Alex Foxen carried the chip lead into the five-handed finale of Super High Roller Bowl XI after a dramatic money-bubble swing in Las Vegas. Nick Petrangelo hit the only remaining six to crack Foxen’s pocket tens, then Kristen Foxen was eliminated in sixth place, leaving her just outside the five paid spots.

The $2.8 million event drew 28 entries and paid its final five players, with $1.125 million set aside for the winner. PokerNews listed the buy-in as $100,000, while SpadePoker described it as $103,000. As reported on Day 1, Foxen had already eliminated Sean Perry’s second entry while 12 players advanced to Day 2.

Foxen began Day 2 second in chips, took the lead in the opening level and stayed there through the bagging period. His set of queens also eliminated Jason Koon, whose pocket aces were ahead before Foxen flopped the set.

The pivotal bubble hand came with six players left. Petrangelo four-bet shoved pocket sixes against Foxen’s pocket tens, but one six had already been folded, leaving Petrangelo with a single immediate out. The board ran A♠ 9♠ 9♦ 6♦ 7♠, giving Petrangelo sixes full and allowing him to survive while cutting into Foxen’s once-runaway lead.

Kristen Foxen was the short stack at that point and appeared positioned to cash after the all-in confrontation. Instead, Brandon Wilson eliminated her when his 9♠9♦ held against her A♣8♣ on a T♣ 9♥ 5♠ 7♦ A♠ board. The result secured at least $215,000 for each of the five survivors.

Foxen ended Day 2 with 2.87 million chips, ahead of Petrangelo on 1.68 million. Adrian Mateos bagged 1.51 million, Wilson had 1.27 million and Jeremy Ausmus held 1.07 million.

The remaining payouts were $700,000 for second, $450,000 for third, $310,000 for fourth and $215,000 for fifth. Foxen was pursuing his 14th PokerGO Tour title, while Petrangelo entered the final day after recently winning $2.2 million in Triton Jeju’s $150,000 10th Anniversary Special.

Sergio Aido won the 2026 WSOP Online $10,000 GGMillion$ High Rollers on GGPoker for $2.23 million, his third World Series of Poker bracelet and second title in the event. The Spanish player also received a $30,000 WSOP Super Pass for the 2026 WSOP Paradise Super Main Event.

Aido outlasted about 1,750 entries for the title. The reported field total differs slightly between outlets, with PokerNews listing 1,753 entries and CardPlayer listing 1,754, while both put the winner’s prize at $2,228,762. The tournament generated a prize pool of just over $17 million, with the top four finishers all earning seven figures.

The victory came at a steep upfront cost. PlayUSA reported that Aido made 20 entries, or bullets, at $10,000 each, for $200,000 in buy-ins. He said he had never previously used more than eight bullets in an online tournament and only secured his Day 2 place on his final attempt in the turbo event.

“I had to use several bullets to make it to Day 2,” Aido said after the win. “My girlfriend kept telling me to quit, that it wasn’t for me anymore, but I ended up qualifying on the last bullet of the turbo event.”

As we reported on Sept. 29, Roeland Peeks began the nine-handed final table with a huge 172-big-blind stack, 99 big blinds ahead of Aido. Peeks ultimately finished third for $1.33 million, while Christopher Nguyen took fourth for $1.02 million.

Matheus Machado eliminated four consecutive players during the final-table action and reached heads-up play against Aido. Aido began the match with about 108.4 million chips to Machado’s roughly 67 million, then closed it out in 17 minutes. Machado received $1.72 million as runner-up.

The final hand saw Aido’s ace-seven of diamonds beat Machado’s ace-three. Aido said he had hoped to play heads-up against the Brazilian after noticing passive play and dwindling time banks in earlier hands.

The result was Aido’s eighth career seven-figure score and his first of 2026. He had previously won the same GGMillion$ tournament in 2024, beating a 1,433-entry field, and is listed second on Spain’s all-time money list with $29.2 million in earnings, behind six-bracelet winner Adrian Mateos.

The final table was streamed on GGPoker’s channels with Jeff Gross and Alex Foxen on commentary.

PokerStars’ UK migration to Betfair is complete, with British online poker players having accessed PokerStars exclusively through the PokerStars on Betfair platform since Oct. 7.

The switch changes the route into PokerStars rather than the games available. Players retain access to familiar PokerStars games, shared player pools and major series including the Sunday Million, WCOOP and SCOOP.

PokerNews reported that existing PokerStars customers can sign in through the Betfair desktop client or mobile app using their PokerStars credentials. Those transferring accounts can move balances, T-Money and active tournament tickets. Players who already hold an active Betfair account use their Betfair credentials and must withdraw any remaining funds from the legacy PokerStars.uk cashier.

Betfair balances are held in pounds sterling. PokerStars Casino and PokerStars Sports have also been replaced in the UK setup by Betfair Casino and Betfair Sportsbook.

The platform has launched Stack+, a loyalty programme that offers up to 25% rakeback on qualifying real-money cash-game and tournament play. Players opt in once through the main lobby and earn points across eligible games.

Rakeback begins once a player reaches 500 points. Stack+ has seven levels, and a higher rakeback rate applies immediately to subsequent play when a player moves up a level. Points reset at the start of each calendar month, although players keep their achieved level for the following month. Redeemed rakeback cash has no play-through or wagering requirement.

As covered in September, Betfair was the first brand to join the PokerStars Network under the new PokerStars on Betfair arrangement. PokerStars had described the broader Flutter strategy as an effort to bring players from its brands into shared pools, responding to thinner fields and smaller tournament prizes amid fragmented regulation and a tougher market environment.

Paddy Power Poker and Sky Poker were expected to adopt PokerStars software and join the network in the coming months, although players may use only one account at a time if they hold accounts with more than one brand.

Jason Koon is set to play even less tournament poker, saying time with his three sons now takes priority over adding to his Triton records. The Poker Hall of Famer said he will still enter games when the financial opportunity justifies the time away, but otherwise will “pivot.”

In comments reported by Card Player, Koon said he skipped the most recent Triton series and will miss the next one after the recent birth of his third son with his wife, Bianca. His older sons were born in 2021 and 2023. “I’ve got three kids now, so I’m gonna spend a lot of time with them,” he said.

That does not mean a full exit from the game. Koon said he still loves playing and studying poker and will keep working on his game. But he also wants to stay open to challenges beyond poker rather than treating the game as his only identity. He described fatherhood as both the best and hardest thing, while saying his career earnings give him the freedom to be more selective and present at home.

The choice carries real weight given his standing on the Triton tour. Koon has earned more than $40.9 million there since his first trophy in 2018 and holds the series records with 12 titles and 81 cashes. Daniel Dvoress has since tied the cash record, while Stephen Chidwick sits on 80; Dvoress, Matthias Eibinger and Michael Watson each have seven Triton titles.

Koon said he is not concerned with protecting either Triton mark. His approach throughout his career, he said, has been to make as much money as possible rather than travel simply to extend records. His schedule had already been centered on the biggest buy-ins: apart from the 2023 WSOP Main Event, he had not recorded a live cash below $15,000 since December 2021.

His first live tournament action since late June came at the $100,000 Super High Roller Bowl XI in Las Vegas in early October. Koon reached Day 2 but was eliminated when his pocket aces ran into Alex Foxen’s flopped set of queens in a four-bet pot.

Koon entered the Poker Hall of Fame as its only 2026 inductee in August, as covered in our earlier report. His nearly $77.6 million in live tournament earnings rank third in poker history, and his 30 recorded tournament wins include two WSOP bracelets.

The Supreme Court of Canada heard arguments Oct. 7 over whether Ontario can link provincially regulated online games with players outside Canada, a decision that could determine whether regulated poker sites can eventually share tables and tournaments internationally. The court reserved its decision, and the hearing itself did not authorize international games to launch.

As reported in our Oct. 7 coverage, the appeal, file 42141, is from the Court of Appeal for Ontario and arises from a reference under section 8 of Ontario’s Courts of Justice Act.

At issue is the meaning of “in that province” in section 207(1)(a) of the Criminal Code. The provision creates an exception to the general prohibition on gaming for provincially conducted and managed lottery schemes.

The appellants are Atlantic Lottery Corporation, British Columbia Lottery Corporation, Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries Corporation and Loto-Québec. They argue that the Criminal Code does not allow a province to conduct a lottery scheme in another province without authorization, or to run foreign lotteries that it cannot control.

Atlantic Lottery Corporation represents Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Its position is that Ontario players would enter the same virtual tables, pools and rules as international players, and that Ontario’s proposed pooled games would also encompass Canadians outside Ontario.

Ontario’s planned model, by contrast, would allow Ontarians to play on regulated Ontario websites while participants abroad use separate international sites. Flutter Entertainment, an intervener, argued that Ontario can lawfully retain control over its own participants while linking them to people outside Canada.

Flutter said geofencing and contractual arrangements could keep players from other Canadian provinces off linked international sites, while Ontario could tailor game offerings to do the same. Its factum says such interaction would increase available funds, interest in regulated games and provincial revenue. The Attorney General of Alberta is also an intervener; Alberta’s participation reflects its interest in retaining the option to share liquidity with Ontario and international jurisdictions.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario upheld the proposal 4-1 on Nov. 12, 2025. It concluded that Ontario could meet the Criminal Code’s conduct-and-manage requirement by retaining regulatory oversight and operational control over Ontario-based players.

Poker is particularly exposed to the outcome because it relies heavily on player liquidity. Ontario’s regulated market has been ring-fenced since it launched in April 2022, limiting play to people physically located in the province. Larger networks can support more frequent games and bigger prize pools.

For scale, iGaming Ontario reported C$122 million in peer-to-peer poker wagers and C$5.6 million in poker revenue for August. Those unaudited figures exclude OLG’s online offering. The broader iGaming Ontario report recorded C$843 million in wagers and C$54.4 million in non-adjusted gross gaming revenue.

Ontario’s existing regulated market remains open while the province awaits the Supreme Court’s ruling.

The Jewish Federation of Fairfield County will hold a charity poker tournament at Circolo Sportivo in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on Oct. 18, with professional player Kathy Liebert scheduled to lead a strategy discussion and join the field. The event is open to all players and is capped at 150 entries.

Dinner begins at 5 p.m. at the venue, 2500 Park Ave., followed by the tournament at 6:30 p.m. A full-evening entry costs $250, including dinner, drinks and the tournament buy-in. Players can enter the tournament without the dinner-and-drinks package for $150.

The Jewish Ledger reported that local attorney Michael Rosnick organized and sponsored the event. Rosnick is with Bridgeport firm Miller, Rosnick, D’Amico, August & Butler, PC.

The event is intended to bring together community members and poker players while raising support for Israel. The source identifies the beneficiary as the Jewish Federation of Greater Fairfield County, a registered 501©(3), and says funds will support local Jewish life, social services and cultural institutions as well as overseas aid.

Rosnick’s involvement was shaped by trips he made to Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, outbreak of the war. He said he visited the Nova Music Festival grounds, ravaged kibbutzim and met with hostages, soldiers and survivors. Funds raised are intended in part to address trauma and help Israeli young people experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder.

Liebert brings extensive tournament experience to the dinner session. PokerOrg lists her with 27 tournament wins, more than $7 million in career cashes and a World Series of Poker bracelet. She ranks third on the women’s all-time money list and was inducted into the Women in Poker Hall of Fame in 2010.

Tournament proceeds will be distributed as prize money and/or used for entry fees for the World Series of Poker or WSOP satellite events. Sponsorship and registration information is available through the Shalom Connecticut calendar listing for the tournament hosted by Rosnick.

The Asian Poker Tour will stage its second APT Championship at Red Space in Taipei, Taiwan, from Nov. 13-29, with a $5 million guaranteed Main Event. The $10,000 Main Event Freezeout runs Nov. 20-27 and carries a TWD 311,900 buy-in, listed by the official schedule as equivalent to the $10,000 entry fee.

The 17-day series is positioned as the climax of APT’s 20th-anniversary season. It will offer more than TWD 260 million, or about $8 million, in total guarantees, according to the tour, and PokerOrg reports a 209-event schedule.

The Main Event’s freezeout structure means players get one tournament life, with no rebuys or re-entries. That format is central to the tour’s ambition of making the event “Asia’s Main Event,” a role it has compared with the WSOP Main Event.

