Table Of Contents The story of the summer at the 2024 World Series of Poker (WSOP) was that of Scott Seiver winning three gold bracelets, a feat that hadn’t been accomplished in Las Vegas since Jeff Lisandro did it back in 2009 (Note: George Danzer won three bracelets enroute to becoming 2014 POY but one of them was at WSOP Asia-Pacific). Seiver’s summer performance was so good that it not only earned him 2024 WSOP Player of the Year Honors, despite strong competition from both Michael Rocco and Jeremy Ausmus but also the honor of being PokerNews’ No.

Table Of Contents The Sheraton Hotel and Casino in San Jose, Costa Rica, is the venue for the 2025 Costa Rica Poker Festival, an exciting way to kick off your live poker endeavors in the New Year. The Costa Rica Poker Festival runs from January 27 to February 3, promising an action-packed tournament schedule against a luxurious backdrop and with plenty of off-the-felt activities to help you relax away from the tables.

Table Of Contents It’s the season for giving and both PokerNews and PokerStars are giving you the chance to win a share of almost $2,500 worth of added tickets, including a seat in the massive $1,050 buy-in, $1 million guaranteed New Year Series Main Event. We have four PokerNews-exclusive tournaments running online at PokerStars between December 26 and January 9 that have $109 and $1,050 tickets added to their prize pools.

If given the option the pay off a $5,000 poker debt or have talented UFC fighter Chris Weidman choke you out, which do you choose? One poker player faced that exact scenario — pain or pay. The latter was chosen, and the mixed martial artist (MMA) posted a video of it on his Instagram page. “He Lost in poker last night. It was either pay 5k or get choked unconscious! What do you do?

Table Of Contents Everyone loves a poker underdog story, which is one reason for the popularity of the PokerStars Big Game. The PokerStars Big Game pitted a rank amateur, known as the Loose Cannon, against five professional players and poker celebrities over 150 hands of high-stakes No-Limit Hold’em. PokerStars staked the loose cannon with $100,000, with the amateur player keeping all winnings in excess of this initial amount. The highest-earning loose cannon at the end of each season won a North American Poker Tour (NAPT) passport worth $50,000.

Table Of Contents Kerryjane Craigie, a PokerStars Ambassador and Director of Poker at the Hippodrome Casino, has been busy navigating a whirlwind of poker events. But the highlight of her recent journey was the Women’s Winter Festival, a groundbreaking collaboration between The Hippodrome Casino and PokerStars. Focused on creating a welcoming, inclusive, and joy-filled environment, the festival showcased the very best of what poker can offer. In this blog, Craigie reflects on the festival’s success, the importance of positivity in poker, and her mission to celebrate the game’s unique sense of community.

Table Of Contents High Roller and Super High Roller poker tournaments are nothing new; they appear on the schedules of almost every major live tour. However, when you think about Super High Roller events, one name immediately springs to mind: the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series. Triton Poker ran its first event in 2016, a single HK$490,000 No-Limit Hold’em tournament in Manila. The series has since gone from strength to strength, adding more stops and events each year, culminating in an incredible 2024 that saw the world’s best players head to four destinations and battle it out across 47 events.

Table Of Contents A champion has been crowned in the $10,400 buy-in World Poker Tour World Championship (WPTWC) on Saturday, and his name is Scott Stewart. The newest member of the WPT Champions Club defeated Rob Sherwood heads-up to win $2,563,900, while the runner-up secured $2,200,000. It took almost no time on Day 6 for fireworks to ensue at the final table. Two players busted in the first two orbits, and another went out moments later.

Table Of Contents The World Poker Tour World Championship final table got underway on Saturday afternoon, with six players vying for a massive $3.1 million top prize and the honor of having their names engraved on the prestigious Mike Sexton Cup. The action, livestreamed on the WPT’s YouTube channel, exploded right out of the gate with three all-ins in the first orbit, setting the stage for one of the most exciting FTs of the year.

Daniel Negreanu gave his opinion on how to improve the game of poker, which includes banning face masks and sunglasses among other changes. The Poker Hall of Famer just completed a World Series of Poker Paradise (WSOPP) series that sums up his 2024 tournament performance — up and down. He reached two final tables and cashed in the $50 million guaranteed WSOPP Super Main Event (170th place), but lost money due to striking out in the $500,000 buy-in Triton Million Invitational.

Antonio Esfandiari made his presence felt in a long-awaited return to Hustler Casino Live Friday night. “The Magician,” who is now more focused on raising a family than playing poker, hadn’t appeared on the show since April 2022. It took little time for the poker legend to spin up his stack in the $100/$200 with a $200 big blind ante no-limit hold’em cash game. But despite winning almost $300,000, he was on the losing end of the biggest hand of the six-hour session.

