Canadian pro Eric Afriat took down his third WPT title since 2014. He's secured wins at the Borgata Casino in Atlanta City and the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida. However, he finally won an event on his own soil. Afriat faded a field of 594 runners in the CAD $5,000 buy-in WPT Fallsview Classic at the Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, Canada. Afriat banked $508,021 CAD or approximately $379K USD. Last year's champ, Demo Kiriopoulos, finished in fifth place and missed out on winning the same event in back-to-back years.

Christopher Puetz outlasted a field of 510 players to win the 2020 WPT Germany at the King's Casino in Rozvadov. Puetz banked €270,000 (or approximately $293K USD) for the win and he faded a final six that included Josef Gulas, Laszlo Papai, Joep van den Bijgaart, Gianluca Speranza, and Farukh Tach. The 2019 WSOP Main Event champion, Hossein Ensan, finished in seventh place.

The 2020 World Series of Poker Main Event Championship will be broadcast for 14 consecutive days on ESPN and/or ESPN2 starting July 1 and concluding with finale on July 14. PokerGO will provide additional coverage during the Main Event. They will also stream various final tables of other bracelet events.

Poker returns to the historic Sahara Casino after a nine-year hiatus. The Sahara branding returned to the property in August 2019 after five years as the SLS. Six months after the Sahara reboot, the new seven-table poker room opened with a soft launch on February 14. The swanky poker room will cater to locals with a better overall poker experience, plus free parking with less than a five-minute walk to the newest room on the Strip in almost a decade.

Brazil's Pablo Silva shipped the 2020 partypoker MILLIONS South America at the Enjoy Resort and Casino in Punta Del Este, Uruguay for $1 million. The $10,300 buy-in Main Event attracted 465 runners. Silva outlasted a final table that featured Dzmitry Urbanovich and also included Fabian Gunz, Fabio Colonese, Dan Rezaei, Andres Viola, Sergio Di Pego, Pedro Madeira, and Rafawl Caiaffa.

The higher-ups at the 2020 World Series of Poker released their schedule for 14 online bracelet events, which is an uptick from last year's virtual schedule. Buy-ins will range from as low as $400 all the way up to $10,000. Players are eligible to play within the state limits of Nevada and/or New Jersey. All 14 online events at WSOP.com are bracelet events.

Awkwafina will star in a new film titled 'Baccarat Machine', which is based on a Michael Kaplan article about the Phil Ivey edge sorting case and his accomplice, Kelly Sun (real name Cheung Yin Sun). Awkwafina will play Kelly Sun, the mysterious Chinese woman who accompanied Ivey during highstakes baccarat adventures in Australia, Asia, Monte Carlo, and the United Kingdom. The two bilked casinos for millions by Sun manipulating edge sorting techniques in their favor. The two were eventually busted.

Phil Galfond suspended the Galfond Challenge against VeniVidi after losing over €900,000 over 15 sessions playing €100-200 PLO. The two played less than 10,000 hands of the 25,000-hand challenge. Galfond wants to take an extended break while thinking about his decision to quit or continue to play on. For now, Galfond will pay a €3,000 per day penalty while missing scheduled playing days.

The folks at PokerStars are running a new promotion for their 2020 PokerStars Players Championship, which will be hosted in Barcelona, Spain at the end of the summer. Starting today, PokerStars will award 21 Platinum Passes to the 2020 PSPC over the next 21 days. They dubbed this maddening promotion, "Platinum Madness", which has a catchy ring to it.

Brooklyn's Philip Shing won his second WSOP Circuit ring with a victory at the WSOPC Potawatomi (Milwaukee). The $1,700 buy-in Main Event outside Milwaukee attracted 524 runners. Shing faded the field and outlasted a final table that included Ken Donarski, John Gallaher, James Pupillo, Cero Zuccarello, Chris Roth, Michael Hartzheim, Marcus Yofon, and Fadi Hamad.

The World Series of Poker continued to release their 2020 schedule a little bit at a time. In the latest update, the WSOP added all 25 events at the $1,500 price point. There will be at least 18 different games and variants played at the popular $1,500 price point. The Milly Maker is one of those branded events at the $1,500 price point along with a Mystery Bounty, the Closer, Monster Stack, and the Fifty Stack.

On February 5, announced they were shutting down all casinos for two weeks during an outbreak of coronavirus that killed at least 500 people in mainland China. Hong Kong and Macau reported their first cases of coronavirus, including a casino worked in Macau. Hong Kong also reported its first death from coronavirus. Macau's decision to shut down gambling operations for two weeks could not come at a worst time. Casinos in Macau saw a huge downturn in profits over the last year, including four consecutive months of declining revenue.

Triple WSOP bracelet winner and online poker legend, Phil Galfond, is currently stuck €553,000 in his #GalfondChallenge heads-up battle against VeniVidi. The two have been playing €100/€200 PLO on Run It Once in a match spanning 25,000 and broadcast on Twitch. After 7K hands and ten days of action, Galfond won only once and posted eight losing days in a row.

While America prepared for Super Bowl Sunday between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers, Doyle Brunson revealed he has bet on every Super Bowl since the first one back in 1967. Tex Dolly fired away at the San Francisco 49ers and kept firing away. By kickoff, he loaded up $175,000 on the 49ers. However, the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Niners 31-20 to win Super Bowl 54 and Tex Dolly coughed up $175K.

The 2020 WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open, hosted at the swanky Borgata Casino in Atlantic City, NJ, played down to its final table after starting with 1,290 runners. The final six resumes action in Las Vegas at the HyperX eSports Arena on April 1. Veerab Zakarian bagged the chip lead with 12M. The rest of the final table include Brian Altman, James Anderson, Andrew Hanna, Bin Weng, and Nathan Russler. Altman seeks a third WPT title and second in 2020 after winning the WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open a week ago.

Nine high roller events ranging from $25,000 to $250,000 will be on the 2020 WSOP schedule this summer at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas. The WSOP added a $250,000 Super High Roller to go alongside the $100,000 High Rollers. There's four $50K events including the Poker Players Championship and a trio of $25K events including the Heads-Up Championship.

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.