Last year’s inaugural APT Championship at the same venue showed the festival’s scale. The 2025 Main Event drew 671 entries, beat its $5 million guarantee and built a TWD 194 million prize pool, worth about $6.2 million. India’s Nishant Sharma won the title and roughly $1.2 million.

Across the whole 2025 festival, APT recorded 28,265 entries and about $34.2 million in prize money. Players from 55 nations took part across the series, while the Main Event field represented 47 countries and regions. The festival also set 17 APT records, including entry, prize-pool and top-prize marks.

This year’s schedule expands the number of Championship Events to 23 from 20. Alongside the Main Event, the program includes National Cup, Mystery Bounty, Ultra Stack, 7-Max, PLO, mixed-games, women’s and Natural8-branded championships.

The higher buy-in end includes a $15,000 High Roller Championship, a $25,000 Super High Roller Championship and a $50,000 Superstar Championship. The PLO High Roller is set for Nov. 18-19 with a TWD 150,000, about $4,700, buy-in; the $10,000 Single Day High Roller follows on Nov. 19, and the Ultra Stack Championship runs Nov. 25-26 at the same TWD 150,000 price point.

APT is hosting the festival with the Chinese Texas Hold’em Poker Club at Red Space, a central Taipei venue dedicated to poker rather than slot machines or table games. Players can qualify for the Main Event through APT tour stops and online via Natural8.

As covered in September, APT Jeju offered 12 $10,000 APT Championship Main Event seats through designated events, Main Event finishes and lucky draws. Those seats are for the Taipei series.

The World Series of Poker’s 2026 Player of the Year title will be settled at WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas in December, with Shaun Deeb holding a narrow lead over Naoya Kihara and the player identified in most coverage as Alex Foxen.

Deeb has 3,410 points, Kihara has 3,388 and Foxen has 3,381, leaving just 29 points across the leading three. The Bahamas series is the season finale of the annual poker calendar.

There is one discrepancy in the published standings. The official release names third-place player “William Foxen” on 3,381 points, while PokerNews and SpadePoker identify the player with that total as Alex Foxen. Alex Foxen’s 2026 summer results included 14 cashes and a $594,246 bracelet win in the $10,000 Super Turbo Bounty.

This is the first year that Player of the Year points have been combined across the summer WSOP in Las Vegas, WSOP Europe and WSOP Paradise. The global format was announced on Dec. 16, 2025, with an enhanced scoring methodology intended to reward performance across the WSOP’s premier international stops.

The leaderboard carries a $1 million prize pool for the top 100 finishers. The top three, including the overall winner, each receive a $100,000 WSOP Paradise package; players in fourth through 15th receive $30,000 Super Main Event packages, with further packages and championship tickets extending through 100th place.

The champion will also receive the newly introduced Binion Cup. Deeb, the 2025 defending champion, is chasing his third Player of the Year title after wins in 2018 and 2025. That would surpass Daniel Negreanu’s two titles, won in 2004 and 2013.

Deeb’s Las Vegas series included six cashes, his ninth career bracelet, a runner-up finish, two other final tables and a deep Main Event run. His summer earnings totaled $956,086 including bounties, with a reported profit of $89,286 and a 10.3% return on investment before expenses.

Kihara is 22 points behind Deeb and has a chance to become Japan’s first WSOP Player of the Year. He made 16 summer cashes, won the $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw Championship and $10,000 Seven Card Stud Championship back to back, and added two third-place and two seventh-place finishes. Those wins brought his career bracelet tally to three; he had become Japan’s first bracelet winner in 2012.

Foxen’s other reported summer highlights included sixth in the $100,000 High Roller for about $522,000, third in the $25,000 Heads-Up Championship for $300,000 and seventh in the $25,000 Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller for about $268,000. As covered in August, Foxen was also leading the 2026 Global Poker Index Player of the Year race at that point.

The chasing group remains substantial, although well behind the leaders. Justin Liberto was fourth with 2,827 points, Joshua Arieh fifth with 2,750, Negreanu sixth with 2,698 and Jesse Lonis seventh with 2,674. Lucas Jumalon, the reigning WSOP Main Event champion, was 15th on 2,271 points.

Paradise also offers a separate $1 million WSOP Parlay promotion for players who made a 2026 live or online bracelet-event final table and compete in the Bahamas. Its $25,000 Super Main Event carries a $50 million guarantee, with online satellites available through GGPoker.

ACR Poker will roll out a set of eight-hour broadcasts on its official Kick channel around the remaining Day 1 flights of its $6.5 million Dual Venom PKOs. Viewers will also be able to watch through the main ACR Poker website, with Kick’s live chat open for hand discussion and reactions to knockouts.

ACR Poker outlined the schedule in its Oct. 9 announcement. Jon Pardy is set to lead the first broadcast on Sunday, Oct. 11, covering Day 1C, which begins at 1:05 p.m. ET for both the No-Limit Hold’em and Pot-Limit Omaha tournaments.

Ana Marquez is scheduled to take over for Day 1D on Thursday, Oct. 15, followed by Drew Gonzalez for the final opening flight, Day 1E, on Sunday, Oct. 18. Chris Moneymaker is tentatively set to stream Day 2 on Oct. 19 if he advances, while the NLH final table is scheduled for a Kick broadcast on Wednesday, Oct. 21. ACR Stormers will provide separate Dual Venom streams on Twitch.

As we reported Oct. 4, the series consists of a $5 million guaranteed NLH PKO and a $1.5 million guaranteed PLO PKO, each with a $2,650 buy-in and five starting flights. Players may enter either event or both, and PKO bounties are available from Day 1.

The two tournaments return for Day 2 on Oct. 19. NLH then has a Day 3 on Oct. 20, while the PLO event goes directly from Day 2 to its final table on Oct. 21.

CoinPoker’s The One has passed 10,000 initial entries ahead of its Day 2 on Oct. 12, with more than 1,000 players already through to the next stage. The $250 tournament carries a $5 million guaranteed prize pool and a guaranteed $1 million first prize, the largest tournament guarantee and guaranteed winner’s payout in the site’s history.

As we reported Oct. 5, the first three opening flights had already put The One well ahead of the pace required to cover its $5 million guarantee. CardPlayer reported that “pitotieso333” takes the chip lead into Day 2 with 6.03 million chips, or 172 big blinds.

The average remaining stack is 1.26 million chips, equivalent to 36 big blinds. Rayan “Beriuzy” Chamas has 112 big blinds, while Patrick Leonard and Tom Talboom return with 59 and 54 big blinds, respectively. Barbara Akemi has 19 big blinds and Alejandro “Papo MC” Lococo has 14.

The tournament began Oct. 4 and has 26 Day 1 flights in total. Two final turbo flights run on Oct. 12 at 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. UTC before Day 2 begins later that afternoon. Players who qualify more than once carry forward only their largest stack, while qualifying flights use CoinPoker’s buy-in refund mechanic.

Satellites and freerolls have provided lower-cost routes into the event. “fishbrosTV” and “Tiniesta1994” each turned a $1 satellite entry into a Day 2 stack of more than 2 million chips. CoinPoker’s satellite tree includes freerolls and low-stakes steps, and the operator also gave away 100 weekend mega-satellite tickets through Twitter.

The eventual winner will receive a custom physical trophy as well as a digital trophy for their CoinPoker profile. After The One concludes, CoinPoker’s schedule calls for the $215 CoinMillion to return Nov. 1 with a $1 million guarantee.

WPT Global has opened its Canada Thanksgiving Promotion, offering eligible customers deposit-based rewards worth up to $250 and a route into a $5,000 Thanksgiving Freeroll. One qualifying deposit made from Oct. 6 through Oct. 16 ET unlocks the offer, with Casino Coins and Global Spins among the available rewards.

The reward level is based on a player’s highest qualifying deposit during that window. Deposits of $50 to $149 qualify for up to $50 in rewards, $150 to $249 for up to $150, and $250 or more for up to $250, according to YourPokerDream.

Unlocking a reward is only the first step. Players must log in daily from Oct. 17 through Oct. 27 ET to release it in stages, and logging in every day is required to receive the full amount. Rewards not redeemed by the end of that period expire.

Eligible customers can also earn a ticket to the $5,000 Thanksgiving Freeroll, which runs Oct. 18 at 4 p.m. ET and carries no direct buy-in for ticket holders. The tournament pays 70 places, with a minimum payout of $10 in Global Spins tickets.

The winner receives $500, 390 Casino Coins and a $110 MTT ticket. Other prizes include $55 and $25 MTT tickets and a $25 Global Spins ticket.

New depositors can receive boosted Casino Coins through the WPT Global Welcome Offer. PokerNews reported that deposits of $10 to $99 earn 1.5 times the usual Casino Coins, while deposits of $100 or more earn twice the coins. WPT Global noted that some promotion methods may not be available in every region.

Sean Perry was eliminated on Day 1 of Super High Roller Bowl XI in Las Vegas after using both of his $100,000 entries. His second run ended in the final level when Alex Foxen’s pocket threes held against Perry’s rivered top two pair.

The PokerGO Tour event allowed one reentry per player, and Perry used his after losing his first 300,000-chip stack. PokerNews reported that he had initially built that stack to 360,000 in a pot involving Nick Petrangelo and Adrian Mateos, but had dropped to 23,000 by Level 4 before doubling twice through Kristen Foxen and eventually busting.

On his second entry, Perry first lost a substantial pot when his two pair was beaten by Alex Foxen’s straight. Their decisive hand began with Perry raising the button to 13,000 holding jack-nine, while Foxen called from the small blind with pocket threes.

Foxen checked his bottom set on the jack-seven-three flop, then raised Perry’s 10,000 continuation bet to 29,000. Perry called again when Foxen bet 32,000 on the four turn. The nine river gave Perry top two pair, but Foxen’s set remained best. Foxen bet 150,000, covering Perry’s remaining 114,000 chips, and Perry called to lose his second entry.

The opening day at the PokerGO Studio began with 17 players and recorded 23 entries, with 12 players advancing. Ben Tollerene and Vinny Lingham also used all permitted entries and were eliminated, while Nick Schulman, Jesse Lonis, Chris Hunichen and Petrangelo still had an available reentry before Day 2.

Two-time Super High Roller Bowl champion Seth Davies led the returning field with 882,000 chips, or 110 big blinds. Foxen sat second with 768,000, and defending champion Joao Simao advanced with 548,000. Igor Yaroshevskyy, Talal Shakerchi, Jeremy Ausmus and Jason Koon were also among the survivors.

Late registration remained open until the Day 2 restart, meaning the field could still grow beyond its 23 Day 1 entries. Play was scheduled to resume Friday, Oct. 9, at the PokerGO Studio, with the Day 2 stream scheduled for PokerGO later that afternoon.

PokerStars will stop serving Alberta poker players on Tuesday, Oct. 13, ending the temporary access the province allowed through its international site after the regulated online-gambling market opened in July.

The cutoff coincides with the end of Alberta’s three-month grace period for operators without a local licence. PokerStars’ message to customers, first reported by Pokerfuse, did not say whether or when a locally licensed Alberta poker room might launch.

Players registered in Alberta will lose access to the site, with PokerStars using both IP-location data and account-registration information to enforce the restriction. The operator said customer funds will remain protected and withdrawable at all times.

Tournament entries for events starting on or after Oct. 13 will be refunded to player balances. Non-promotional rewards will be converted to cash and credited to those balances.

As covered in July, PokerStars initially kept poker available in Alberta after removing its casino and sportsbook products when the province’s competitive market launched on July 13. The poker exit now removes that remaining international PokerStars product from the province.

A return would require a licence from the Alberta Gaming, Liquor, and Cannabis Commission. PokerStars operates in Ontario under the PokerStars on FanDuel brand, but there is no clear indication that an Alberta version of that arrangement is planned.

The unresolved question for regulated poker is player liquidity. Interested parties argued for and against international player pooling at an Oct. 7 hearing, where counsel for Alberta’s attorney general supported it. No definitive answer had emerged, and Alberta’s eventual rules on pooling with Ontario or international markets are expected to shape the province’s online-poker outlook.

Sean Winter held the narrowest of leads in the 2026 PokerGO Tour race on Oct. 8, sitting on 1,850 points from 15 cashes. Eelis Parssinen was seven points back in second place as the tour moved into its final stretch, with about three-quarters of the season complete.