Table Of Contents The 2024 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Paradise is in the books, and over the course of the series 15 gold bracelets were awarded. The PokerNews Live Reporting Team was on site throughout providing live updates, and during that time they caught some interesting and game-changing hands. Here’s a look at five hands of particular interest. Hellmuth Bricks Combo Draw In Event #5: $25,000 Dealers Choice Championship, it was Level 12 on Day 2 in a game of Omaha Hi-Lo when reporter Connor Richards wrote a big hand.

Table Of Contents The third annual $10,400 buy-in World Poker Tour World Championship (WPTWC) reached its final table, and six players still have a shot at the $3,138,900 first place prize. One of those players — Chris Moorman — made the final day in this same event a year ago. Edward Pak bagged the chip lead at 66,200,000, with Moorman in second place (60,800,000). Play will resume at 4 p.m. on Saturday from Wynn Las Vegas.

Table Of Contents What would you do if you won $10 million? Would you splash out on a luxury car, upgrade your home, or take the ultimate vacation? For 2024 World Series of Poker Main Event champion Jonathan Tamayo, none of those indulgences topped his list. During the World Poker Tour World Championships, Tamayo sat down with PokerNews and shared the scoop on some of his purchases thus far. He also reflected on his time as the reigning Poker World Champion, “solver-gate”, and gave his opinion on the WSOP’s new electronic device rules.

Table Of Contents It’s hard to imagine anyone busier this December than World Poker Tour CEO Adam Pliska. A constant presence at the WPT World Championships (WPTWC), Pliska has been at the heart of the action at Wynn Las Vegas, engaging with players from all walks of life as they share their stories of how they arrived at the WPT’s flagship event. From those at the top of the poker pyramid to those getting a taste of the action for the first time, Pliska consistently takes time out of his packed schedule to connect with the people who have made the WPT one of poker’s most iconic brands.

Table Of Contents This weekend, poker fans are in for a Christmas treat as PokerStars Ambassador and long-time Gloucester City FC fan Benjamin “Spraggy” Spragg takes on Brazilian football icon Neymar Jr at Brazil’s most prestigious poker event. The highly anticipated BSOP One Poker Show will feature a star-studded lineup, with the action live-streamed globally. PokerStars Ambassador Spraggy has travelled all the way to South America, and will sit down at the table alongside Neymar Jr, boxing champion Chris Eubank Jr, and fellow PokerStars Ambassador Alejandro “Papo MC” Lococo.

Table Of Contents Grosvenor Poker and the Amateur Poker Association & Tour (APAT) are celebrating their joining forces in 2025 by running two winter leaderboards, each boasting £3,000 in added prizes, including a £1,500 UK Open seat. The leaderboards are split into two: Main and Mini. You’ll earn points for the Main Leaderboard by competing in the £30 buy-in APAT Main Leaderboard tournament each Sunday. Points for the Mini Leaderboard are awarded for playing in a £5 APAT Mini Leaderboard tournament, also on Sundays.

Table Of Contents After two weeks of action on the felt here at the beautiful Atlantis Paradise Island Bahamas, the 2024 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Paradise officially ended with Nick Schulman claiming victory in Event #15: $5,000 The Closer No-Limit Hold’em Bounty Turbo. The final tournament of the series attracted 238 entries, generating a prize pool of $1,190,000. Schulman defeated Ren Lin in a short heads-up match to capture the first-place prize of $145,000 as well as the coveted WSOP gold bracelet.

Table Of Contents A lucky queen on the turn to bring his World Series of Poker Paradise to an end was the culmination of a lifelong dream and a goal that Johannes Straver set for himself over the last few years. The Dutch high roller made it a point to play more live tournaments, dreaming of a moment like the one he experienced today when he took down the $10,000 GGMillion$ Championship, prevailing over a field of 532 entries and defeating Jon Vallinas heads-up to win the $807,430 top prize and his first WSOP gold bracelet.

Table Of Contents The Irish Poker Tour kicks off 2025 with a bang with the Galway Poker Festival running at the Galmont Hotel in Galway from January 1-6. However, before that festival, which comes with a €300,000 guaranteed Main Event, the Irish Poker Tour Final takes place at The Green Isle Hotel in Dublin from December 27-29. Many people feel like they are in limbo during the few days between Christmas and the New Year, but Irish Poker Tour fans won’t be short of things to do.

