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Live Poker Updates & Breaking News
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29
Runner-runner royal flush on Venetian livestream. If you're going to make a royal flush this is the way to do it: on a live cash stream when you get it in on the flop with 18% equity.
Brock Wilson inflicts first live heads-up loss on Martin Zamani. Wilson won the PGT Sprint #2 for $110,600, overcoming a heads-up deficit to beat Zamani. It's the first time Zamani has ever lost heads-up in a live event.
- Brock Wilson: $110,600
- Martin Zamani: $71,100
- Jesse Lonis: $51,350
- Joe McKeehen: $37,525
- Jamie Dwan: $27,650
- Andrew Lichtenberger: $19,750
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28
Naoya Kihara confirms WSOP Paradise: "I want to go all out for it."
The stage for the final showdown of the 2026 WSOP Player of the Year battle is set – and now we know that all three of the front runners will be there.
Kihara's commitment to the series will see him take on Shaun Deeb and Alex Foxen in the final leg of an incredibly tight race.
Episode 1 of The Tough Call Podcast is out now. Maria Konnikova and James Hartigan have teamed up to explore decision-making on and off the poker table. Watch it now and check out our exclusive interview with Konnikova.
New women-led poker room to open in Texas on November 12. Jamie Kempf and Marjorie Bradford are behind The Den Poker Lounge, which is set to open in Rowlett, near Dallas with 15 tables from launch. The club aims to encourage more women to play poker but will welcome all players.
Chino Rheem wins PGT Sprint Event #1 for $119,600. The first of seven single-day tournaments ended on Tuesday night with Rheem taking the title.
The Sprint series continues through November 4, with four $5,300 NLH events followed by three $10,500 tournaments.
- Chino Rheem: $119,600
- Andrew Lichtenberger: $75,900
- Patrick Leonard: $55,200
- Michael Berk: $41,400
- Neil Warren: $32,200
- Jesse Lonis: $23,000
- John Riordan: $18,400
- Nick Seward: $18,400
- Brock Wilson: $13,800
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27
Hun Wei Lee beats Joe Hachem heads-up to win the 2026 Victorian Poker Championship Main Event. Lee took home AUD $350,000 at Crown Melbourne, while Hachem added another $210,000 to his tournament earnings after winning Event #9 earlier in the series.
- Hun Wei Lee - $350,000
- Joe Hachem - $210,000
- Zac Miravet - $135,000
- Ben Richardson - $90,000
- Bobby Zhang - $72,500
- Nektarios Dimitrakis - $58,000
- Higor Seibel - $47,500
- Jyrki Hilakari - $38,000
- Michael Tomeny - $30,500
All prizes are in Australian dollars.
Final six set for televised WPT Shooting Star Championship final table. The players have got plenty of time to think about how they're going to play it. They'll play down to a winner in Las Vegas on December 15 during the WPT World Championship series, with $470,500 up top.
- Quoc Mai – 10,165,000
- Chahn Jung – 9,075,000
- Ziao Guo – 4,095,000
- Shawn Daniels – 3,000,000
- Eric Zheng – 2,065,000
- William Davis – 700,000
Both Phil Hellmuth and son Nick were eliminated on Day 3, in 48th and 51st place respectively. Both cashed for $11,400.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 26
Full chip counts and seat draw for Day 3 of the WPT Shooting Star Championship. Action resumes at 11:15am PT.
WPT heads back to Vegas. Once the Shooting Star Championship is over, the WPT is heading to the Venetian for the Las Vegas Fall Festival, which starts Wednesday and runs until November 15.
The $5,000 buy-in WPT Venetian Las Vegas Fall Championship runs November 5-10, with a $2 million guarantee. The final table will be livestreamed. After that, all focus turns to the 2026 WPT Championship at the Wynn.
Joe Giron/World Poker Tour
CoinPoker and PokerGO team up for PGT Online. There are $250 million in total guarantees with six series running from November 2026 to November 2027.
The Kickoff Series starts November 8, with $50 million guaranteed. Across the year, 50 players will qualify for a live final at the PokerGO Studio in January 2028, where one player will win the $1 million prize.
'Back in the high life again'.
Phi Hellmuth and his son Nick have both made Day 3 of the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star Championship. Daddy Hellmuth posted the news from his (driverless) cab while getting down to some Steve Winwood. As you do.
Anyone else hoping to see them clash at the table on Monday?
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25
Full chip counts for Day 2 of the WPT Shooting Star Championship. The bounties are marked with a gold star. Play restarts at 11:15am local time.
Andrew Lichtenberger releases new poker book, Khemset Holistic Poker Codex.