Winter took over first place at the PGT PLO Series event on Oct. 2. He finished fourth in the $15,700 pot-limit Omaha mystery bounty tournament for 58 points, while Parssinen’s fifth-place finish earned 44, according to Card Player. That 14-point swing turned a small Parssinen lead into Winter’s seven-point advantage.

Winter had more than $3.6 million in earnings from PGT-qualified events, including eight six-figure scores. His largest listed result was a fourth-place finish worth $1.3 million in the $250,000 no-limit hold’em high roller at the World Series of Poker.

His sole victory of the season to that point came in a $10,000 no-limit hold’em PokerGO Cup event. Winter beat 70 entries for his eighth career PGT title.

Parssinen had seven cashes and two wins, both at the WSOP within a six-day span. He beat 451 entries in a $25,000 PLO eight-max event for about $2.16 million, then won a $25,000 PLO and no-limit hold’em mixed tournament with 214 entries for about $1.17 million. His PGT earnings were approaching $3.8 million.

Brock Wilson stood third with 1,681 points from 13 in-the-money finishes and more than $1.4 million in earnings. He had won four PGT trophies, split between the U.S. Poker Open and PokerGO Cup, and captured the series championship at both festivals.

Alex Foxen was fourth with 1,642 points and more than $2.2 million in PGT earnings. Yuri Dzivielevski rounded out the top five and was the group’s highest earner, with more than $5.1 million across seven cashes. Lucas Jumalon, Joao Simao, Kristen Foxen, Calvin Anderson and Lauri Saaskilahti occupied sixth through 10th.

The PGT had paid more than $99.9 million across 102 completed events by Oct. 8. The tour’s season-long leaderboard covers high-stakes events under one ranking system, and points are generally tied to buy-in levels and prize money won.

The $100,000 no-limit hold’em Super High Roller Bowl XI runs through Oct. 10. Poker Masters follows from Oct. 12-22 with 10 events and buy-ins from $10,000 to $50,000. The top 40 players who have at least three season cashes qualify for the $1 million PGT Championship freeroll, which awards $500,000 to its winner.

The WPT Prime Lodge Championship moved into its second starting flight Friday at The Lodge Card Club in Austin, Texas, with Day 1B beginning at 12:15 p.m. The $1,100 No-Limit Hold’em event carries a $1 million guaranteed prize pool and has four opening flights before the surviving players combine for Day 2.

At the start of Level 3, Day 1B had drawn 85 entries and 81 players remained. The World Poker Tour live updates listed blinds at 200-400 with a 400 ante, while the average stack stood at 41,975 chips, or 104 big blinds. As reported in August, the championship was set as the centerpiece of the Sept. 24-Oct. 12 WPT Prime Lodge festival in Austin.

Players began Day 1B with 40,000 chips, with 40-minute levels and breaks after every three levels. Registration and unlimited re-entry remained available until the start of Level 10, at about 7:30 p.m., following a 45-minute dinner break after Level 9. Play is set to stop once 12.5% of the field remains, which is also the money bubble.

Day 1A attracted 173 entries, producing 22 Day 2 qualifiers when its money bubble burst during Level 16. Kenneth McKeown bagged the chip lead with 739,000, ahead of Justin Smith on 685,000 and David Pelosi on 592,000. WPT 2025 World Champion Schuyler Thornton also advanced.

The final two starting flights are set for Saturday, with Day 1C beginning at 11:15 a.m. and Day 1D at 6:15 p.m. Day 2 follows Sunday at 12:15 p.m., while the final table is scheduled for Monday at 2:15 p.m.

Eight dealerless Jackpot Blitz poker tables are now open at Pechanga Resort Casino outside Temecula, California, giving the property a new electronic, multiplayer poker option. The Oct. 9 launch is Jackpot Digital’s largest deployment at a single property to date.

The installation fulfills an eight-table agreement announced July 27. The agreement said Jackpot Digital’s technical and customer-success teams would support installation at the casino.

The tables sit in the Table Games section near the casino-floor escalator. Pechanga marked the opening with a ribbon-cutting attended by Pechanga Development Corporation board members, casino executives and Jackpot Digital leadership. Vice President of Table Games Paul Mollo also handed out EasyPlay and apparel prizes during the launch.

Jackpot Blitz is a fully automated system intended to retain a shared, face-to-face table experience without a live dealer. Each table has a 75-inch touchscreen surface and eight player seats. Its proprietary card-bending technology mechanically bends and reveals cards in real time at the table.

The company says eliminating a live dealer can produce faster play, more hands per hour, lower operating costs and greater table uptime. Jackpot Digital also markets the system as removing dealer mistakes and tipping, while supporting around-the-clock automated tournaments, including Sit ’N’ Go, multitable collapsible and satellite formats.

Players can use the system for Texas Hold’em and Omaha poker, including side bets, and can play blackjack, baccarat and video poker while seated. The platform supports ticket-in-ticket-out, integration with most casino-management systems, automated reporting, and real-time financial and gameplay statistics, according to Jackpot Digital’s product materials.

Pechanga’s poker offering around the launch includes cash games, tournaments, giveaways and bad-beat jackpots. The casino, owned and operated by the Pechanga Band of Indians, has 5,500 slot machines, table games and 1,100 hotel rooms. It has held AAA Four Diamond status since 2002.

Mollo said Pechanga expected both newcomers and established players to enjoy the modern dealerless format. Jackpot Digital President and CEO Jake Kalpakian called the eight-table opening an important scalability milestone for the company’s dealerless poker platform.

ACR Poker will launch its USA Weekly Leaderboard on Monday, Oct. 12, giving U.S.-registered accounts four nights of designated tournaments to earn points toward Sunday ticket packages. The top 10 finishers each week will split $6,195 in tournament tickets, rather than cash.

The inaugural contest runs Oct. 12-15. Tickets will be issued Friday, Oct. 16, for use in the featured Sunday events on Oct. 18. The same Monday-through-Thursday qualifying format, Friday distribution and following-Sunday redemption schedule will apply in later weeks.

Players can score points in 40 qualifying tournaments, with 10 starting each night from 6:15 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. ET. A USA flag in the poker client identifies eligible events; tournaments outside that designated lineup do not count. Only accounts registered in the United States can place on the leaderboard or receive rewards.

First place receives a $1,294 package covering all 10 featured Sunday tournaments. That bundle includes the $630 Sunday HR, which carries a $500,000 guarantee, and the $215 Sunday Special, with a $200,000 guarantee. Both begin at 12:05 p.m. ET.

Players finishing second through fifth receive $664 in tickets apiece, without the Sunday HR. Sixth through 10th each receive $449, excluding both the Sunday HR and Sunday Special.

Every rewarded player receives entries to eight other events: Sunday Splash, Major Mash up MB, Sunday Moneymaker, Sunday Smash, Mini-Special, Pardy Time PKO, The Encore MB and Curtain Call MB. The featured Sunday schedule begins at 10:30 a.m. ET and runs through a 4:15 p.m. ET start time.

The tickets do not automatically enter winners into those events. Recipients must register themselves before registration closes, and unused tickets expire at midnight ET on the first Sunday after the contest, with no carryover to a future week.

Nevada gubernatorial candidate Danielle Ford reached the final table of Charity Series of Poker’s Every Hand Makes a Difference fundraiser in Las Vegas on Oct. 3, finishing fifth and receiving two Vegas Golden Knights tickets.

The event, CSOP’s 108th, was held at Via Brasil Steakhouse and raised money for the Junior League of Las Vegas. Tamar Berkowitz of Volunteers of Las Vegas won the trophy and $2,000 top prize after defeating 2013 WSOP Main Event champion Ryan Riess heads-up. Riess collected $1,500 for second place.

As we reported ahead of the event, Every Hand Makes a Difference paired the tournament with dinner, an open bar and a silent auction for the Junior League of Las Vegas. The advertised prize package included $5,000 in cash and $10,000 in donated prizes, while tournament-and-dinner admission cost $300.

Ford called the hockey tickets “great extra bonuses” from a fun night supporting a good cause. She said she enjoys poker as a way to step away from work and life stresses, describing the game as “almost meditative” because its many aspects keep her focused.

Riess and MGM Resorts International poker executive Sean McCormack were among the guest bounties who also made the final table. PokerNews reported that the other finalists included longtime CSOP supporter Sidney Coca and CSOP villain Dave Freeston. Actress Katie Morgan was also listed among the event’s guest bounties.

Ford serves on the Nevada State Board of Education and is running for governor without a party affiliation against Democratic candidate Aaron Ford and incumbent Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo. Her campaign describes her as a “Nevada-first nonpartisan” candidate who wants to bring practical systems repair to public systems used by Nevada families.

Nevada’s gubernatorial election is scheduled for Nov. 3.

AceGuardian Research has released an open-source toolkit intended to help online poker operators identify superusers from completed no-limit hold’em hand histories. The MIT-licensed package includes a technical playbook, Python and data pipeline, screening tools, hand-level tests, a Bayesian range model, an equity engine and an anonymized case study.

The repository is built for hand histories where an operator knows every player’s hole cards. Operators can run it on their own data, while players can submit hand histories to QuintAce for analysis and operators can submit them to AceGuardian. The project is specifically aimed at superusing, and AceGuardian says bots and collusion require dedicated models.

The system evaluates hands after they finish, comparing a player’s actions with their actual cards, the opponent’s actual cards and a predicted opponent range based on historical play. Its core test asks whether a player’s folds and calls remain unusually dependent on an opponent’s hidden cards after equity against that predicted range is accounted for.

Population screening looks for unusual win rates and playing styles over adjustable periods, and can cluster accounts. Other signals include “oracle folds,” successful low-equity bets and outlier bluff-catching. Flagged hands receive a 0-to-100 risk score based on the decision, hand strength, pot size and timing, although timing is optional as a screening signal because players naturally act at different speeds.

The system does not automatically ban accounts. It produces a player score and a ranked list of suspicious hands for expert review, and a case is only flagged when multiple signals agree across many hands. John Andress, AceGuardian’s head of game integrity, said the aim was to keep a human involved in the final decision.

A reviewed $25/$50 heads-up case showed why win rate alone may not identify suspicious play. The suspect played 757 hands over 10 weeks, won about $45,000 and recorded no losing sessions across 14 meetings. Their best 720-hand win-rate run ranked only around the 81st percentile among 2,010 comparable players, below a top-10% threshold, but the basic model flagged 72 hands and placed the player in the top 1% on six signals among 193 comparable heads-up players.

The GitHub repository contains a slightly different, 718-hand anonymized sample. It says the published 757-hand population figures cannot be reproduced from the bundled data. In simulator testing, the range-adjusted screen found planted superusers using hidden information on all or half of their decisions, but not those using it on a quarter of decisions. Among 285 simulated honest players, the decision-signal screen flagged none, while win rate alone flagged 26. Those are simulator results rather than real-world detection rates.

AceGuardian says it has operated anti-cheat systems since 2019 across seven platforms, checking tens of millions of decisions daily. On one operator’s games, it said a 32-core node processed a median 26.8 million postflop decisions a day in roughly 3.4 hours.

The release followed disclosure of a remote-access agent distributed through compromised versions of Jurojin Poker and IntuitiveTables. According to AceGuardian’s account, the intrusion gave an attacker access to players’ screens, files, keyboards and mice, allowing hole cards to be read from players’ devices rather than poker-site servers. The company argues that platform-side detection can still work regardless of how the hidden information was obtained, because exploiting it creates measurable decision patterns.

The launch also arrives after concerns over the Paul Gregg account, whose suspicious activity had generated warnings at poker sites before the allegations became public, as we reported in September.

ACR Poker’s first women-only online tournament drew 115 entries on Oct. 4, paying 14 players from its $25,000 prize pool. Player pinklily28 won the $215 Ladies Online Championship for $5,625 and a trophy, while WinniePoohBear took $4,425 for second.

Whittycat21 earned $3,500 in third place and charterqueen received $2,625 for fourth, according to ACR Poker’s results. The one-day event was restricted to verified women, with ACR previously saying that any men found playing would forfeit winnings without a buy-in refund.

