) has officially announced that Yunkyu Song is the Season 22 Player of the Year. With that in mind, Bin Weng is no longer the reigning champion. Weng had an unforgettable year of poker in 2023 that included a WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown title and fourth place finish at WPT Choctaw. He couldn’t replicate that success in 2024, however, leaving the door open for some other crushers to take the reins, none of whom could defeat Song.

Table Of Contents Online poker players in the US and Canada have an exciting series to look forward to this month. The PokerStars North America Winter Series kicks off next week on Jan. 17 and runs through Feb. 3. Players in Ontario (Canada), Michigan, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania can all get in on the juicy action with at least $4.5 million in prize money being awarded across the three PokerStars North America sites.

A-list actor Timothée Chalamet may play a poker player in 2019’s A Rainy Day in New York, but the 29-year-old also has poker chops in real life. That much was revealed during the 2025 Golden Globes, where Chalamet was nominated for Best Performance by a Male actor for his portrayal of Bob Dylan in the biopic A Complete Unknown. The French-American actor believably depicted the legendary folk rock musician in a biopic that documented a tumultuous cultural shift in the mid-1960s but lost out to Adrien Brody for his performance as László Tóth in The Brutalist.

Table Of Contents The Irish Poker Tour’s first event of 2025 is over. The Galway Poker Festival has crowned 18 champions, including one in the massive €700 buy-in Main Event. Over 3,000 players descended on The Galmont Hotel in Galway between January 1-6, helping to smash every guarantee the Irish Poker Tour placed on its tournaments. Some 694 players bought into the €700 Galway Poker Festival Main Event, resulting in a €418,570 prize pool.

Table Of Contents The Casino de Marrakech at the luxurious Es Saadi Marrakech Resort in Morocco again plays host to the World Series of Poker International Circuit between January 10-19. During the ten-day poker extravaganza, 12 coveted WSOPC rings will be won, including one in the eagerly-anticipated WSOPC Marrakech Main Event. January 10 sees the first of 12 WSOPC ring-awarding events shuffle up and deal, the No-Limit Hold’em Opener. It features a trio of starting flights, each costing the equivalent of €400, and crowns its champion on January 12 during Day 2.

Table Of Contents The latest 888poker $100,000 Mystery Bounty Main Event has crowned its champion but it is not the winner who has hit the headlines. Uzbekistan’s “PokerKron” won the event for the second time in their career, which should be headline-worthy. However, “mr.salgado,” the tournament’s runner-up, banked one of the event’s largest-ever prizes despite finishing in the bridesmaid position. Some 1,040 entries were processed on Day 1, meaning the $100,000 guarantee was surpassed.

Table Of Contents Today is the first day of the first World Series of Poker Circuit festival of 2025. The Choctaw Durant kicked off the year in style with Day 1A of WSOPC Event #1: $250 Seniors Event at 11 a.m. today. There will be a second Day 1 flight for the Seniors event tomorrow, with the first open event kicking off at 11 a.m. on January 8. The Seniors event is the first of 18 events at the festival, each of which will award its winner a gold WSOP Circuit ring.

Three masked men are on the loose after allegedly robbing a Northern Texas poker room on Christmas Eve. The dangerous incident at Johnny’s Social Card Club in Wichita Falls, according to police, took place at 3:45 a.m. All suspects, none of whom have been identified by name, were masked up and difficult to identify. No one was physically harmed as the incident took place while the card room was closed.

Table Of Contents Cherish Andrews and David Coleman dominated the tournament poker world last year. As such, they’ll receive two of the most prestigious awards at the Global Poker Awards ceremony in Las Vegas. Andrews, for the second time in three years, won the GPI Female Player of the Year race. Coleman beat Jesse Lonis by the slimmest of margins to claim the GPI Player of the Year award. Han Feng Win will also receive a trophy for taking down GPI Mid-Major Player of the Year, another award Andrews nearly won but inevitably finished runner-up in a close race.

Table Of Contents The Commerce Casino in California is hosting will host more than a month of tournament action with the 2025 LA Poker Classic running Jan. 10-March 2. The series will culminate with the $10,000 buy-in LAPC Main Event beginning Feb. 22, which PokerNews will be on-site to live report. Big Guarantees in Los Angeles Action in southern California will kick off with a $400 buy-in opening event that features a massive six starting flights and a $250,000 guaranteed prize pool.