"In this three-volume codex, I go through first principles and poker theory before shifting the discussion to my views on philosophy and the nature of reality, ultimately tying them together with the goal in mind of sharing a practical and actionable holistic perspective for poker as well as life more broadly," Lichtenberger explains.
A hardcover collector's edition, limited to 500 copies, is available now for $85. A cheaper paperback edition may follow.
Nick Palma and Chris Brewer at the Poker Masters. Is this the best version of the meme ever? We'll never look at the two players quite the same again.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23
Irish Open satellites start this Sunday.
It's one of the longest-running and best-loved live poker series in the world, and you can get there from €1 when satellites kick off for the Irish Poker Open at PokerStars this Sunday.
The action in Dublin runs from March 18-29, 2027 - see the article below for more.
Nick Palma eliminated from Poker Masters $50K in 8th. It means Jeremy Ausmus is the only player who can catch Adrian Mateos at the top of the series leaderboard. He needs to finish first or second.
It's not all about the Purple Jacket. There are seven players left in the final event of the series, five get paid and there's $620,000 up top. You can watch it play out from 4pm ET on the PokerGO YouTube channel.
- Marius Gierse: 1,185,000
- Sam Laskowitz: 995,000
- Jeremy Ausmus: 945,000
- Sean Winter: 900,000
- Dan Smith: 895,000
- Igor Yaroshevskyy: 725,000
- Chris Brewer: 535,000
Race for the Purple Jacket. With Adrian Mateos in the clubhouse on 451 points, here's how Nick Palma or Jeremy Ausmus could win the overall Poker Masters title.
- Adrian Mateos: 451 points
- Nick Palma: 407 points
- Jeremy Ausmus: 321 points
With the following points up for grabs, Palma just needs to cash to overtake Mateos. Ausmus needs to finish at least second. A win for Ausmus would see him don the Purple Jacket regardless of where Palma finishes. If he finishes second, he needs Palma to finish fourth or worse.
- $620,000 + 248 PGT points
- $387,500 + 155 PGT points
- $248,000 + 99 PGT points
- $170,500 + 68 PGT points
- $124,000 + 50 PGT points
Watch the rest of Day 1 play out below.
Adrian Mateos eliminated from Poker Masters $50K finale. And it was a brutal way to go. It means his 451 points at the top of the leaderboard are locked in, but Nick Palma is just 44 points behind with 11 players remaining. Jeremy Ausmus is the only other player who can still win the overall series title and Purple Jacket.
Only five players get paid – and earn those all-important PGT points.
Poker Masters Championship: Day 1 coverage of the series-closing $50K No-Limit Hold'em is now live on the PokerGO YouTube channel – see below for the link.
Adrian Mateos, Nick Palma, and Nick Seward, the frontrunners in the race for the Purple Jacket, are all still in the field with 20/31 remaining at the time of reporting.
After a runner-up finish in Event #9 on Thursday, Daniel Negreanu chose not to partake in the Championship.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22
Keith Lehr wins Poker Masters Event #8 ($277,200). Lehr beat Event #4 winner Vitalijs Zavorotnijs heads-up to claim his first PGT title. The top two spots on the series leaderboard remain unchanged, with Adrian Mateos top and Nick Palma in second.
Day 1 coverage of Poker Masters $25K: The cards are in the air for the penultimate event of the series.
At the time of reporting, 19 players remain from a field of 50 entries. Among those still battling it out are Adrian Mateos and Nick Palma. The two are currently in first and second respectively in the race for the Poker Masters Purple Jacket and Event #9 could have huge implications in that regard.
Daniel Negreanu, Nick Schulman, and Jesse Lonis are all on the feature table at the moment, along with Super High Roller Bowl XI winner Brandon Wilson.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21
Final five set in Poker Masters Event #8. It was a brutal end for Nick Palma, who started the final table as chip leader but busted before the night was over. Action resumes at 4pm ET – watch the livestream on the PokerGO YouTube channel and recap Day 1 below.
- Vitalijs Zavorotnijs: 2,980,000
- Justin Vaysman: 1,565,000
- Sam Soverel: 1,485,000
- Keith Lehr: 1,315,000
- Nicholas Seward: 1,055,000
Texas Mike gets good news. The popular WSOP bracelet winner, who has well-documented heart problems, revealed he was going for a "big checkup" on Tuesday. He returned to X later with some welcome news for poker fans.
Stapes joins the APT Championship commentary team. The APT Championship starts November 13, with 209 tournaments and the all-important $5M guaranteed APT Championship Main Event.
And things just got even brighter with the news that Joe Stapleton is joining the livestream commentary team.