As we reported before play began, the Ladies Online Championship shared its Oct. 4 schedule with the opening flights of ACR Poker’s Dual Venom PKOs. Katie Lindsay had helped introduce the event and invited women and their poker communities to take part.

The full tournament aired on ACR’s acr_pkr Twitch channel, with Lindsay and fellow ambassador Svitlana “svetarik” Dryha providing commentary. Lindsay, Dryha and the other female ambassadors and streamers were eliminated before the money, but remained on the broadcast to discuss hands and the finalists’ play.

PokerListings described a loud finish to the stream, with the commentators screaming during the final-hand showdown. Its coverage suggested the debut’s reception could lead to another edition, potentially with more satellites and giveaways.

Sagami has withdrawn the advertisement that explicitly listed condoms and lubricant among the prizes for the Japan Open Poker Tour Ladies Championship in Tokyo, after the promotion drew widespread criticism from players and fans.

The ¥30,000 buy-in women-only event remains scheduled for Monday, Oct. 12, during JOPT 2026 Tokyo #03. The detailed listing had offered 150 condoms and three bottles of lubricant to the winner, with smaller condom and lubricant packages for the second- and third-place finishers.

As we reported earlier this week, the original prize list drew objections that a tournament intended to support women poker players was instead sexualizing its finalists.

The specific prize description has now been removed. Sagami’s remaining sponsorship language describes the awards more broadly as Sagami Product Gift Sets, and successful players still appear set to receive those generic packages. The top finishers were also due to receive sponsored merchandise, clothing and jewelry.

Sagami apologized Oct. 7 to people made uncomfortable by the sponsorship. The company said its aim was to promote poker as a mind game, support the challenges of female players, and encourage respect for opponents and oneself. Its original sponsorship materials had said Sagami, a manufacturer of condoms and related products, supported women players’ journeys and challenges.

The change narrows the public description of the sponsored awards, rather than removing the sponsor from the event. JOPT’s website had initially set out the contents of each gift set, including Sagami Original products and water-based lubricant, before switching to the general wording used in Sagami’s press release.

The bonus packages were separate from the tournament’s main prizes. Japanese gaming laws prevent cash payouts to tournament winners, so the Ladies Championship prize pool consists of player contracts and tournament tickets, reported at roughly $10,900 in value, rather than cash. The Ladies Championship is set to begin at noon local time on Oct. 12.

Sean Rafael won the fourth Super High Roller Bowl Pot-Limit Omaha in Las Vegas, taking $1.15 million and the PokerGO Tour trophy after defeating Brazil’s João Simao heads-up. The $100,000 buy-in event at PokerGO Studio drew 32 entries, generated a $3.2 million prize pool and paid its final six players.

Rafael began the final table with more than half the chips in play, holding just over 4.9 million. His closest challengers were Simao on 1.415 million and Lautaro Guerra on 1.125 million.

The eventual champion recorded six of the tournament’s final seven eliminations, including four of his five final-table opponents. He knocked out Cesar Garcia in sixth, Guerra in fifth, Talal Shakerchi in fourth and Richard Gryko in third before facing Simao heads-up.

Garcia earned $190,000, Guerra took $255,000 and Shakerchi received $350,000. Gryko collected $480,000, while Simao’s runner-up finish paid $775,000.

As covered in September, Simao had recently won the Triton Jeju Invitational in South Korea for a record $7.25 million, but he could not add another title here. Rafael entered heads-up with nearly a 4:1 chip lead, though the final hand left him needing help on the river.

Simao’s A-diamond, K-heart, 5-heart, 4-heart was ahead of Rafael’s A-club, 7-club, 7-spade, 6-diamond on a 9-diamond, 4-diamond, 4-club, 6-club board. Rafael had a 27.5% chance to win, and the 9-club river completed his flush to end the tournament.

The win was Rafael’s first seven-figure tournament score and the largest live result of his career, lifting his recorded career earnings to about $7.9 million. It was also his second PGT title, worth 400 tour points; his season total rose to 684, placing him 58th in the standings.

Rafael earned 480 Card Player Player of the Year points, bringing his annual total to 4,176 and putting him 36th on that leaderboard. He has spent nearly three years traveling the growing global PLO tournament circuit and said the United States needs more live events, particularly at mid-stakes buy-ins, because he often has to travel far to play.

Chances Casino Kelowna’s third annual Charity Poker Tournament generated C$20,000 in prize money for local charities when it was held Oct. 6.

Dale Conway, the founder of Current Taxi, secured C$4,000 for the Kelowna General Hospital Foundation while playing on its behalf. The rest of the prize pool was distributed among charities represented by the other players, meaning every dollar was directed to causes entered in the event.

Stan Walt, Chances Casino Kelowna’s owner-operator, said the tournament has become an annual event that organizers look forward to. He described it as a way to bring together people from across the community while allowing each participant to support a cause important to them.

The C$20,000 total matched the amount raised at the casino’s second annual Charity Poker Tournament. That earlier event had 17 participants competing for chosen causes, with each represented organization receiving a portion of the prize pool.

TeamUp Canada took the top C$5,000 prize in that second tournament for a second straight year, represented by West Kelowna Warriors general manager and head coach Simon Ferguson. Elvin Law of Crowe MacKay LLP finished second and secured C$2,500 for United Way BC.

The second tournament coincided with the casino’s first year of poker operations. At that point, Chances Casino Kelowna had expanded its schedule to four weekly tournaments and daily cash games.

PokerNews and 888poker will run the 2026 PokerNews Online Championship from Oct. 18 through Oct. 27, with 40 tournaments and more than $780,000 in guaranteed prize pools. Buy-ins range from $8.80 to $525, and the schedule spans traditional events, deep stacks, progressive knockouts and mystery bounties.

The series will award 40 titles across its 10 days. PokerNews said the schedule has three events from Monday through Saturday and 13 tournaments on Sundays, when its largest guarantees are scheduled.

The $109 Mystery Opening Event starts the festival on Oct. 18 with an $80,000 guarantee. Players can enter satellites for that tournament from $0.10 in the 888 lobby.

Two Main Events account for $300,000 of the overall guarantees. The $25 Mystery Mini Main, listed as Event 35, guarantees $50,000; its Day 1 flights begin Oct. 18, and the second and final day starts at 9:30 p.m. GMT on Oct. 26.

The larger Mystery Bounty Main Event carries a $250,000 guarantee. Its $250 Day 1 flights run from Oct. 11 through Oct. 26, meaning they begin a week before the official championship schedule opens, while satellites offer another route into the event.

Day 2 of the Mystery Bounty Main ends once eight players remain. Those finalists return at 7 p.m. GMT on Oct. 27, with the conclusion set to air on the 888poker Twitch stream.

This is a return engagement for the partnership. Pokerfuse reported that an earlier February PokerNews Online Championship also had 40 events, but offered more than $1 million in guarantees, including a $300,000-guaranteed $215 Main Event and a $50,000-guaranteed $25 Mystery Bounty Main Event.

Tonybet launched poker on its Irish platform Oct. 6, giving customers cash tables, scheduled tournaments and Spins alongside the operator’s existing sports betting, live casino and slots products.

The poker product runs within the Tonybet website, so existing Irish customers do not need a separate app or a new account. Sports betting, casino and poker now sit behind one account and wallet across desktop and mobile.

Cash-game players can join and leave tables at any time. Scheduled tournaments use buy-ins and prize pools, while Spins are faster tournaments played in smaller fields. Rules for each format are available on the Tonybet site.

EvenBet Gaming supplies the poker technology. The business-to-business poker provider has delivered more than 200 poker projects across 20 countries, according to Casino News Daily.

Poker becomes part of a wider Irish product range that includes a sportsbook covering more than 100 sports, plus a casino with more than 9,000 titles from over 1,000 providers. Tonybet also offers responsible-gaming tools across its markets, including deposit limits, session reminders, cooling-off periods and self-exclusion.

Tony Cascarino, a Tonybet ambassador and former Republic of Ireland striker, welcomed the launch. Cascarino won two Grosvenor UK Poker Tour titles and has more than $600,000 in live tournament winnings.

Brazil’s new gambling restrictions took effect Oct. 6, closing licensed online betting and gaming offerings while leaving online poker available. PokerStars, GGPoker and PartyPoker continued to have Brazilian players at their tables after the change.

The distinction rests on the scope of the measure. It targets fixed-odds betting, including sports betting and online casinos, while Brazil classifies poker as a game of skill rather than gambling. PokerStrategy.com reported on Oct. 6 that the executive order had initially left poker’s status unclear, but operators remained open.

PokerStars told players that its peer-to-peer poker product was not covered because games are played between players and differ from the fixed-odds products subject to restrictions. “Poker therefore remains available to Brazilian players,” the operator said, adding that it would monitor the situation for changes.

The transition has not been entirely smooth for every PokerStars customer. Some Brazilian players experienced difficulty accessing the site after the measures began, and PokerStars said it was examining whether internet-service-provider restrictions were involved. It advised affected players to check their network connections and relevant server settings, since the problem could be tied to a local setup.

PokerStars also said player funds remained secure and that it was monitoring payment services for any changes to deposits or withdrawals. No comparable connectivity problems had been publicly reported at GGPoker, according to Pokerfuse.

The government announced the wider ban Sept. 25 through Provisional Measure No. 1,394/2026, prohibiting the operation, offering, brokering and advertising of online betting and gaming platforms. The policy reversal came more than two years after Law No. 14,790/2023 created the foundations for a regulated fixed-odds market, which launched Jan. 1, 2025.

That regulated market finished its first year with more than 180 authorised websites and roughly R$22 billion in gross gaming revenue, according to Focus Gaming News. A study by the Locomotiva Institute and LCA Consultoria Económica estimated illegal platforms still represented about 51% of the fixed-odds betting market.

Players using the affected betting platforms had until 11:59 p.m. Oct. 5 to withdraw available balances voluntarily. Remaining balances are scheduled to be refunded from Oct. 9 through Oct. 14.

Kayhan Mokri and GucciNIKE traded several six-figure pots in CoinPoker’s biggest PLO5 action of the week, with GucciNIKE taking the session’s marquee hand. Card Player’s Oct. 7 weekly roundup identified the Mokri-GucciNIKE battle as the week’s biggest action, and the high-stakes cash games reached $500/$1,000 during the period covered.

GucciNIKE won the previous week’s largest reported CoinPoker cash-game pot, a roughly $548,000 heads-up $500/$1,000 PLO5 hand against sammyjazzykins. As we reported last week, GucciNIKE scooped that pot after the board was run twice, overcoming sammyjazzykins’ 65.45% equity when the money went in.

The new result did not make GucciNIKE the week’s biggest tracked winner. Giselle54 posted more than $2 million in tracked PLO-table profits, while GucciNIKE narrowly missed a second straight week of seven-figure profits.

The cash-game action ran alongside CoinPoker’s tournament The One, which guaranteed $1 million to its eventual champion and drew much of the online poker world’s attention. The roundup also highlighted a $338,312 no-limit hold’em pot in which Daniiiiiil beat PandasAreCool after turning a set.

CoinPoker’s biggest no-limit games use antes, which increase the starting pot and encourage looser, more aggressive play. In solver examples, the big blind folded 42% of the time against a button open in an ante game, compared with 56% in a standard cash game, while its raising frequency rose from 11% to 15%.

RunGood Poker Series will return to Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa for a six-day Golden Expedition stop from Oct. 20-25. The Oklahoma series has eight championship-ring events, led by an $800 Main Event carrying a $100,000 guaranteed prize pool.

The Main Event has four starting flights, two on Oct. 23 and two on Oct. 24, before its noon final on Oct. 25. PokerNews will provide live coverage of the tournament.

The festival opens Oct. 20 with three ring events: a $300 Seniors event for players 50 and older, a $250 Series Opener with a $10,000 guarantee, and a $300 Tag Team Double event that costs $150 per player. On-demand Flip and Go satellites will also be available that day.

A $400 PokerNews PowerStack follows on Oct. 21 with two starting flights and a $50,000 guarantee, with its final scheduled for the following morning. The remaining ring schedule includes a $400 40/40/40 No-Limit Hold’em event, a $400 Pot-Limit Omaha event and a $400 Black Chip Bounty No-Limit Hold’em tournament, which starts alongside the Main Event final on Oct. 25.