What better way to welcome in 2025 than by heading to warmer climes and playing poker for big money? The Merit Poker Western Series gives you the opportunity to do both because the festival, held in Northern Cyprus, boasts over $4.5 million in combined guaranteed prize pools, including a $1,500,000 guaranteed Main Event. The Merit Crystal Cove Hotel & Casino in Kyrenia, North Cyprus, is where hundreds of poker players will descend between January 14-26 for the 2025 Merit Poker Western Series.

Table Of Contents The New Year Series is nearing its conclusion, and Blaz “Scarmak3r” Zerjav seems determined to finish strongly. Zerjav was one of 539 entrants in the $530 No-Limit Hold’em Progressive Knockout Sunday Warm-Up and was the last man standing after 12 hours of play. Dozens of household names navigated to the top 63 places where the regular prize pool was distributed. They included Benjamin “BC1989RF” Chalot, Audrius “Stakelis24” Stakelis, Christian “WATnlos” Rudolph, Andrey “ThePateychuk” Pateychuk, and final table bubble boy Timothy “1BigAceHole” Ulmer.

Popular vlogger Mariano Grandoli disclosed some stunning 2024 poker results in his latest YouTube video. The poker player had a “down” year compared to 2023, however, but there’s a reason for that — he played far less poker. Still, the vlogger won about 10 times as much as the average American while “working” about one-tenth the hours. Grandoli, like his fellow vlogger Ethan “WPT123” Yau, has become a regular and fan favorite on Hustler Casino Live where he’s competed in some of the biggest livestreamed games in the US.

Table Of Contents Just weeks after winning his sixth World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet, Nick Schulman continued his winter hot streak by taking down a $10,100 High Roller tournament at PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas for $283,050. Fittingly enough, it brings Schulman his sixth PokerGO Tour (PGT) title. The event, which drew 111 entrants, kicked off the PGT Last Chance series running through Jan. 9. Schulman, who is just as comfortable on the PokerGO felt as he is in the commentary booth, defeated Brazil’s Joao Simao in heads-up play and navigated a final table that included Victoria Livschitz (3rd - $127,650), Bryce Yockey (4th - $99,900) and Aram Zobian (7th - $44,400).

Table Of Contents Liv Boeree is donating more than a half a million of her historic score at World Series of Poker (WSOP) Paradise to fight factory farming, the science communicator and former poker pro revealed today. Boeree, who in December finished fourth in the first-ever $25,000 buy-in Super Main Event for $2.8 million — the largest tournament score ever by a woman — wrote on X that she was “giving $560,000 away to pigs” and shared why it is a cause she is passionate about.

The legend of “Peter,” a loose cannon who loves to gamble, grew on Thursday during Hustler Casino Live’s first poker stream of 2025. Peter lost a bunch quickly in the $100/$100 ($100 big blind ante) game that often played even bigger. But he found a strategy to get some of it back in no time — just go all in. How to Get Unstuck in Poker Peter began the show by getting it all in with pocket aces on the flop in a $40,000 pot, but would lose to “Adi’s” king-high flush on the turn.

Table Of Contents Dusk Till Dawn has again partnered with online poker giant GGPoker to bring the UK Poker Championships (UKPC) to the home of British poker. The Nottingham-based venue will be full to bursting between January 18 and 27 as poker players from far and wide descend on Dusk Till Dawn to compete in several tournaments, including a £500,000 guaranteed Main Event. The £230 No-Limit Hold’em UKPC Opener raises the curtain on the 2025 UKPC on January 18.

Table Of Contents While millions of people worldwide were celebrating the start of 2025, Andras “probirs” Nemeth was busy working his way to yet another major online poker tournament victory. Nemeth was one of 149 entrants in the $2,025 No-Limit Hold’em New Year Special, part of the PokerStars New Year Series. A day later, he was the last man standing and the recipient of $62,970. Three New Year Special events began on January 1, each with buy-ins related to 2025.

Table Of Contents The Irish Poker Tour is the latest operator to share its plans for 2025, announcing the first six stops of the year, which will take players through late June. Regulars on the tour will be delighted to learn that the tour returns to some popular haunts while also heading to a brand new destination in 2025. The tour’s partnership with Paddy Power continues, meaning players can win their way into Irish Poker Tour events online at Paddy Power Poker, and enjoy the benefits of Paddy Power’s generosity through special promotions, including last longer competitions and added money to prize pools and leaderboards.