Table Of Contents Online and live poker crusher Chris Moorman is in a good position to reach the World Poker Tour World Championship (WPTWC) final table for the second straight year. The $10,400 buy-in tournament, which started with 2,392 entries, played down to the Sweet 16 on Thursday night at Wynn Las Vegas. Michael Berk entered the Day 4 session with the chip lead. But he busted in 31st place for $101,000.

Table Of Contents Today, 24-year-old Yinan Zhou bluffed poker’s toughest opponent, busted his poker idol and became the first-ever World Series of Poker (WSOP) Paradise Super Main Event as he won the $25,000 buy-in event in the Bahamas for $6,000,000 and his first bracelet. The first-ever Super Main Event, a $50 million guaranteed event that fell short of that lofty and historic goal by $550,000, drew 1,978 runners across four live starting flights and three online flights.

Table Of Contents While Day 4 of the World Poker Tour World Championship captured most of the attention, a quieter but equally intense showdown unfolded at Wynn Las Vegas. The $25,800 WPT Alpha 8, the highest buy-in event of the WPT World Championships, played out without live streams or big crowds—just an elite group of players focused on the game. For these top-tier luminaries, it wasn’t about fanfare. It was about closing out 2024 with one last shot at glory, battling some of the sharpest minds in poker for a year-ending triumph and taking the largest slice from the $2,775,000 prize pool.

Table Of Contents On Thursday, Day 2 of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Paradise Event #14: Super Saver $1,000,000 Invitational played out. The freezeout tournament – which invited either bracelet holders who participated in the Super Main Event, $100K Package Early Bird purchasers, or GGPoker Package winners to participate – started with 487 players, but the last player standing was Brazilian poker pro Pablo Silva. Silva, who has been playing poker professionally for 14 years after initially learning the game online, had more than $3.

Table Of Contents Phil Hellmuth has reached a final table at WSOP Paradise as the all-time bracelet leader looks to extend his lead with an 18th bracelet. Hellmuth is one of nine players remaining in Event #12: $10,000 GGMillion$ NLH Championship, an event being live reported by PokerNews. Hellmuth is seated in the one-seat and toward the bottom of the counts, but he was front and center in the final table photo alongside the likes of Johannes Straver, Rui Neves and Arthur Conan.

Table Of Contents The first-ever World Series of Poker Paradise Super Main Event has been an event to remember with one of the most entertaining high-stakes players enjoying a dominant chip lead, an accomplished science communicator making a rare return to cards, and the man who ignited the Poker Boom falling just short of the final table. Yet all of this was overshadowed on Wednesday’s Day 4 by a checkered black-and-white piece of traditional Middle Eastern garb that almost led to poker’s second-winningest player of all time being disqualified from the $50 million guaranteed event.

Table Of Contents PokerStars ambassador Jason Koon has a price on his head in a new promotion from PokerStars North America. In a pair of special “Chasin’ Jason” freeroll tournaments that are scheduled for just before Christmas, PokerStars has put a massive bounty on Koon’s head. The prize for knocking Koon out of these tournaments is a European Poker Tour Gold Pass to the EPT Monte Carlo worth $10,300. The Gold Pass includes a buyin to the EPT Monte Carlo main event and it also covers the cost of plane tickets and accommodation.

Table Of Contents There’s a brand-new poker series coming to Europe in 2025 and it’s going to be massive: The PokerStars Open. The series comprises six standalone stops plus two Open Main Events at European Poker Tour (EPT) Barcelona and EPT Monte Carlo, with each featuring a €1/£1 million guaranteed Main Event. The PokerStars Open replaces the Estrellas, Eureka, FPS, and UKIPT , promising to take elements of these popular tours to make the new PokerStars Open a roaring success.

Table Of Contents After over 12 hours of play on Day 2, Event #13: $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller has come to an end. A total of 29 players returned for the final day at Atlantis Paradise Island, all vying for a shot at a gold bracelet at the 2024 World Series of Poker Paradise. With late registration open until the conclusion of the first level of play, another 29 players joined the field, bringing the total number of entrants to 130 and generating a prize pool of $6,500,000.

Table Of Contents The big money is on the horizon in the $10,400 buy-in World Poker Tour World Championship (WPTWC) after Wednesday’s five-level Day 3 session. Two more days of play separate six of the final 61 players and a seat at the final table on Dec. 21 where one player will be awarded $3,138,900. Michael Berk, an Indiana native with over $1 million in The Hendon Mob cashes, will come back to Wynn Las Vegas on Thursday with the biggest stack (8,110,000).