Players can also take shots at the Main through satellites. A $300 RG Mega Package satellite on Oct. 21 awards entry to both the PowerStack and Main Event plus $100 cash, while $185 Main Event satellites run Oct. 22 and Oct. 24, awarding one seat for every five entries.

Tulsa hosted RunGood earlier this year during the tour’s Passport Season. That $800 Main Event drew 209 entries and generated a $146,300 prize pool, with Jesse Jones winning $34,074 and his third RunGood ring after beating Joshua Hatfield heads-up.

RunGood’s 2026 Fall Season is branded Golden Expedition and brings back its Player of the Year race powered by The Hendon Mob and Global Poker Index. The season concludes with the Dream Factory Festival at Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln, California, from Nov. 27 through Dec. 3, including two invitationals for 2026 RunGood ring winners.

PokerNews has added a second PGT Championship seat to the RunGood Dream Factory Festival at Thunder Valley Casino Resort, giving RunGood ring winners two separate routes into the January 2027 championship. The added seat goes to the winner of the RunGood Winner’s Circle, while the RunGood Dream Seat Invitational will award its champion a PGT Championship seat.

The two $300 invitationals are reserved for players who won an official RGPS Championship Ring in the 2023, 2024, 2025 or 2026 seasons. Each tournament will also award its runner-up a $600 Hendon Mob Mid-Major Championship seat and third place a $400 PokerNews Cup seat.

As we reported in August, the fall PokerNews PowerStack leaderboard also sends its top 10 players to Thunder Valley with entry to the Dream Seat Invitational, a $300 travel stipend and a two-night hotel stay. Players earn the leaderboard points in eligible PowerStack events across the fall RGPS schedule.

The inaugural PowerStack leaderboard sent 11 players to Thunder Valley for the $1,200 Million Dollar Main Event at the RGPS Passport Season Finale. This time, a player who reaches the top 10 and wins the Dream Seat Invitational can continue through the RGPS route to a PGT Championship seat.

Dream Factory runs Nov. 27 through Dec. 3 at Thunder Valley in Lincoln, California. The Winner’s Circle is set for Dec. 1 and the Dream Seat Invitational follows on Dec. 2, putting the two PGT-seat events on consecutive days.

PokerNews lists the Winner’s Circle start time as 11 a.m., while RunGood’s event announcement lists noon. Every Winner’s Circle participant also has a chance to be selected for the “Compete for the Seat” gameshow during the evening player party at Illusions Bar, where $6,000 in prizes is available.

PokerNews will provide live updates from both invitationals. The resulting PGT Championship seats lead to the January 2027 event at the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas.

CrorePlay will run its three-week Festive Fortune Series from Oct. 12 through Nov. 1, putting $2.5 million in guaranteed prizes behind a schedule of progressive knockout tournaments.

The series gives players in India a chance to earn cash for eliminating opponents, while also turning bounty performance into leaderboard points. CardPlayer reported that the leaderboard scoring is based on the value of a player’s knockouts. The promotion adds special multipliers for showdowns involving J-x and J-J.

Progressive knockouts put a bounty on each player, funded by part of the buy-in. In the standard format, the player making an elimination receives half the bounty immediately, while the other half is added to that player’s own bounty, according to GTO Wizard. That structure can make knockouts valuable alongside ordinary tournament-chip considerations.

Festive Fortune is one part of CrorePlay’s wider October campaign. The company has also scheduled Festive Hands Cash Games for the same Oct. 12-Nov. 1 period, with weekly rewards including Flip-Out Tickets, random prizes, a daily Festive Hour at 20:00 CET and a Daily Festive Draw; PokerStrategy reported that some mechanics and reward rules were still being finalized.

As covered in September, CrorePlay had previously added the $1.245 million Bonus Bonanza daily tournament promotion, whose payouts were bonus cash released through cash-game rake. Festive Fortune instead centers its announced rewards around knockout bounties, leaderboard scoring and the J-x and J-J multipliers.

CrorePlay’s October lineup also includes revised PLO Hand Quest and Rakeback Riches promotions, while its three-month Great Indian Poker Fest offers milestone prizes including InstaCash, a Super Meteor Bike, a Vegas trip and a Tata Sierra EV.

Shannon Shorr won his fourth World Series of Poker bracelet in the 2026 WSOP Online $400 no-limit hold’em Mystery Bounty, defeating Mike Holtz heads-up for $59,616 in total prize money. The 41-year-old outlasted a field of 1,149 entries.

The final hand turned on the river. Shorr’s K-Q trailed Holtz’s pocket fives until a king arrived, sealing the title as Shorr’s wife and children watched from home. CardPlayer reported that he replayed the hand for his children and said, “River king, Daddy wins!”

The result continues a distinctly online bracelet record for Shorr. All four of his WSOP titles have come in online events, beginning with two wins during the 2023 WSOPO: a $2,000 no-limit hold’em six-max event worth $89,126 and a $1,000 NLH freezeout that paid $35,539.

Shorr’s second 2023 title came 11 days after the first and ended a 17-year wait for his first bracelet. He added bracelet No. 3 in 2025, exactly two years after the second, in another mystery bounty event that earned him $56,143.

The latest win adds to a long WSOP record that began with an in-the-money finish in a $2,000 buy-in event in 2006. Shorr now has more than $18.3 million in career tournament earnings, including more than $4 million from WSOP events.

Noor Rassam and Panayiotis Karayiannis have each received a three-year prison sentence, suspended for three years, after operating an unlicensed poker business from an industrial unit in Splott, Cardiff. The men admitted possessing and transferring criminal property contrary to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 on the first day of their trial.

The operation ran from August 2022 to February 2024. It offered poker both in person and online, promoted games through WhatsApp, and took a commission from each hand, known as rake, rather than playing directly against customers.

The Gambling Commission said the case followed intelligence it passed to Tarian Regional Organised Crime Unit. In February 2024, investigators executed warrants at the unit and addresses connected to the pair, arresting both men and seizing cash, documents, digital devices and high-value items.

The upstairs room contained six poker tables, a spinning prize wheel, seating and fridges stocked with food and drink. Access was through a fire exit monitored by CCTV, while an office held poker chips, tokens, records of money paid and owed, and a Perspex-protected cashier window.

The live events were first promoted as Ding Ding Poker and later renamed Fish Tank Poker Cardiff. Online games operated through a subscription poker application under the Fish Tank Online account name.

Financial enquiries identified about £260,000 in third-party payments to Rassam and about £124,000 to Karayiannis during the period of the operation. Numerous account transactions referenced poker. Detective Constable Charles Lan said the business generated substantial undeclared profits and that its harm “should not be underestimated.”

Police said the games were promoted to people involved in serious crime, including drug dealers and organised crime groups. Investigators also found that some customers lost significant sums and became indebted to the organisers, while the operation had no measures to identify or support vulnerable people or those experiencing gambling addiction.

Gambling Commission executive Sue Young said the case carried a clear warning for illegal casino operators and that the regulator would continue working with partners against unlicensed gambling in Great Britain. A Proceeds of Crime Act hearing is scheduled for April 9, 2027.

Tiffany Keathley, an Arkansas poker player and RunGood Poker Series champion, died Sept. 27 at age 40. No circumstances or cause of death had been made public, and no public obituary had been reported.

Daniel Lowery shared news of Keathley’s death on social media that day. Lowery, a 21-time WSOP Circuit ring winner, wrote that his “heart breaks today upon hearing the news of a good friend,” adding that he had lost too many people who were too young and urging people not to ignore those who say they are struggling.

Fellow southern-circuit regulars Scott Smile and Chris Read also paid tribute. Read called Keathley “a sweet soul” with whom he had spent many days talking.

Keathley’s largest recorded tournament score came in August 2019, when she won the $575 RGPS Main Event at Horseshoe Tunica for $48,796 and a championship ring. PokerNews’ contemporaneous coverage recorded a 632-player field, the largest RGPS Main Event field at the time.

Her victory came after the final five players agreed to a deal, with Keathley holding the chip lead. During the event, she survived a three-way all-in against Lowery and another player by making a river straight against Lowery’s flopped set, then later eliminated Lowery in 15th place after flopping trips against his aces.

That title was the first Main Event win of the RGPS Game 7 championship season. It followed Keathley’s first recorded tournament cash in July 2019, a third-place finish in a WSOP Circuit event at Choctaw worth $10,058.

Keathley remained a regular on the southern live-poker circuit, with recorded cashes in Durant, Houston, Pocola, Tulsa and Tunica. Hendon Mob data cited in the death reports listed her career live-tournament earnings at $115,328.

She returned to the RGPS Tunica final table in 2023, finishing seventh for $10,827 alongside 2003 WSOP Main Event champion Chris Moneymaker. Her last recorded cash was 43rd place in the WSOP Circuit Tunica Main Event in April 2024, worth $3,281.

Manjunath Mulinti won the $1,700 WSOP Circuit Thunder Valley Main Event, beating a 599-entry field for his first Circuit ring and a career-best $172,325. The tournament at Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln, California, generated a $907,485 prize pool and paid 90 players.

Mulinti defeated Jesse Stephens heads-up after a five-hand match. Stephens collected $114,660 as runner-up, while Jonathan Wang earned $79,490 for third. Mulinti had eliminated Wang with a river straight to set up the final duel.

The result marked a sharp improvement on Mulinti’s previous run in the same event. He finished seventh for $26,920 in January, when it was only his second recorded live tournament cash. Card Player reported that the title was his 11th recorded cash, with all of his recorded earnings coming during 2026 and reaching about $257,000 after the victory.

Mulinti, who is from outside San Jose, California, said he used the months after that first final table to study deep-run and ICM decisions. He also worked with coach Florian Pesce after meeting him at the 2026 World Series of Poker. “I did my studies and learned my lessons from the mistakes I made,” Mulinti said. “I’ve been prepping for it.”

He began this final table as chip leader, but described it as a tougher lineup than his January appearance, naming Stephens, Wang and J.C. Tran. Tran ultimately finished eighth. Mulinti built a large lead three-handed, holding about two-thirds of the chips in play before taking out Wang and quickly closing out Stephens.

The win followed other deep summer results, including 16th place from 2,148 entries in the $1,700 WSOP Circuit Championship bracelet event. It also earned Mulinti 840 Card Player Player of the Year points, bringing his 2026 total to 1,187.

As a 2026 Circuit ring winner, Mulinti receives a $5,000 WSOP Paradise package, including entry to the $2,750 Circuit Championship Mystery Bounty event and accommodations at Baha Mar Resort in the Bahamas. The event is held in December.

Chess Woman Grandmaster Nemo Zhou will visit Champions Social Club in North Dallas for a three-day run of chess and poker events from Oct. 14-16. The program includes a live chess challenge, two invite-only poker nights and a community poker meetup, with selected events broadcast online.

The opening event, Queen of the Hill, begins at 6 p.m. Oct. 14. CW33 reported that local players will be able to play live games against Zhou, compete for club credit and other prizes, and watch the action streamed on YouTube through Champions Club Live.

Champions’ event listing describes Queen of the Hill as social chess against Zhou, who also uses the name Nemsko. It uses a 3|2 blitz clock, meaning three minutes plus a two-second increment. Each player who wins becomes the new ruler, but each victory removes 10 seconds from that player’s clock for subsequent defenses.

Zhou will host an invite-only charity poker tournament on Oct. 15, involving athletes, television personalities, entertainers and social-media influencers. An invite-only cash game follows on Oct. 16.

The public-facing poker portion is scheduled for 8 p.m. Oct. 16 in the club’s poker room. Members can play alongside Zhou, meet other competitors and receive tableside food and beverage service. Champions’ events page separately lists a Nemo Meet Up Game on Oct. 16.

Zhou began streaming chess on Twitch in 2020 and built an international following. She holds the International Chess Federation’s Woman Grandmaster title, described by the coverage as the federation’s highest-ranking title exclusively for female players.

The visit fits Champions’ mix of competitive games and social gatherings. The club opened to the public May 14 after a $15 million renovation of the former III Forks steakhouse space, and has two poker areas: a larger room for regular member play, cash games and social tournaments, plus a smaller private room set up for competitive games and livestreaming.

Champions regularly hosts primarily no-limit hold’em cash games, with pot-limit Omaha and higher-limit games available based on demand. Under the Texas framework described by Local Profile, poker can operate when players are the only financial beneficiaries and an operator does not take a rake or profit from the cards themselves.