When it comes to star power, the poker world hasn’t attracted many players more famous than actor and comedian Jason Alexander, who is most recognized as George from one of TV’s greatest comedies – Seinfeld. Alexander has been known to venture into the poker world when he’s not busy with his career. He’s competed in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event several times and is a spokesman for the free-to-play WSOP App.

Table Of Contents The Mid-States Poker Tour (MSPT) launched in December 2009, and since then they’ve consistently broken records across the United States. By the end of the month, they’ll hit another major milestone by crossing the $200,000,000 mark in prize money awarded! As 2024 came to a close, another big story occurred on the MSPT when Umut Ozturkwon the Season 15 (2024) Player of the Year title. In the process, he successfully defended the same title from Season 14 (2023) and became the first-ever two-time POY winner on the MSPT.

Table Of Contents The 2025 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT) explodes into action on January 8 when the first of 12 scheduled stops shuffles up and deals at the Grosvenor G Casino in Coventry. If the 2024 edition of GUKPT Coventry is anything to base judgment on, the 2025 version should be nothing short of huge. Traditionally, the GUKPT heads to Coventry during the UK Open and the record-breaking Goliath festivals.

Table Of Contents In December, 888poker lifted the lid on the schedule for its live event offerings in 2025, and the first of those stops is almost upon us. The Gran Via Casino in Madrid is finalizing preparations for the 2025 888poker LIVE Madrid festival. The venue will be packed to the rafters from January 12 through January 19 as poker players from far and wide attempt to get 2025 off to the best of starts by becoming an 888poker LIVE champion.

Table Of Contents PokerNews’ biggest story of 2024 is one that we still know little about and have yet to see the ramifications of. Earlier this year, a leading investment group of GGPokerbought the iconic World Series of Poker brand for half a billion dollars, marking the end of an era that began with Greg Raymer’s 2004 Main Event victory in Binion’s Horseshoe and ushering in a new period spearheaded by one of the fastest growing online poker brands.

Table Of Contents Every sport has its legends—icons who define the game and inspire generations. In soccer, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo reign supreme. Michael Jordan and LeBron James tower above the rest on the basketball court. On the gridiron, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are synonymous with greatness. In poker, two names shine just as brightly: Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu. They’re the faces of the game—the players who captivate both seasoned pros and home game heroes.

The Venetian Las Vegas, which earlier this year debuted its new 50-table, 14,000 square foot poker room (the largest on the Las Vegas Strip), just wrapped up its latest DeepStack Extravagana IV, which ran from November 27 through December 24. Through 62 events, the festival catered to a combined 9,895 entries and awarded $4,289,045 in prize money (not including satellites). They also forked over $14,850 in overlays. One big winner from the series was Jonathan Dimmig, who took down Event #30: $600 PLO Bounty for $4,941.

Table Of Contents We learned in 2024 that not only are bots still a problem at online poker sites, especially the unregulated ones, but they’re becoming an even bigger problem than in the past. Online poker is a great platform for learning how to play poker, playing poker for a living, or playing recreationally. But players should be aware that bots and real-time assistance (RTA) use aren’t just going to magically disappear.

Table Of Contents The New Year is not only an opportunity for poker players to look ahead, perhaps setting new resolutions and goals, but also a chance to look back at the year gone by. In 2024, that entails remembering those poker players, industry members, and personalities who unfortunately passed on. Here’s a look at some of those we lost over the past year. Founding Tiltboy Member Perry Friedman Passes Away Perry Friedman, one of the most colorful characters during the “Poker Boom,” passed away in January from pancreatic cancer at the age of 55.

Phil Nagy, ACR Poker’s head boss, reportedly told Scott Ball to “sue me” over a financial dispute, and that’s exactly what occurred just before Christmas. The poker pro filed a lawsuit in a San Diego Superior Court on Dec. 23 over a breach of contract against Nagy, ACR (formerly Americas Cardroom), International Processing Services, and Foozle Ventures. Ball’s talent agency, End Game Talent, LLC, was hired by ACR to arrange streamers to promote the poker site, many of whom reported they were never paid, including Ludwig Ahgren.

Table Of Contents Throughout the history of modern poker, women have shattered expectations, dominated tables, and built legacies. From Annette Obrestad conquering online games as a teenager to Vanessa Selbst reaching world number one in 2014, women have played pivotal roles in poker’s evolution. Names like Maria Ho, Liv Boeree, and Gaelle Baumann highlight the depth of female talent that has enriched the game. In 2024, no name shone brighter than Kristen Foxen.