On your marks, get set, poker! The 2026 Poker Masters is nearing the finish line, but there's no time to catch your breath at the PokerGO Studio. Next up is the PGT Sprint – seven single-day tournaments starting October 27.
Halfway to Paradise is back. List up to 50% of your action at 1.0 markup, and PokerStake will cover up to 50% of your unsold action in the $10K GGMillion$ event at 2026 WSOP Paradise. Apply by November 25.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20
Guardian journalist Rob Davies asks: "What connects Tommy Robinson, Bonnie Blue, Leicester City FC, the tiny African island of Anjouan and an apparently respectable family of property investors from Mill Hill?"
It's a tale that also involves CoinPoker, among other poker and gambling sites, and is well worth a read.
Pass the sugar! Joe Hachem's at it again. The 2005 WSOP Main Event champ has just won another trophy, at the Crown Casino in Melbourne. Hachem beat Chi Troung heads-up to take down the 48-strong A$1,250 Limit Omaha Hi-Lo event at the 2026 Victorian Poker Championship.
Hayley Hochstetler
This is the way to do it. Aram Oganyan max late-regged Event #7 of the Poker Masters and is now chip leader with five players remaining. See stacks in the post below.
Adrian Mateos extends lead at top of Poker Masters leaderboard. The Spanish pro made the final table of Event #7: $15,700 NLH at the PokerGO Studio on Monday night, and with Nick Palma finishing eighth, he's going to end Tuesday night with a bigger lead in the race for the Purple Jacket.
Mateos is second in chips, while Aram Oganyan leads. Cherish Andrews has recorded her first cash of the series and will be looking to make it a big one when action resumes on Tuesday. You can watch the livestream from 4pm ET on the PokerGO YouTube channel.
- Aram Oganyan: 2,595,000
- Adrian Mateos: 2,325,000
- Jeremy Ausmus: 1,550,000
- Cherish Andrews: 1,275,000
- Joe McKeehen: 940,000
From 11 big blinds to a $171K WPT title. Ivelin Kolev mounted a final-table comeback to win the WPT Prime Cyprus Championship. He was the shortest stack and down to 11bb with six players left, but recovered to beat Said Tahar heads-up.
The $1,100 tournament attracted 953 entries, with Kolev winning a $171,600 package that includes a $10,400 WPT World Championship seat.
Negreanu jumps into Poker Masters: After a bit of a break from the tables, Daniel Negreanu is back in the action for Event #7 of the PGT Poker Masters.
Day 1 play is streaming live on the PokerGO YouTube channel, with Negreanu at the feature table – check it out below.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 19
Lonis wins 3rd WSOP bracelet: After late-regging the WSOP Bracelet Event #16 – NLH $350K GTD Mystery Bounty, Jesse Lonis struck pay dirt with a third WSOP bracelet win.
Moneymaker LIVE for Venom: The ACR Poker Team Pro is taking over the site's Twitch and Kick channels to livestream his Day 2 play in the $1.5M GTD Venom PKO PLO.
As of writing, he's got a top five stack with 62 players remaining and is nearly ITM.
'Disrespecting the game. That's what you did'.
On the bubble of last week's Poker Masters $10K NLH event, Canada's John Krpan took issue with Clemen Deng not forcing his opponent all-in for his last chip.
Deng, as the big stack, obviously did so in order to prolong the bubble and maximize the chips he could win while his opponents waited for the shortie to bust.
Nick Palma tried to explain the strategy but Krpan wasn't having it, saying "I don't want to hear from you anymore."
WPT Prime Cyprus Championship final table streams today. The $1,100 Main Event attracted 953 entries at the Chamada Prestige Hotel and Casino, with the tournament scheduled to crown its champion today. The livestream starts at 2:30pm EEST or 7:30am ET.
Said Tahar is the chip leader, with a stack of 80bb, and there's $171,600 and a seat to the $10,400 WPT World Championship for the eventual winner. Here's the final table seat draw.
- Johan Storakers – 1.75M
- Joseph El Khoury – 2.43M
- Andreas Christodoulo – 7.75M
- Ismail Yagci – 950K
- Bora Kurtulus – 5.43M
- Said Tahar – 12M
- Ivelin Kolev – 4.53M
- Sergiu Cornea – 2.8M
Not for my mum. Patrick Leonard took to X to answer questions about the high rake on CoinPoker, and he was nothing if not honest. In a lengthy thread, he explains why he thinks cash games are broken and recommends MTTs instead. He also says, "Would I tell my mum to come and try CoinPoker cash games and grind up the stakes? No I wouldn't."