For a limited time, new Champions members can receive a complimentary year of social membership.

ACR Poker player ANDREWNEIDING1 turned a free ticket from the site’s official Telegram channel into a $14,384.42 payout in the $33 OSSXL #339H Sunday Smash.

The ticket provided entry to a 100-seat guaranteed satellite. ANDREWNEIDING1 advanced through that qualifier to reach the Sunday Smash, then stayed in contention through the closing stages before making a deal for the five-figure payout.

A WebWire release said the tournament finished with a $106,800 prize pool, above the $100,000 guarantee cited in its event name. The free ticket created the initial opportunity, but the player still had to qualify through the satellite and make the deep Sunday Smash run.

The result came during OSS XL, which concluded Sept. 29, as we reported. ACR Poker’s schedule for the series’ final Sunday, Sept. 27, listed a $33 Sunday Smash with a $150,000 guarantee. That differs from the $100,000 advertised guarantee in the subsequent result release, while both published accounts identify a $33 Sunday Smash.

The Telegram channel had launched less than a year before the release and counted about 9,400 members. It is used for promotions, tournament news, events, giveaways and rewards, with prior offers including cash, tournament tickets, satellite entries and SPINZ tickets.

ACR Poker said tens of thousands of dollars in value had already been distributed through the Telegram community. The channel also carries rapidly changing tournament schedules, new-series information, satellites and limited-time promotions, with notifications available for immediate updates.

ACR Poker’s $6.5 million Dual Venom PKOs are underway after the Oct. 4 Day 1A flights sent 86 No-Limit Hold’em players and 17 Pot-Limit Omaha players through to Day 2. Atheist30 bagged the largest NLH stack, while BooooomHeadsot led the PLO field.

Atheist30 finished with 5,186,479 chips from an NLH opening flight that drew 511 entries. The player also collected $5,000 in bounties. kingqueensuited was second in chips with 4,248,891, ahead of SuubZer0 on 4,070,053, while lordgiven earned the most bounty money among the NLH qualifiers, $8,125.

As reported Oct. 4, the series consists of a $5 million guaranteed NLH PKO and a $1.5 million guaranteed PLO PKO, each with a $2,650 direct buy-in and five starting flights.

The PLO opener attracted 133 entries. BooooomHeadsot moved on with 6,706,559 chips and $3,437.50 in bounties, narrowly ahead of bethechange with 6,407,244 and blowdesenutz with 6,134,643. bethechange and sendmehome shared the PLO bounty lead at $9,687.50 each.

The progressive knockout structure pays half of an eliminated player’s bounty to the player making the knockout, with the other half added to the eliminator’s own bounty. That leaves the chip leaders and bounty leaders as separate Day 1A measures in both events.

Four Day 1 flights remain, on Oct. 8, Oct. 11, Oct. 15 and Oct. 18, all beginning at 1:05 p.m. ET. Both tournaments resume for Day 2 on Oct. 19; the NLH event continues to a Day 3 on Oct. 20, and both final tables are set for Oct. 21 at 4:05 p.m. ET.

GGPoker will run a $1 million Halloween Party for cash-game players from Oct. 24 through Oct. 31, offering Mystery Pumpkin prizes worth up to $1,000 in cash. The promotion is part of the room’s wider October promotional campaign and is built around spotting the Jack of Spades during play.

Players earn one Candy whenever the Jack of Spades appears on the board in any GGPoker cash game. Ten Candies can be exchanged for one trick-or-treating chance, which opens a Mystery Pumpkin containing a prize.

The top Mystery Pumpkin award is $1,000 in cash, while players who miss that prize receive a consolation reward. Players can take further shots at the top prize by collecting and redeeming additional sets of 10 Candies.

The party sits within GGPoker’s October Giveaway, which runs from Oct. 1 through Oct. 31 and advertises $18 million in promotions and giveaways across all games. The operator lists $13 million in cash-game giveaways, including $7.5 million in regular cash-game leaderboards and $3 million through Daily $100,000 Flipouts and Rush & Cash Fridays.

The Halloween Party begins immediately after the Bounty Hunters Series ends Oct. 23, as we reported Oct. 2. That knockout festival carries $100 million in guarantees, including a $5 million guaranteed Main Event.

GGPoker’s promotional page frames the new contest simply: “Collect 10 Candies and win up to $1,000!”

GGPoker’s new Ocean KO jackpot progressive knockout format cleared its first test on Sunday, Oct. 4, as all three debut tournaments beat their guarantees. The $10, $100 and $1,000 events attracted 30,061 entries in total and generated just over $1.4 million in prize pools, against $1 million guaranteed.

The launch followed GGPoker’s Oct. 2 announcement and put the format into the Bounty Hunters Series. The $10 tournament accounted for 23,443 entries and a $215,700 prize pool, exceeding its $200,000 guarantee. The $100 event drew 5,926 entries for a $545,200 pool, while the $1,000 tournament brought in 692 entries and built a $657,400 pool. Each of those two higher-buy-in events had a $400,000 guarantee.

Ocean KO combines the usual progressive-knockout structure with a random bounty multiplier on every elimination. Half of each buy-in becomes a player’s bounty, with the balance split between the regular prize pool and fee. In a $10 event, for example, $5 funds the bounty, $4.20 goes to the prize pool and 80 cents is the fee.

When a player makes a knockout, half of the multiplied bounty is paid in cash and the other half is added to that player’s own bounty. A $5 bounty hit by a 10x multiplier becomes $50, paying $25 immediately and adding $25 to the eliminator’s bounty. That creates a $30 bounty for the player after starting at $5.

The multiplier range runs from 0.4x to 400x, and GGPoker says a single Ocean KO bounty can reach $1.5 million. The top 400x result is rare, occurring about once in every 50,000 bounties, while 10x lands 2.4% of the time. More than 72% of knockouts pay less than the bounty’s face value, although Pokerfuse’s format guide says the full multiplier table averages exactly 1x over the long run.

Ocean KO is the first jackpot PKO offered outside France and Spain, according to Pokerfuse. The format began with Winamax’s Space KO in December 2024 and later reached Betclic through Smash KO. Ocean KO’s maximum multiplier is four times Space KO’s 100x ceiling and eight times Smash KO’s 50x maximum.

The earlier formats showed how a knockout can dwarf a conventional tournament finish. One €100 Space KO event with an €80,000 guarantee paid more than €1 million in total, including an €838,000 bounty from a single elimination, while the winner’s first-place prize was just over €5,000.

Ocean KO has 14 bounty-evolution tiers. The first 10 can produce multipliers up to 400x, while four Legendary levels use flatter tables as bounties grow. Legendary Octopus begins at $10,000, and Legendary Shark applies to bounties of at least $1 million, with payouts ranging from 0.8x to 1.5x.

The random outcomes have also prompted concerns for players using staking or backing deals. Poker pro Patrick Leonard said the format makes those arrangements “very very very messy,” arguing that a few bounty-wheel results can swing a backed player’s tournament outcome heavily.

Ocean KO remains part of the $100 million guaranteed Bounty Hunters Series, which runs through Oct. 27. A $5 Ocean KO Opener carries a $1 million guarantee and has its Day 2 on Oct. 12; a $25 Ocean KO with a $2 million guarantee reaches Day 2 on Oct. 19.

The 2026 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour Grand Final will run at The Victoria Casino in London from Nov. 19-29, closing the tour’s 20th season with £1.2 million in festival guarantees.

The £2,000 Main Event is the centrepiece, carrying a £500,000 guarantee. It begins with two full starting flights and a turbo flight across Nov. 26-27, before Day 2 on Nov. 28 and a scheduled final day on Nov. 29.

The schedule also lists a £1,250 Midi with a £250,000 guarantee, starting before the Main Event. The Midi has three regular opening flights and a hyper, with Day 2 on Nov. 21 and the winner due to be decided Nov. 22.

The £2,500 High Roller starts Nov. 25 with a £150,000 guarantee. That follows overlays in lower-guarantee GUKPT High Rollers at Luton and Leeds. The card also includes a £340 Mini Main with £150,000 guaranteed, a £560 GUKPT Cup with £50,000 guaranteed, a £1,000 PLO High Roller and a £250 four-card PLO event.

The Grand Final Main Event has the largest buy-in of the 2026 GUKPT season and doubles the top end of the £100,000 to £250,000 Main Event guarantee range at the other stops, according to Poker-in.com. The Victoria has already hosted GUKPT legs in January and April, making the Grand Final its third tour stop of the season.

Players can use Grosvenor Poker’s online path from £1 feeders, progressing through £5 and £30 tournaments to Live Event Credit worth £200, £300, £500 or £1,250. The credit is not restricted to one event, does not expire and can cover all or part of a GUKPT buy-in; using a larger credit for a cheaper event produces tournament credit for the difference.

One event sits immediately before the festival without being part of the regular GUKPT schedule. The Champion of Champions is set for Nov. 18 as the conclusion of The Victoria’s year-long Victoria Championships.

Blackpool is the final GUKPT stop before London. PokerNews’ Grand Final report lists its dates as Oct. 30-Nov. 8, while a separate PokerNews October calendar gives an Oct. 29 start; both list a finish on Nov. 8. Blackpool carries more than £500,000 in guarantees, including £250,000 for its Main Event and £100,000 for its Mini Main.

Nik carried the chip lead into the final 16 of the €1,150 EPC Super Main Event at King’s Resort in Rozvadov, bagging 77.2 million after Day 3. The Romanian player held a substantial lead over Mourad Tounnouti on 45.9 million, with Christophe Vincent, Mike Neuens and Erdinc Guentay next on the leaderboard.

The event drew 7,013 entries across eight starting flights and generated a €6.9 million prize pool. PokerNews reported that 108 players began Day 3, before 10 levels reduced the field to 16, all chasing the €862,300 top prize and the King’s Royal Scepter trophy.

As we reported in September, the Super Main Event was the €5 million-guaranteed centerpiece of King’s Resort’s new King’s Million European Poker Championship. The final prize pool comfortably cleared that guarantee.

Nik had led after the Day 1a flight and entered Day 2 with the biggest stack, making his Day 3 lead the latest stage of a sustained run. He had also placed seventh in the €1,000 Mystery Bounty earlier in the week for €23,600.

Behind Tounnouti, Vincent ended the day with 39 million and Neuens had 37.8 million. Guentay bagged 27.1 million, followed by Pavel Stribrny with 23.7 million, Hassibullah Hafizi with 21.1 million, Wiktor Weiner with 16.8 million, Lyubomir with 14.6 million and Antonio Sciacca with 11.4 million.

Hafizi’s stack represented one of Day 3’s biggest recoveries. He had less than one big blind at the final three-table redraw but doubled more than six times, including hands with pocket aces and kings, to reach seventh in chips overnight.

There was also a deep run for the married pair of Pokerhonta696 and Ulrich Ehlermann, who spent most of Day 3 at the same table. Pokerhonta696 exited in 35th when her short stack ran into Ondrej Ladner’s pocket jacks, while Ehlermann survived with 5.8 million after winning a Level 32 hand against two pairs of kings.

The 16 survivors were scheduled to resume Oct. 6 with 35 minutes left in Level 36, at blinds of 300,000/600,000 with a 600,000 big blind ante, and play 70-minute levels until a winner was decided.

Hustler Casino Live has put regular player Britney Jing, known on the stream as AllInBritney, on a break while it reviews a series of allegations, including claims involving a disputed staking arrangement and potential collusion in games. The show said it was gathering information from those involved and reviewing the facts before reaching any conclusions.

The dispute began with Chengsi Ye, also known as C Ye, who alleged that Jing owed her $18,000 from an earlier summer staking arrangement. PokerNews reported the break and the initial debt claim. Ye said Jing had bought 30% of her action, made about $140,000 from the arrangement and later failed to pay the disputed amount after Ye lost $60,000 in a session.

Jing denied owing Ye money in a Sept. 24 response, writing: “I have no outstanding debts, and I have always paid out my shares right away.” She countered that Ye had underreported Jing’s winnings from a private cash game at The Venetian Las Vegas on June 7.

The allegations then widened. Peter Wang accused Jing of colluding against him in a Hustler Casino Live hand, although players and fans who examined the hand were split on whether it demonstrated collusion. Other claims alleged that Jing backed multiple players in the same games and could influence stream lineups.