Table Of Contents Have you ever wondered if Elon Musk would be a skilled poker player? Igor Kurganov, one of his former aides, answered that question in an interview with PokerNews on Day 3 of the $10,400 WPT World Championship (WPTWC)…And told the story of when he almost played the world’s richest person for one million DOGE coins. Kurganov, who has over $18 million in live tournament cashes, may not be a regular on the poker circuit these days, but for the past three years, he has made a point to appear at the WPT World Championships at Wynn Las Vegas — a decision that has paid off.

Table Of Contents The 2024 World Series of Poker Paradise is winding down at the Atlantis, Paradise Island Bahamas but the action was just heating up on Day 4 of the $25,000 WSOP Super Main Event. There were 36 players who returned to their seats and the field was whittled down to the final table of nine players who will return to battle for the title and the coveted WSOP gold bracelet along with $6,000,000 for the winner.

Phil Ivey, arguably the greatest poker player of all time, competed against dozens of poker fans in a special low-stakes World Poker Tour (WPT) Christmas Meet-Up Game (MUG) on Tuesday at Wynn Las Vegas. The 11-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner and WPT Champions Club member played some $1/$3 and $2/$5 no-limit hold’em from 9 a.m. to noon. He was joined in the packed crowd by many other big names in the poker community, including fellow WPT Global ambassadors Brad Owen and Ethan “WPT123” Yau.

Table Of Contents Justin Bonomo informed his X followers that he’d been threatened with a disqualification deep in the $25,000 World Series of Poker Paradise (WSOPP) Super Main Event for wearing a keffiyeh. The $50 million guaranteed record-breaking tournament, at the time of publishing, was down to 15 of 1,978 players during Wednesday’s Day 4 session. Bonomo, second all-time behind Bryn Kenney with $64 million in The Hendon Mob cashes, was sitting in ninth place with 60,300,000 chips.

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is wrapping up 2024 down in The Bahamas with WSOP Paradise, but they’re already looking ahead to the New Year by announcing the dates for the 56th Annual WSOP in Las Vegas. For the fourth consecutive year, the summer WSOP will take place at the Horseshoe Las Vegas and Paris Las Vegas. The series will run from May 27 to July 16, 2025, while the $10,000 Main Event will start on July 2 with the final table taking place between July 15-16 inside the Horseshoe Events Center.

Table Of Contents Ensure you have February 21 through March 2, 2025, free in your diaries because those are the dates the 2025 Kings of Tallinn festival takes place at the Olympic Park Casino and Hilton Tallinn in Estonia. The popular poker festival is celebrating its 10th birthday, having first run in February 2015, and OlyBet is planning to celebrate the occasion with a €1 million guaranteed Main Event. The Kings of Tallinn Main Event first ran in February 2015, and Ranno Sootla outlasted 139 opponents and banked €37,730 for his €1,100 investment.

A few short years ago, there was a span when there was no better poker player on the planet and no one more feared on the felt than Michael Addamo. Today on Day 3 of the WSOP Paradise $25,000 Super Main Event, Addamo wound back the clock. Addamo was the beneficiary of the day’s biggest highlight, flopping the nut flush as Tom-Aksel Bedell shoved for 37,000,000 with top set of aces in a three-way all in.

Table Of Contents While it is often the case that multi-table tournament players receive the attention of the poker community, there is something exciting and alluring about high-stakes cash games. Watching the world’s best players battle it out in high-stakes online cash games is super-exciting. Those high-stakes games have returned to 888poker. $5/$10 was the highest stakes 888poker players could play No-Limit Hold’em cash games for until this week. After much discussion and following player feedback, 888poker has added even higher stakes to its cash game offering.

Political polling guru Nate Silver and 2023 WPT Prime Championship winner Calvin Anderson are among the 299 players who bagged chips on Day 2 of the $10,400 buy-in World Poker Tour (WPT) World Championship Tuesday night. Malcolm Trayner bagged the chip lead. Ernest Bush went out in 300th place, otherwise known as the bubble. The tournament at Wynn Las Vegas, which saw 2,392 entrants register, all vying for the $3,138,900 first place prize, attracted some of the biggest names in the game.

Table Of Contents The second Diamond Poker Series PLO Grand Slam at Albania’s Arena Casino Tirana is set to take place in 2025 after a successful event in November that produced some of the biggest PLO fields in European history. PokerNews will be on-site for the €5 million guaranteed festival running Jan. 23-30 and will be providing live updates for the €5,000 Opener and €10,000 PLO Grand Slam Championship. The PLO Grand Slam festival follows a series last month that included a €10,300 PLO Grand Slam Championship that produced a prize pool of €1.