More details on GGPoker security changes. Third-party tools will be banned from December 1, and GGPoker says it's integrating the community's most-requested multi-tabling features directly into its poker client. Read more below.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18
Eric Tsai wins $1,046,600 in Jeju for his first seven-figure cash. The Taiwanese player defeated Calvin Lee heads-up in the 60K Super High Roller at the KPC Poker October Series.
The $60,000 event attracted 66 entries and generated a $3,706,600 prizepool. Lee earned $700,000 as runner-up, with Ryuta Nakai in fifth and Ethan 'Rampage' Yau in seventh.
- Ting Yi 'Eric' Tsai: $1,046,600
- Calvin Lee: $700,000
- Hugues Girard: $470,000
- Mehdi Chaoui: $370,000
- Ryuta Nakai: $300,000
- Marius Kudzmanas: $240,000
- Ethan Yau: $190,000
- Manuel Fritz: $150,000
- Candy Lin: $120,000
Sean Winter leads final seven in Poker Masters Event #6. It's tight at the top, though, with Victoria Livschitz just 10K behind. Action resumes on Monday with the stream going live at 4pm ET.
- Sean Winter: 1,405,000
- Victoria Livschitz: 1,395,000
- Justin Vaysman: 1,205,000
- Sam Laskowitz: 1,115,000
- Brandon Wilson: 1,085,000
- Tony Gregg: 805,000
- Joey Weissman: 795,000
Omar Sader
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17
After bubbling three events, Adrian Mateos leads Poker Masters #5. The Spanish pro finished second in Event #2 and is now looking to win his first title and make a run for the Purple Jacket – awarded to the player of the series. It's a stacked final table with Nick Schulman in second and Jeremy Becker in third.
Watch the livestream from 4pm ET on the PokerGO YouTube channel. There's $229,500 up top for the champion.
- Adrian Mateos: 3,020,000
- Nick Schulman: 2,195,000
- Jeremy Becker: 1,715,000
- Martin Zamani: 1,540,000
- Robert French: 1,140,000
- Keith Lehr: 775,000
- Matthew Wantman: 280,000
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16
Women's cash game stream with Marle Spragg tonight. The Hippodrome Casino in central London plays host to the UK leg of WPT Ladies Weekend (October 16-18). Spragg is playing in a livestreamed cash game on Friday, October 16, which starts at 7.30pm UK time on the Hippodrome YouTube channel.
Vitalijs Zavorotnijs leads Poker Masters #4. It's set to be a fascinating final-table stream later, with Jamie Dwan, Nick Palma and Andrew Lichtenberger all in contention.
Palma is gunning for his second Masters title of the series after winning Event #2, and made an incredible fold against Zavorotnijs late in the day to secure his spot in the final five.
On a board of 
, Zavorotnijs shoved with 
, and Palma – with little more than the pot behind – folded 
for a lower straight.
Watch the hand below, starting at 4:29:20. Today's stream starts at 4pm ET.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15
GGPoker introduces new security measures: The online poker platform has updated its security system with five new features – including the banning of all third-party software and automation tools like Jurojin, Hand2Note, and PokerTracker 4.
For more information, click the link below.
WSOPC Turning Stone kicks off Thursday: The cards are officially in the air at the WSOP Circuit festival in upstate New York as Event #1: $400 40/40/40 No-Limit Hold'em gets the action started.
Flight A of Event #2: $400 Mini Main Event gets underway later today at 4pm local time.
Andy 'BowieEffect' Wilson wins first GGMillion$: The British online poker legend triumphed over a stacked final table to claim his first GGMillion$ title.
Wilson had to outlast the likes of Simon Mattsson, Joao Viera, Chris Nguyen, and others in order to claim the $437,338 first-place prize.
If you want to check out the full replay , it's still live on the GGPoker YouTube channel.
The 'bot detective' is back, and naming names:
Poker player and coach Vojtech Cervinka, on his MTT Database Review X account, has published more findings into alleged bot activity on the QQPK site.
According to Cervinka, the post includes a 'full list of 11,469 nicknames belonging to accounts I'm virtually certain are bots'.
Full story on the way.
Jeremy Ausmus leads final six in Poker Masters Event #3 $10,500 NLH. The third event in the series drew 78 entries for a prize pool of $780K There's $218,400 up top for the winner.
Adrian Mateos went out on the bubble for the second time in three events. He had his aces cracked in Event #1 and lost with A-K last night. He finished second to Nick Palma in Event #2.
2026 Poker Masters Event #3 final table
- Jeremy Ausmus: 2,695,000
- Brock Wilson: 1,750,000
- Dylan Linde: 1,640,000
- Joey Weissman: 1,525,000
- Shannon Shorr: 1,305,000
- Daniyal Gheba: 835,000
Hayley Hochstetler