Wesley Fei also alleged that Jing had bought action from several players at the same table during a 2023 Bicycle Casino game. He described the arrangement as making it “seven players against one,” while not accusing the players themselves of collusion. Aaron Zhang separately accused Jing of unfair practices and called her a “habitual liar.”

The claims have drawn public support for Jing as well as criticism. Hustler Casino Live owner Ryan Feldman wrote that he believed and supported her, saying she would never fail to pay someone $18,000 and calling the dispute “silly.” Xuan Liu also defended Jing’s character, while later saying she did not know what had happened between Jing and Ye.

Jing was absent from this week’s Max Pain Monday stream, which was headlined by Frankie C and Sashimi.

Jurojin Poker said an attacker manually replaced software-update packages sent to a specific group of users between June 2025 and January 2026, in a targeted scheme aimed largely at high-stakes opponents. Some altered packages carried remote-access software that could let the attacker view players’ hole cards remotely, the company said.

The company described it as a “highly targeted operation,” rather than a mass attack. Jurojin said the actor, whom it characterized as a known cheater, selected users individually and swapped their updates by hand instead of using an automated blast.

The notice adds Jurojin’s account to the suspected remote-access compromise affecting poker players’ PCs that we reported on Sept. 30. Jurojin said only a handful of high-stakes players were harmed by playing against the attacker while their cards were exposed, although it identified a limited group of accounts that may have received tampered updates.

Receiving a tampered package did not necessarily mean a computer was infected, Jurojin said. Not every modified package included the remote-access tool. The company retained logs of each compromised version and the dates it was served, and said no further material was uploaded to its servers after Jan. 28.

SpadePoker reported that the attacker gained access to Jurojin’s server keys and an admin-panel account. Its account said the altered packages used a fake executable to install Mesh Agent, MeshCentral’s legitimate remote-management tool, before launching the digitally signed Jurojin application. Such access could allow an operator to watch a victim’s screen and control the PC, according to separate reporting by Casino.org and PokerShield.

The timeline in Jurojin’s new notice differs from an earlier PokerNews report, which said compromised updates had been served through June 2026. Jurojin’s current account places the end of the upload activity in January and says stronger authentication and rotated keys stopped the scheme.

Jurojin said the same actor also targeted other applications, including IntuitiveTables, and ran phishing sites impersonating poker rooms and established poker tools. It has contacted every user it identified as potentially affected, provided findings to cybersecurity, anti-fraud and law-enforcement authorities, and worked with Amazon Web Services, investigators, poker-room security teams and researcher Wolf.

Following the incident, the company began logging every server download, strengthened administrative audit trails, restricted access to sensitive configuration, and added multiple authentication factors where server data can be edited or deleted. Jurojin recommends that users who may have been affected perform a clean Windows reinstall.

CoinPoker’s $250 The One has drawn 4,197 entries across its first three Day 1 flights, putting the new flagship tournament well ahead of the pace needed to cover its $5 million guaranteed prize pool.

The early flights averaged 1,399 entries each. With 23 flights still to run, the tournament needs 15,803 more entries, or 687 per remaining flight, to reach the guarantee. That means its opening average is more than double the remaining per-flight requirement.

CardPlayer cautioned that one of the first flights ran on Sunday, traditionally poker’s busiest period, so the initial average may not reflect demand throughout the schedule. Even so, the outlet concluded that the early turnout had The One on course to beat its guarantee.

Satellite qualifiers add another source of entries. CoinPoker had guaranteed more than 3,000 satellite tickets, and 1,786 had already been generated at the time of the report. Players can also enter directly for $250, with $1 million locked in for the winner.

As we reported in September, CoinPoker had scheduled 26 Day 1 flights for its largest-ever guaranteed tournament, running from Oct. 4 through Oct. 12. Players may enter multiple flights, but only their largest qualifying stack advances to Day 2. Under the site’s Flight Buy-In-Back mechanic, a Day 1 buy-in is refunded in cash when a player qualifies for Day 2, while further qualifying entries are converted into bonus cash based on the minimum Day 2 payout.

The remaining opening flights run through Oct. 12, including two turbo flights on the final day before Day 2.

JackPoker’s Buy-In Back Series has entered its final week, shifting toward satellite routes into a $1,000 Buy-In Back High Roller before a three-tournament finale carrying $205,000 in combined guarantees.

The three-week online festival began Sept. 21 and guarantees $2.5 million across its tournament prize pools. It combines a regular multi-table tournament schedule with a different buy-in-back promotion each week, designed to give players another way to recover the cost of an entry.

Week 3 runs from Oct. 4 through Oct. 11. PokerStrategy reported that the closing stretch centers on dedicated High Roller satellites, which award $1,000 tickets through either direct satellite entries or Elimination Tickets.

Players who bust a series tournament before the money can receive an Elimination Ticket based on that tournament’s original buy-in. Tracking for those rewards began Oct. 4, and credits began being issued daily Oct. 5.

Players can also pay cash directly into $10 and $30 satellites. Satellite tickets last two days and cannot be used for re-entries; a player wanting to re-enter a satellite must pay the regular direct buy-in.

The current promotion follows an opening week in which standard tournament entries were cut in half while prize pools remained unchanged. CardPlayer gave the example of a normally $100 event costing $50 during that period, without a reduction to its traditional prize pool.

The series also uses Bubble Protection, which returns the entry fee to players eliminated directly on the bubble. Together with the elimination-based tickets and low-cost satellite entries, the final-week setup gives players several routes toward the $1,000 High Roller.

The Buy-In Back Series concludes Oct. 11 with its three headline tournaments and their combined $205,000 guarantee.

GGPoker’s Bounty Hunters Series returned on Oct. 2 with $100 million in total guaranteed prizes across its knockout tournaments. The festival runs through Oct. 23 and includes a $5 million guaranteed Main Event.

Pokerfuse reported that the series also carries $2 million in additional Cash Drops for cash-game players. As we reported Oct. 2, the Cash Drops had already opened, offering Flipout entries rather than conventional cash drops.

Players qualify by winning a cash-game pot worth at least 50 big blinds during the series. Each qualifying pot earns a Flipout Chip, which adds to a player’s stack in the next Flipout, and winners can compete for cash prizes without being online for the tournament.

The Cash Drops award 10,000 players daily through multiple Flipouts. A $10,000 Flipout runs every three hours, while a separate $20,000 Flipout is held at midnight.

Bounty Hunters tournament players can also earn points toward Daily Leaderboards by registering for events, playing them and knocking out opponents. The leaderboards award $40,000 per day, $1 million across the promotion, and include WSOP Express tickets and P$ rewards. They continue through Oct. 27, four days after the tournament series ends.

The Bounty Hunters promotion sits within GGPoker’s broader October campaign, which the operator says offers $18 million in promotional prizes across several offers. That is a separate figure from the series’ $100 million in guaranteed tournament prize pools.

GGPoker’s next Halloween Party promotion runs from Oct. 24 through Oct. 31, offering $1 million in prizes to cash-game players who collect candy when the Jack of Spades appears on the board.

WPT Global is running a three-stage online satellite ladder that lets players chase a $1,500 WPT Seoul package from a $1.10 buy-in. The package covers a seat in the KRW 1 billion-guaranteed WPT Seoul Inspire Championship, plus $250 credited for expenses.

The route moves from a $1.10 Step to an $8.80 Satellite and then an $88 Qualifier. Players can also buy into any later stage directly. Each $88 Qualifier guarantees three packages and runs Sundays at 12:05 UTC through Oct. 25, while the lower stages run daily through that date.

The championship seat is for Day 1A on Nov. 5. The main event has a KRW 1.75 million buy-in and runs within the wider WPT Seoul festival at INSPIRE Entertainment Resort in Incheon, scheduled for Oct. 30 to Nov. 9.

As covered in August, the 11-day festival is set to open INSPIRE’s new second-floor entertainment space. INSPIRE sits next to Incheon International Airport.

The first 30 package winners also receive four complimentary hotel nights, although the two reports name different Brown Dot properties for that benefit. PokerNews identifies Brown Dot Hotel Airport New Town, while Somuchpoker’s earlier guide names Brown Dot Hotel Eurwangri and says the stay runs from Nov. 4 through Nov. 8.

All package winners receive access to the VIP Ultra Lounge, WPT Seoul Player Party and event merchandise. Somuchpoker also says winners must complete KYC by Nov. 1 or forfeit the package, and that missing the Oct. 28 hotel-modification deadline can cost a winner the accommodation benefit.

Players must be at least 19 and have a valid passport to register for a player card at INSPIRE. WPT Global does not accept players from the United States.

Despite its WPT branding, the tour’s event page classifies WPT Seoul as a Khartes-presented special event rather than an official World Poker Tour stop. Players therefore will not earn WPT Player-of-the-Year points there.

Michael Barlow won the RunGood Poker Series Golden Expedition Ohio $600 Main Event at Lake Erie Poker Room after the final three players split the money and settled the ring with an unusual nine-card flip.

Barlow, Antonio Ndoja and David Hanna agreed to an even-money chop with three players left. Barlow then persuaded the others to play for the ring, but Hanna declined. Barlow and Ndoja each received nine cards and made their best hand using five community cards; Barlow’s tens full of aces beat Ndoja’s tens full of jacks.

The $600 event drew 360 entries, built a $200,000 prize pool and paid 37 places. As we reported in September, the Lake Erie Golden Expedition had been scheduled around a $200,000-guaranteed Main Event and five starting flights.

RunGood’s official results listed Barlow as the winner for $29,318, with Ndoja and Hanna each receiving $29,316. The near-identical payouts reflect the three-way deal, while the ring went solely to Barlow through the flip.

Ndoja, Barlow and Hanna began the final table as the three biggest stacks, in that order. Ndoja knocked out James Garr in ninth place, Nicholas Lanzi in eighth and Jonathan Tackett in seventh, while Hanna eliminated Patrick Beatrez in fifth. Joffrey Gaetz finished fourth, setting up the eventual three-handed agreement.

The victory was Barlow’s second RunGood title. His first came in the 2024 RGPS Resort Ohio Tag Team event, which he won alongside his brother, Matthew.

Gaetz earned $15,270 for fourth, followed by Beatrez with $11,000 and Joel Brink with $8,645. Tackett took $6,760 for seventh, Lanzi received $5,290 for eighth and Garr collected $4,185 for ninth.

Maxime Parys won the 12,000 MAD Unibet Open Marrakech Main Event at Casino de Marrakech, outlasting an 853-entry field over four days to collect 1.375 million MAD. The tournament generated an 8.845 million MAD prize pool, and Parys also took home the Main Event trophy and Unibet cummerbund.

The win came after Parys had been reduced to five big blinds at the final table. He described the escape as a “second life,” having previously found himself with one or two blinds in tournaments and knowing how to keep building a stack and climbing the payouts.

PokerNews reported that a pivotal all-in came when Parys moved all in with A♥10♥ against Moneyhunter’s 10♠10♣ and hit the 6♥ on the river to complete a flush. Parys later eliminated Redwan Ferman in third place for 670,000 MAD, with both players making quads on a 9♠9♥9♦5♠9♣ board but Parys winning on his ace kicker.

Parys and Benjamin Hammann then struck a heads-up deal that guaranteed each player 1.125 million MAD, while leaving 250,000 MAD, plus the silverware, for the winner. The match ended in the opening hands when Parys called Hammann’s all-in with J♠3♦ against 3♣2♣; the 10♦ river confirmed his victory. Hammann finished second with 1.125 million MAD.

The 1.375 million MAD prize was Parys’ second-largest recorded live cash, according to The Hendon Mob, despite being his first live tournament win apart from a freeroll he won when younger. His recorded live cashes date back to 2014.

Parys’ rail backed him throughout the 11-hour final day. “We did it,” were his first words after winning, and he credited the group for ensuring he was not at the event alone.

The APT Jeju High Roller drew 295 entries and built a prize pool of about $958,000, making it the richest edition of the tournament in Asian Poker Tour history, according to Poker.org. The winner was set to receive about $190,000 and the rose-gold Mega Lion trophy as the field played down to its final few players.

That projected first prize was still below the roughly $196,000 Eric Tsai won in the 2024 Jeju High Roller. The tournament was part of the APT’s 20th-anniversary season.

