The World Series of Poker announced 17 new events to the 2020 WSOP schedule including the "Freezeout Series" or six single-entry events ranging from $500 to $5,000. Three more High Roller events were added including a $250,000 Super High Roller and $50,000 PLO. There's also the mysterious $1,500 buy-in "Mystery Bounty NL" event, a Mixed 9-Game, and the Heads-Up bracelet will now have a buy-in of $25,000.

The 2020 Aussie Millions Main Event is in the books. Vincent 'Wonky' Wan, a cash-game regular at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, faded a field of 820 runners to win this year's title. First place paid out $1.3 million AUD per terms of a three-way deal with Ngoc Tai Hoang and Gareth Pepper. Erik Seidel finished in fifth place.

Brian Altman made World Poker Tour history when he became the first player to win the same event twice. Altman shipped the 2015 WPT Lucky Hearts Open at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida and he just took down the 2020 WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open in a history victory. Altman faded a field of 843 players to win $482,636 and a seat into the season-ending Tournament of Champions.

Former WSOP Main Event champ, Greg 'Fossilman' Raymer, took down a record-setting fifth Heartland Poker Tour title with a victory at Ameristar East Chicago. Fossilman faded a field of 520 runners in a $1,650 buy-in event to win $171,411 and his fifth HPT title.

Switzerland's Samiyel Duzgun won his first WSOP Circuit ring when he took down the 2020 WSOP Circuit Marrakech at the Casino de Marrakech in Morocco. Duzgun defeated Israel's Ayman Jarrar heads up and banked 1.6 million MAD, or approximately $167K USD for the title.

Farid Jattin outlasted 169 runners to win the $25K Challenge at the 2020 Aussie Millions hosted at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia. Jattin chopped heads up with George Wolff to win $983,646 AUD or approximately $679K USD. The final table also included Steve O'Dwyer, Sam Greenwood, Masato Yokosawa, Jack Sinclair, and Kenny Hallaert.

The World Series of Poker announced a special round of value menu events at the 2020 WSOP that include buy-ins of $1,000 or less. A total of 25 bracelet events will be hosted at the Rio Casino this summer that have a modest and affordable buy-in. A baker's dozen of events, 13 in total, at the 2020 WSOP will have buy-ins $888 or less including the $400 Colossus and numerous $500 buy-in deepstacked bracelet events.

The World Series of Poker Circuit's latest stop hit up the Oklahoma/Dallas area for the 2020 WSOP Circuit Choctaw Durant. Dustin Schoonover outlasted 1,065 runners in the $1,700 buy-in Main Event to win $272,846. The Choctaw Durant final table also included John Skrovan, Brant Jolly, Mark Newton, Christopher Staats, Allen Brivic, Montana Bills, Austin Lewis, and Trung Pham.

Season XVIII of the World Poker Tour continued with the 2020 WPT Gardens Poker Championship that attracted 257 runners for their annual big tournament every January at the Hawaiian Gardens just outside Los Angeles. The 2020 WPT Gardens final table of six is set to resume on March 31, 2020 at the HyperX eSports Arena at the Luxor Casino in Las Vegas. Chance Kornuth bagged up the lead at the final table that also included Tuan Phan, Qing Liu, Straton Wilhelm, Jonathan Cohen, and Markus Gonsalves.

D and B Poker published "Poker and Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America's Favorite Card Game" by Martin Harris. During the poker boom, Harris authored a popular blog titled Hard-Boiled Poker. Harris quit his job as an English professor and went to Las Vegas to cover the World Series of Poker for numerous outlets. Over the last 15 years, Harris compiled a collection of essays that became the genesis of Poker and Pop Culture. We're fortunate that Harris sat down with us for a fun interview.

A total of 17 championship caliber events with at least a buy-in of $10,000 are on the schedule for the 2020 World Series of Poker at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas. The WSOP released the dates for all $10K championships including the $50,000 Poker Players Championship, $10,000 Main Event, and the $10,000 WSOP.com Online NL Championship, which is the online $10K event hosted online.

888poker Ambassador, Kara Scott, is hosting a new podcast called Heart of Poker. Kara will sit down to have a loose, yet compelling conversation with some of your favorite poker pros by asking a series of questions that are vastly different than the usual form of questioning from poker media. The first episode is available featuring the legendary Chris Moorman.

In a game-changing move in the poker world, partypoker LIVE will allow backers to buy-in their staked players directly. The move will hopefully see an increase in tournament participation across the board. In the past, the staked horses had to buy-in themselves and deal with all the paperwork.

The new calendar year of 2020 was barely a day old when Felipe 'Mojave' Ramos announced the news on his social media feed that he will be joining GGPoker as their latest ambassador. Mojave joins the likes of Daniel Negreanu and Bryn Kenney as ambassadors. Mojave spent time as the top ranked Brazilian and Latin American online player with over $2.6 million in career tournament earnings.

The year in review for 2019 continues with the second part that covers June through December. The World Series of Poker celebrated its 50^th anniversary with a blowout at the Rio in Las Vegas. Hossein Ensan from Germany won the second-largest Main Event in WSOP history and he banked $10 million. PokerStars also announced the 2020 PSPC, which will take place in Barcelona in August 2020. PokerStars was also sold to Flutter (aka Paddy Power/Betfair). The Mike Postle cheating scandal also broke after he got caught cheating on the Stones Gambling Hall live stream.

We're quickly approaching the end of 2019 and the end of the decade. So much happened in 2019, we have a special two-part series highlighting the best and most interesting stories of 2019. In the first half of 2019, some of the big stories involved Chino Rheem winning the 2019 PCA and Spain's Roman Colillas taking down the inaugural PSPC in the Bahamas for $5.1 million. Bryn Kenney shipped the largest Aussie Millions in history. Just before the WSOP, Daniel Negreanu stepped down after 12 years as a sponsored pro and ambassador for PokerStars. Gianluca 'Tankanza' Speranza won the SCOOP Main Event in back-to-back years.

From everyone here at Club Poker, we want to wish you a joyful and bountiful holiday season. Merry Christmas and do not forget that the Winter Series kicks off today on PokerStars with 242 tournaments and $50 million in guaranteed prize pools. The new year is just around the corner, so start thinking about your 2020 poker resolutions.

Oklahoma Johnny Hale -- an old school poker player, author, and gambler -- passed away at the age of 92. Oklahoma Johnny worked diligently to bring players into the game of poker over the last several decades. He's also the author of the 1999 book "The Life and Times of a Gentleman Gambler: Oklahoma Johnny Hale on Poker and Las Vegas".

The final World Poker Tour event of 2019 came to an end wen Alex Foxen faded a field of 1,035 runners to win the 2019 WPT Bellagio Five Diamond Classic. Foxen outfoxed a final table that also included Toby Joyce, Seth Davies, Peter Neff, Danny Park, and Jonathan Jaffe. Foxen banked $1,694,995 plus a seat in the end of the WPT Tournament of Champions.