Down at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida, the World Poker Tour finished out a live tournament. Ilyas Muradi outlasted a field of 1,573 players to take down the $3,500 buy-in 2021 WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open. When the dust settled, Ilyas Muradi edged out Robel Andemichael heads-up to win the first place prize worth over $809,515. Ronnie Bardah busted in third place. The final table also included Francis Margaglione, Jesse Lonis, Tsz Shing, and Andy Hwang.

Phil Galfond won another Galfond Challenge at Run It Once Poker. With less than 10,000 hands remaining in a 35,000-hand heads-up PLO battle, Chance Kornuth threw in the towel against Phil Galfond. Galfond banked $726,500 through 25,400 hands of $100/$200 PLO. Kornuth lost $250,000 in the side bet with Galfond at 4 to 1 odds. Galfond has now won three out of seven scheduled challenges.

One session after he lost over $300K and found himself down a cool million in the High Stakes Feud against Doug Polk, Daniel Negreanu stormed back to win $390K in a single session for the highest score to date during their 25,000-hand heads-up challenge at $200/$400 NL. Polk dropped nearly 10 buy-ins during his worst-session. After 31 rounds, Polk still leads by $612K with 6,000 hands remaining.

The high-stakes feud between Doug Polk and Daniel Negreanu is now at 17,878 hands, but for the first time since the two began their highly-anticipated joust, Negreanu officially fell below the $1 million mark. Negreanu was stuck almost a million last month, but he chipped away and won half of that back. However, Polk won four session in a row and during Round 30 he banked $298,984.93 over 770 hands. Polk currently leads with $1,002,595 with a little more than 7000 hands to go.

The World Poker Tour will have a new owner and news of the WPT sale broke today. Allied eSports Entertainment sold the World Poker Tour to a private group called Element Partners, LLC for $78,250,000. The deal will finalize in the upcoming weeks. Lyle Berman and Steve Lipscomb started the WPT 2002 and it's amazing to see the company grow into a multi-million dollar and global entity.

The 2020 WSOP Winter Online Circuit at GGPoker featured 18 ring events that began in mid-December and concluded this weekend with the Main Event championship. The Main Event attracted 6,395 runners to the $1,700 buy-in championships affair and the pool topped over $10.3 million. American pro Joe Cheong finished in third place, while Lithuania's Paulius Plausinaitis defeated 'turkey1' heads-up for the WSOP Circuit ring and a first-place prize worth over $1.2 million.

Casinos in Colorado no longer must adhere to a state law that imposed a maximum bet of $100 for all wagers thanks to Amendment 77, which included all table games and poker. The $100 max bet rule made poker cash games problematic, especially no-limit action, because you could never raise more than $100 at any given time. Under the new regulations starting May 1, all 33 Colorado casinos in Blackhak, Central City, and Cripple Creek now have the option to cap bets or allow unlimited action, which is expected to boost tourism with baccarat and high-stake poker.

Las Vegas lost another entertainment legend when word broke that Siegfried Fischbacher from Siegfried and Roy fame from their long-time running show at the Mirage Casino passed away at ag 81 from complications of pancreatic cancer. Siegfried and Roy first performed in Las Vegas in 1967 initially as a magic and illusionist act with big cats. They started working at the Mirage in 1990 before an mauling accident ended their 14-year run.

Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire who helped shaped modern-day Las Vegas, passed away at age 87 due to complications from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Adelson was the CEO of Las Vegas Sands corporation that operated the Venetian and Palazzo Casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, in addition to the Sands Convention Center. He also owned casinos in Macau including the Sands and Macau Venetian. Forbes estimated his fortune at $35 billion and they listed him as the #19 richest person in the world according to their 2020 ankings.

The High-Stakes Fued continues in 2021. Daniel Negreanu won nearly 100K during a 750-hand session against Doug Polk in their High Stakes Heads-Up Battle. Negreanu continues to chip away and grind out small wins to trim his deficit to approximately -$645K. Kid Poker was stuck in a hole nearly $1 million in December, but he stopped the bleeding at the end of the year after hitting the midway mark. The two agreed to complete the 25,000-hand challenge.

The Poker Hall of Fame will only be inducting one person this year and former WSOP Main Evet world champion Huckleberry Seed earned a nod into the HOF as the lone member of the class of 2020. Seed won the voting round with 76 votes to edge out tournament director Matt Savage, PokerStars founder Isai Scheinberg, Eli Elezra, Antonio Esfandiari, Ted Forrest, Mike Matusow, Patrik Antonius, Jesus Ferguson, and broadcasters Lon McEachern and Norman Chad.

