The Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT) has unveiled the full schedule for the 2024 edition of the ever-popular Goliath tournament and the accompanying series. The 2024 Goliath takes place at the Grosvenor G Casino in Coventry from July 25 through August 4, with the organizers hopeful the low-stakes phenomenon will continue its trend of breaking its attendance record year on year. The Goliath has gone from strength to strength since its launch in 2011.

World Poker Tour (WPT) ambassador Brad Owen is taking his popular Meet-Up Game (MUG) to South Florida on April 18 during the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown. Fans of the legendary vlogger will have an opportunity to compete against Owen, and perhaps score some “Bradley Dollars” in the process. Joining the $2/$5 no-limit hold’em cash game action at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino will be WPT Executive Tour Director Matt Savage and longtime commentator Vince Van Patten.

The 2024 World Series of Poker (WSOP) is less than 100 days away, and poker players in their tens of thousands will flock to The Horseshoe to pursue their dreams of WSOP glory. And with the schedule out, you’ve probably already thought about which events you’d like to hop into. This can be a tough choice if you need to mull over many variables like bankroll considerations, how long you can go for, etc.

There’s some drama brewing at the most infamous retirement community in the world The Villages in Florida over recreational poker game bans, and it’s put many residents on tilt. The Villages, the world’s largest retirement community with over 145,000 residents from all across the globe, is infamous for its apparently vibrant swingers’ scene and black market for Viagra. But the area also previously had some popular poker games running inside various rec centers but some have since been shut down, a decision that has caused some uproar.

Ethan “Rampage” Yau has been on a downswing in recent months, but a massive hand against Nikhil “Nik Airball” Arcot during Friday night’s Hustler Casino Live stream might have him headed back in the right direction. The hand in question, which led to a $473,000 pot, occurred at around 10 p.m. PT, about five hours into the $50/$100 no-limit hold’em cash game. Rampage Poker Wins Three-Way Cooler Hustle Casino Live’s X account teased a “huge hand coming up soon” about an hour before the hand in question aired.

Day 6 of the $1 million guaranteed PokerNews Online Championship at 888poker was a busy one, with five events crowning their worthy champions. Four of those tournament were six-handed mystery bounty events, with the unique Cut to the Chase event being the fifth and final tournament of the evening. Four of the day’s champions hail from Brazil. The $109 buy-in edition of the Mystery Bounty 6-Max saw 192 players create a $19,200 prize pool, and Brazil’s “betsoares” came away with $3,658 of that sum.

What’s in a name? Some poker players choose an alias to represent them at online poker sites that has some truth behind it or is their nickname away from the tables. Others select a name that is something of a reverse tell, giving the impression they are inexperienced. Finland’s “lovelydonk” seems to fall into the latter category. A name like “lovelydonk” conjures up an image of a happy-go-lucky player who doesn’t know what they are doing.

It’s been a good week for Poker Hall of Famers, and specifically those who were inducted in 2018. John Hennigan and Mori Eskandani went back-to-back at the 2024 PokerGO Tour (PGT) Mixed Games series in Las Vegas, with Hennigan first taking down the $5,100 8-Game event for $120,150 before the PokerGO president followed up with a $10,200 H.O.R.S.E. victory for a career-best $201,600 and his first PGT title. Find Out More About the Poker Hall of Fame!

Nick Marchington captured his first recorded live poker tournament victory by taking down the 1,500 buy-in Grosvenor UK Open Main Event in Coventry for an impressive 146,560. Marchington outlasted 619 opponents en route to collecting the second-largest score of his poker career. Marchington is a cash game specialist who successfully dabbles with tournament poker. The British star is best known for a seventh-place finish in the 2019 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, a fine result that bagged him $1,525,000.

The United Kingdom’s “casual_win” helped themselves to one of the largest prizes of the PokerNews Online Championship so far by coming out on top of the $40,000 guaranteed PKO Rumble High Roller at 888poker. With bounties included, the British grinder took home $10,268 for their victory. Sixty-seven players bought in for $525 and fought it out for a share of the $40,000 prize pool. Being responsible for eliminating a foe came with a bounty payment of at least $125, but those bounties massively increased at the business end of the tournament.

Thunder Valley Casino Resort is a popular World Poker Tour (WPT) destination, and it will play host to the $3,500 buy-in WPT Rolling Thunder Championship from March 23-26. The event in Lincoln, California, a town near Sacramento, always attracts large fields. Prior to the Main Tour championship event, the WPT Rolling Thunder series, which begins March 7, features 21 events with buy ins ranging from $200 to $3,500. Can Scott Eskenazi Defend Title?

WPT Global hosts some fantastic online poker tournaments, which will become increasingly popular through March because of a special promotion promising to give multi-table tournament grinders 100% of their rake back! From March 4-31, 100% of the tournament rake WPT Global collects will be divided between three freerolls that have $100,000, $150,000, and $350,000 guaranteed prize pools. There are some restrictions on who can play in these 100% Rakeback Freerolls, so that only players who contribute to the prize pool get to enjoy the value WPT Global is offering.