The 295 figure covers the tournament field, while APT’s official High Roller Day 1 page records 191 entries, 43 survivors and a KRW 825 million prize pool for the event’s Sept. 30 opening day. It also lists a KRW 5 million buy-in and says players contributed 4% of the prize pool toward staffing. The page names Joseph Sanghyon Cheong first, Kunal Patni second and Ka Chun Tsui third in its Day 1 standings.

The High Roller was the third Jeju event of the series to establish a record. The Superstar Challenge attracted 51 entries for a prize pool of about $1.25 million, its largest field and richest edition, while the $2.2K 9-Game High Roller drew 119 entries from 84 unique players and generated about $595,000, setting APT country records for all three measures.

As we reported when APT Jeju opened, the festival is the fourth stop of the tour’s 20th-anniversary season and runs through Oct. 7. More than two dozen tournaments remained after the High Roller report, including three starting flights in the $550 Micro Main Event and the $3K High Roller Ultra Stack, both beginning Monday.

The season-ending APT Championship is scheduled in Taipei from Nov. 13 through Nov. 29, led by a $10,000 freezeout Main Event with a $5 million guarantee and more than 200 other tournaments.

The Supreme Court of Canada will hear arguments Wednesday, Oct. 7, on whether Ontario can let users of its regulated online gaming market play and bet with people outside Canada. The appeal, Atlantic Lottery Corporation, et al. v. Attorney General of Ontario, will determine whether that model remains lawful under the Criminal Code.

The case is an Ontario civil appeal as of right. It concerns online gaming and sports betting generally, but the practical stakes are especially clear for poker: Ontario’s ring-fenced market has required players to compete only with others located in the province since its April 2022 launch.

As we reported in September, Ontario and Alberta are seeking to preserve the Court of Appeal ruling that opened the door to cross-border peer-to-peer gaming pools.

Pooled liquidity would combine players across jurisdictions at the same cash tables and in the same tournaments. Ontario’s proposal would permit shared games, cash tables and tournament fields with players in other countries, rather than other Canadian provinces. Ontario players remain restricted to provincial player pools unless the Supreme Court permits the plan.

The province referred the question to the Ontario Court of Appeal on Feb. 2, 2024, under the Courts of Justice Act. A Court of Appeal majority concluded in November 2025 that the proposed model would remain lawful under the Criminal Code. Next.io characterized the decision as a 4-1 ruling.

Justice van Rensburg dissented, finding that the Criminal Code exemption in section 207(1)(a) would not apply to Ontario’s involvement in the international-liquidity element. That provision allows a provincial government to conduct and manage a lottery scheme “in that province.”

Atlantic Lottery Corporation, British Columbia Lottery Corporation and Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries Corporation filed their appeal in December 2025, with Loto-Québec added in April. The lottery corporations argue that the Supreme Court’s 2003 Reference re Earth Future Lottery decision requires provincially licensed lottery schemes to be conducted and managed within provincial geographic boundaries. They also contend that Ontario’s plan would entail cooperation with international operators they say operate unlawfully elsewhere in Canada.

Ontario’s position is that iGaming Ontario would continue to conduct and manage the provincial side of the scheme while contracting with private operators. It argues the territorial restriction prevents provinces from operating in one another’s territory without consent, rather than barring play with users abroad. Ontario also says a regulated international offering could move players away from unlawful sites, reducing exposure to fraud, addiction and other harms while raising public revenue.

Flutter Entertainment, NSUS Group, the Canadian Gaming Association and Alberta are intervening. The appellants and Ontario each have 60 minutes for argument; three industry interveners have 10 minutes apiece, while Alberta has five. The interveners cannot take a position on the appeal’s outcome.

No decision date has been set. Even if the court upholds the Court of Appeal opinion, Ontario would still need a regulatory framework and agreements with international jurisdictions before a licensed poker room could begin pooling players.

Elia Salerno eliminated 2019 WSOP Main Event champion Hossein Ensan in a major pot late on Day 1 of the €2,000 EPC Masters, moving to the top of the field at that point. But PokerNews’ published chip-count details do not support the claim that Sebastian Kotowicz ended the night ahead.

The report gives Salerno 1.82 million chips, worth more than 18 starting stacks and 120 big blinds for the Day 2 restart. It also says Kotowicz won a big cooler in the final level to take the lead, yet lists his stack at 1.805 million, 15,000 fewer chips than Salerno’s stated total, while separately describing it as one chip more. The discrepancy leaves the overnight chip leader unclear from the available reporting.

There were 69 survivors from 346 entries. Frechdachs bagged 1.035 million and Alexandru Tarcau had 1.025 million, the only other seven-figure stacks listed.

The Day 1 action also left the three leading finishers from the €3,000 High Roller in contention. Mystery Kid returned with 585,000, Mihai Tabac had 525,000 and MajikMike held 190,000.

The €602,040 prize pool paid 52 places, meaning 17 returning players were still outside the money. A minimum cash was worth €4,230, while the winner was due €131,600. Day 2 was scheduled as the final day, beginning Oct. 5 at 3 p.m. local time at King’s Resort, with blinds at 10,000/15,000 and a 15,000 big-blind ante.

Ensan’s exit carried added weight because he won the 2019 WSOP Main Event for $10 million, defeating Dario Sammartino heads-up for the bracelet.

Luca Topazio has won the inaugural €1,500 WSOP Circuit Malta Main Event at Casino Malta, beating Radoslaw Kopec heads-up for €200,000 from a field of 879 entries.

The three-day tournament, organized by Texapoker, generated a prize pool of about €1.12 million. Topazio also received a €5,000 package for WSOP Paradise, while the result became the largest recorded cash of his career.

Kopec collected €125,000 as runner-up, having entered the final table as chip leader. As our earlier coverage noted, he had 8.2 million chips at the nine-handed table, ahead of Matteo Ricco’s 6.9 million and Topazio’s 6.7 million.

The final table began with no player below 20 big blinds, and all nine had locked up at least €14,191. Italy supplied four of the nine finalists.

Topazio eliminated Aleksandar Georgiev in fifth place and later knocked out Lucas van den Belt in third for €85,000. Kopec had dispatched Ricco in fourth place for €60,000, but Topazio took a 5:1 advantage into heads-up play after eliminating Van den Belt.

The match ended two hands later, when Topazio made a full house. PokerNews characterized his approach as aggressive, and Topazio said his chip-leading strategy was to put pressure on the table: “My strategy as the chip leader was to make everyone short and to kill everyone.”

The win surpassed Topazio’s previous career-best €190,000 score, earned when he won an Italian Poker Tour Main Event 16 years earlier. He said he was now “more mature” and had adapted his game to get the result.

For Kopec, it was another close call after a runner-up finish at the 2025 WSOP Circuit event in Middelkerke, Belgium. Topazio said he planned to use his new package to travel to The Bahamas for WSOP Paradise, alongside planned appearances at the Battle of Malta later this month and EPT Prague in December.

Cesar Garcia won the $26,000 PGT PLO Series Championship for $420,000, closing the eight-event festival with his first PokerGO Tour title. The Spanish pro defeated Robert Cowen heads-up in a 48-entry pot-limit Omaha finale that generated a $1.2 million prize pool.

Garcia collected 252 PGT points and finished third in the Player of the Series race. The win also earned him 420 Card Player Player of the Year points and lifted his recorded live-tournament earnings to about $5.7 million.

Twelve players returned for the final day, with only the top seven paid. Alex Livingston was the bubble, eliminated in eighth when Youness Barakat flopped trip deuces. Garcia and Barakat then began the final table essentially level atop the counts, each holding more than three times the chips of any other remaining player.

Barakat later lost a full-house pot to Garcia and doubled both Matthew Wantman and Cowen before exiting fifth for $96,000. Wantman, who had started the day 11th of 12, climbed to third place for $174,000. Lautaro Guerra finished fourth for $126,000, while Sean Rafael and Brevin Andreadis received $72,000 and $48,000 respectively.

Cowen took two big pots from Garcia and briefly built nearly a 2:1 lead in heads-up play. Garcia turned the match around when he made a nut flush on the river against Cowen’s set of aces, leaving him with 10.3 million chips to Cowen’s 1.7 million. On the final hand, Cowen flopped a queen-high straight, but Garcia turned a king-high straight and improved to Broadway on the river to seal the title.

Cowen earned $264,000 for second, his second runner-up finish of the series, and moved to 63rd on the season-long PGT leaderboard. Garcia added the championship trophy to a résumé that already included a World Series of Poker bracelet and a $1.2 million Onyx High Roller Series victory.

Jonas Kronwitter won the overall PGT PLO Series standings and a $10,000 PGT Passport after recording two wins and a runner-up finish. Kronwitter, who won Event No. 5 as covered earlier this week, and Sam Soverel, also a two-time series winner, finished ahead of Garcia in the points race.

Jonas Kronwitter captured his second PokerGO Tour title in three days by winning the $15,700 Pot-Limit Omaha Event No. 7 at the 2026 PGT PLO Series in Las Vegas. He topped a 65-entry field and collected $267,563 after an ICM heads-up deal with Joni Jouhkimainen.

The victory gave Kronwitter 234 PokerGO Tour points, taking him to 598 and first place in the series standings. His five cashes across the first seven completed events, including two wins and a runner-up finish, have earned him $576,088 at the festival.

As reported Oct. 1, Kronwitter’s $201,600 victory in the $10,500 Event No. 5 was his first PGT title. That win came two days before Event No. 7, where he added a second series trophy from a $975,000 prize pool shared by 10 players.

Jouhkimainen started the seven-handed final day with the chip lead and knocked out Nicholas Palma in seventh place for $39,000 after flopping the nut flush. Jeremy Druckman eliminated Nino Pansier in sixth for $53,625, while Jouhkimainen dispatched Lautaro Guerra in fifth for $73,125 and Matthew Wantman in fourth for $97,500.

Kronwitter surged back among the final three, doubled through the leader and then eliminated Druckman in third place for $131,625. He made quads on the river in the decisive hand, then carried a lead of nearly 3:1 into heads-up play.

The final two agreed to divide the remaining money under an ICM deal, paying Jouhkimainen $215,062 and Kronwitter $267,563. Jouhkimainen’s career tournament earnings rose above $14.4 million after the result.

Kronwitter also earned 432 Card Player Player of the Year points for the Event No. 7 win and ranked 160th in the overall standings. His career tournament cashes now stand above $4.5 million.

Radoslaw Kopec carried the chip lead into the nine-handed final table of the €1,500 WSOP Circuit Malta Main Event after a field of 879 entries was cut down over two days. The finalists had each secured €14,191, with €200,000 and a WSOP Circuit ring reserved for the winner.

Kopec bagged the lead, ahead of Matteo Ricco and Luca Topazio, according to PokerNews. Kopec had come close to elimination during Day 2 before flopping two pair to start a comeback that included several eliminations.

Ricco doubled up while Kopec rebuilt and stayed among the leaders. He secured his final-table spot by eliminating Mikel Calo in 10th place with a flopped set. As we reported Sept. 30, Calo had led the opening Day 1a flight; he and 11th-place finisher Gabriele Paone each received €11,000.

Topazio spent much of Day 2 near the top of the counts, although he also doubled several short stacks. Aleksandar Georgiev advanced with an average stack, while Alberto Cigliano and Lucas Van den Belt also reached the final table.

Cigliano had fallen to 12 big blinds before doubling twice in succession. Vitali Bibik made the finale, as did Christoffer Jensen, who had begun Day 2 as chip leader.

Nicola Bordignon was the shortest stack after three late doubles and his elimination of Paone. The final-table counts were:

- Radoslaw Kopec: 8.2 million – Matteo Ricco: 6.9 million – Luca Topazio: 6.7 million – Aleksandar Georgiev: 4.5 million – Alberto Cigliano: 4.3 million – Lucas Van den Belt: 4.3 million – Vitali Bibik: 3.7 million – Christoffer Jensen: 3.2 million – Nicola Bordignon: 2.2 million

When the final nine were set, the table was scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. local time Sunday at Casino Malta, using 50,000/100,000 blinds, a 100,000 big-blind ante and 60-minute levels until a winner was determined. A live stream and PokerNews live reporting were also planned.