The 2020 World Series of Poker finally crowned its champion, albeit a few days into 2021. Damian Salas defeated Joseph Herbert heads-up at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas to win the 2020 WSOP Main Event Championship. The hybrid heads-up battle featured the winner of an international final table (starting on GG Poker and ending at the King's Casino in RozVegas) and a domestic final table (starting at WSOP.com and ending at the Rio Casino). Salas earns an additional $1 million in cash and the champion bracelet.

The domestic version of the 2020 WSOP Main Event began on WSOP.com with 706 runners taking a shot at the title and bracelet. The final eight gathered to play the final table live at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas. Three-time bracelet winner Upeshka De Silva took a bad beat before the final table even began when he tested positive for COVID-19. He was awarded ninth place and the final eight slugged it out for the title. Joseph Herbert from Metairie, Louisiana was the last player standing and he banked $1.5 million during a 98-hand final table. Herbert now awaits a heads-up bout against Damian Salas on Sunday, January 3 to determine the 2020 Main Event bracelet winner.

In one week, we will learn who will earn induction into the Poker Hall of Fame for the Class of 2020. Ten total people, both players and industry leaders, were selected as nominees. Two of them -- PokerStars founder Isai Scheinberg and Patrik Antonius -- earned first-time nods. The other nominees included broadcast team Lon McEachern and Norman Chad, Eli Elezra, Jesus Ferguson, Ted Forrest, Mike Matusow, Antonio Esfandiari, tournament director Matt Savage, and Huck Seed.

Are you a last-minute shopper when it comes to holidays and Christmas? Did you have a sick score in a tournament and want to buy your family cool gifts, but fresh out of ideas? Do not fear, because we have several gift ideas and stocking stuffers for poker players ranging from dabblers and hardcore fans. Books are also ideal gifts, including 'The Biggest Bluff' by Maria Konnikova, plus other classic poker books by Michael Craig, Martin Harris, and Lou Krieger.

At the King's Casino in RozVegas, Damian Salas survived the final table of the 2020 WSOP Main Event International leg and won $1.55 million. Salas faded a field of 674 runners in the hybrid Main Event that began on GGPoker. He will now play the winner of the WSOP domestic final table at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas at the end of the month to determine the bracelet winner. Salas final tabled the 2017 WSOP Main Event with a seventh-place finish.

The 2020 WSOP Main Event Domestic leg at WSOP.com attracted 706 runners to the $10,000 buy-in championship event. Only the top 107 places paid out with $1.55 million set aside to the champion. The final table is set and Joseph 'kolebear' Herbert bagged up the chip lead with 13M.The final table also includes 3-time bracelet winner Upeshka De Silva, Ryan Hagerty, Ye Yuan, Michael Cannon, Gershon 'jets613' Distenfeld, Ron Jenkins, Shawn Stroke, and Harrison Dobin. The WSOP Main Event domestic final table resumes on December 28 in Las Vegas at the Rio Casino. The champion will play a heads-up match against the winner of the WSOP Main Event International final table.

Get ready for the Blowout Series on PokerStars, which will begin on December 27 and run for over three weeks into the start of the new year. There will be 88 events at the Blowout Series with three tiers of buy-ins for every event for a total of 268 tournaments. The overall guarantee for this series will be $60 million. Oh, and there's a special New Year's Eve Bash tournament with an $11 buy-in. Plus a Big Blowout every Sunday with over $5 million in guaranteed prize pools.

Phil Galfond turned $100 into millions, as least that's how the story goes on The Ringer's latest podcast Gamblers, which specializes in epic stories about gamblers. The pod tells the origin story about Galfond from an up-and-coming online poker player in college to a bona fide pro. He retired from the game, then came back to play in a heads-up challenge

The 2020 World Series of Poker Main Event (International) at GGPoker attracted 674 runners for the $10,000 buy-in championship. Only nine remain and those lucky nine will play down to a champion at the King's Casino in RozVegas, which will host the Final Table on December 15. First place pays out $1.55 million, plus a heads-up seat for the finale in Vegas at the end of the month. Damian Salas is still alive, while Bruno Botteon holds the chip lead.

GG Poker made a highly controversial move by adding Dan Bilzerian as their latest pitchman. GG Poker seeks to leverage Bilzerian's massive reach on social media in hopes of leveraging and monetizing his legion of fans. Bilzerian joins Daniel Negreanu, Elky, Fedor Holz, Brynn Kenney, and Felipe Ramos as GG Poker ambassadors.