Leonard “Grozzorg” Maue added to his already glowing reputation over the weekend when he came out on top in the $5,200 Titans Event online at PokerStars. Maue got his hands on $82,322 after battling through an all-star cast, and that prize money pushed Maue’s recorded online tournament winnings to almost $11.5 million. Maue enjoyed a stellar 2023 and his rich vein of form seems to have continued into 2024. Last year, Maue finished fifth in the $10,300 WCOOP Main Event at PokerStars for $298,792, finished second in a $10,300 buy-in event at GGPoker for $294,841, and took down the special edition $10,300 Super MILLION$ at GGPoker for $1,358,444.

Joey Ingram, perhaps the most popular poker podcaster ever, returned to the podcast streets Monday for an entertaining discussion with Doug Polk, who made a bold offer to accused poker cheat Mike Postle. In an unrelated note, Postle made a surprising random public appearance last week for an X Spaces conversation. During that discussion, which lasted around two hours, he repeated his longstanding denial that he cheated during Stones Live streams in 2018 and 2019.

Popular poker pro Phil Laak made his High Stakes Poker return Monday night for the first time since 2011 when the iconic poker show aired on the Game Show Network. Episode 3 of Season 12, now on PokerGO, featured a colorful cast of characters joining the “Unabomber” at the table, headlined by HSP regular Jean-Robert Bellande, high-stakes crusher Andrew Robl, and Hustler Casino Live polarizing figure Nikhil “Nik Airball” Arcot. The full list of players in the game and their starting chip stacks are listed below.

PokerNews and 888poker wanted two Main Events for the inaugural PokerNews Online Championship and settled on a $25 buy-in, $50,000 guaranteed, and $215 buy-in, $300,000 guaranteed mystery bounty affair. Both guarantees were on the ambitious side, yet both were obliterated thanks to your incredible support. Some 1,627 players bought into the $215 edition, creating a guarantee-busting $325,400 prize pool while a field of 3,085 in the $25 buy-in tournament resulted in $70,955 being awarded!

The 2024 Irish Poker Open is less than three weeks away, and PokerStars got into the spirit by running a 17-event online edition of Europe’s longest-running poker tournament. Over $1.1 million was distributed throughout the Irish Open Online, with $27,678 of that princely sum now nestled in the PokerStars account of Thiago “azevedo45” Azevedo. Azevedo was one of 2,297 entrants in the $109 No-Limit Hold’em 8-Max Irish Open Online Main Event.

The Destination RunGood Tunica Main Event has come to an end and Michael Esquivel is the winner after a deal with Loi Hoang at the beginning of heads-up play. The latest stop for the RunGood Poker Series at Horseshoe Tunica drew 662 players one more than the previous trip in November 2023 and the best 82 players split up a prize pool of $337,620. Esquivel dominated a wild final table to finish with the big stack for a top prize of $55,321, along with the RGPS ring.

The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s). They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of PokerNews or its members. A bunch of us here at PokerNews have been absolutely enamoured and hooked by the sensational ‘poker, rogue-lite’ game Balatro. I, for one, have pushed back several bedtimes to do “just one more” run (it’s never just one), and I know for a fact that my colleagues have done the same, whether they admit to it or not.

The poker room at Resorts World Las Vegas once again transformed into a mixed game oasis this past week as Cardplayer Lifestyle hosted its seventh Mixed Game Festival from Feb. 25-29. The Mixed Game Festival VII featured everything from a pizza party and trivia challenge to a Women’s Wednesday and a $300 H.E.R.O.S. tournament that awarded a $3,000 PokerStars North American Poker Tour (NAPT) package to the winner. PokerNews’ own Chad Holloway, Matt Hansen and Connor Richards were in the mix over at Resorts World and got a glance of the popular poker festival that has drawn players from around the world.

It took only two hours on Day 3 of Event #39: $215 Mystery Bounty Main Event at the 2024 PokerNews Online Championship hosted by 888poker for Romania’s Razvan “RazvyB” Belea to top the eight-handed final table and claim the title of champion. He beat out a field of 1,627 runners to scoop a total of $27,654 from the overall $325,400 prize pool with $25,626 of that coming from his first place finish.

PartyPoker could soon be under new ownership if rumors circulating are true. Several sources have contacted gambling newsletter Earnings+More claiming the former number one online poker site is deemed surplus to requirements by parent company Entain. It is not all sunshine and rainbows at Entain right now, with the gambling giant on the hook for a £615 million settlement following an HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) investigation that started in 2019.

WPT Global is turning up the heat in its $10 Discord Tournament in March and April with a thrilling twist – the inclusion of WPT Global Ambassadors and Influencers as $500 bounties! Every Sunday during this special promotion, players will have the chance to face off against renowned poker personalities such as Brad Owen, Andrew Neeme, Ethan ‘Rampage’ Yau, Jon ‘apestyles’ Van Fleet, and the legendary Phil Ivey, each carrying a tempting $500 bounty on their head.

The five-star, all-inclusive Merit Crystal Cove Hotel & Casino in Kyrenia, Cyprus, is gearing up to host another action-packed poker festival, the Merit Poker Carmen Series. Running from March 18-31, the Merit Poker Carmen Series schedule features over 60 tournaments and satellites, with each boasting a guarantee. PokerNews’ live reporting team is heading to sunny Cyprus to bring you live and exclusive coverage from three of the Merit Poker Carmen Series’ biggest events.