As the New Year approaches, it's time to look forward to 2025 and what's going to rock the poker world.
The following predictions span the obvious to the outrageous. If you think we've missed something, chime in down below with your guesses for what the coming year holds.
WSOP Main Event breaks record… again
As promised, the obvious: the World Series of Poker Main Event will, once again, break the record for number of entrants. After smashing the Jamie Gold-year record in 2023, the tally of entrants reached new heights this past summer as 10,112 poker players took their shot at the game’s most prestigious prize.
This summer, GGPoker will take over the reins following Caesar’s Entertainment’s sale of the WSOP brand to the site’s parent company NSUS Group. The privilege of ownership over poker’s crown jewel comes with the custodial pressure of placating the masses – an impossible, yet necessary task – and putting on a show worthy of the brand. When it comes to meeting expectations on a massive tournament series, GGPoker knows what it takes to succeed in this regard and will look to hit the ground running. The best way to do that? Break the Main Event entry record. Again. 10,250 anyone?
Hustler Casino Live streams from outer space
Ryan Feldman and his team at Hustler Casino Live broadened their horizons in 2024 to stream outside the United States for the first time. Clearly, part of the HCL approach includes appealing to a broader, more global audience. After a successful stint of games in Cyprus, there’s only one option: stream from outer space. It sounds implausible at first – humans haven’t been to the moon in decades – but there’s at least a shred of underlying logic here.
As we all know, Elon Musk has been sending his SpaceX rockets up (and, innovatively, down) into outer space for quite some time now. It’s space travel and obviously a complicated endeavor so we’ll gloss over the ticking clock of it all, but surely there’s room for a poker table in one of those metal death tubes, no?
Plus, Musk clearly has a little bit of gamble in him. After all, he’s betting a large chunk of his net worth on the pursuit of starting a human colony on Mars and that’s a hell of a long shot. Let’s get Musk on the horn – if memory serves, former poker professional Igor Kurganov might be willing to connect us – and get a game going. Feldman has already proved his chops as one of the best gamerunners this planet has seen. Now, it’s time to show the rest of the solar system.
For the betterment of all mankind.
Chris Brewer bubbles first-ever $5M buy-in
In the last few years, Chris Brewer has found himself on the bad side of too many high-stakes bubbles. In 2021 alone, Brewer played eight $100,000+ events and stone bubbled four of them. Since then, the former track star has regained his footing and his runs haven’t ended so calamitously, nor as frequently.
Despite his return to the enjoyable carriage of the variance train, Brewer’s bubble tendencies remain (these things never leave you) and a betting man (this author) couldn’t be faulted for picking Brewer as the most likely sacrificial lamb.
In a way, this prediction comes in two parts. First, that there will be a record-breaking $5,000,000 buy-in tournament to start with. Second, that Brewer will be the one to bubble said tournament. Obviously, this one’s a long-shot and far from a mortal lock, but there’s an underlying truth here.
If you build it, Brewer will bubble.
Phil Ivey sets personal record for words spoken
Phil Ivey is known for many things in the poker world, but verbosity is certainly not one of them. The Hall of Famer has, since the start of his storied career, garnered a reputation as one of the least talkative players in the community. When you're at the table with Ivey, you don't expect to strike up a conversation about the news of the day or the latest TikTok trends.
Ivey isn't at the table to make friends, he's there to win.
With all that in mind, we still think 2025 will be the year that Ivey breaks out of his shell. If you're looking for a reason to believe, we've got you covered. Back in November of this year, Ivey made an out-of-character appearance on the Poker Life Podcast hosted by Joey Ingram. The round-table conversation – hosted by Ingram and featuring Ivey, Brad Owen, and WPT CEO Adam Pliska – showed audiences a different side of Ivey, a more talkative one.
Now, we know what you're going to say: 'It was a podcast, what's he supposed to do? Sit in silence?' Fair, a very fair point made.
Still, once Ivey starts talking a little bit, he'll realize there's something to it. He'll wonder if, perhaps, he's missed out on this talking thing his whole life. Once that happens, he'll be an open book.
The Book of Ivey, coming 2025.
Kornuth and Foxen issue tag-team wrestling challenge
Earlier this month, Chance Kornuth offered some choice words when asked for his honest opinion on other coaching sites.
Kornuth, who runs the Chip Leader Coaching site alongside Alex Foxen, fired off a warning shot when he gave the following statement to PokerOrg: "The other elites that are on other coaching sites are holding back what they do that helps them win."
Kornuth's bold claim made waves in the community but failed to incite much of a response from any of the other "elites". So, what do you do when your warning shot goes unheeded? You reload, take aim once more, and fire again. You double down.
In the wrestling world, callouts like these happen all the time. They've got it down to a science. Kornuth could learn a thing or two. Maybe, just maybe, he already has. Maybe he's planning to call out the rest of the coaching community for a tag-team wrestling smackdown to determine which of the top-level coaching sites reigns supreme. (If you're wondering how this competition would delineate the best poker coaches, knock it off!)
Plus, with Foxen – a former Division I college football player – on his side, Kornuth already has the perfect partner and would likely be the favorite.
