It’s been a phenomenal 12 months in poker. Between the PokerGO Tour’s million-dollar freeroll in January, through the 2024 WSOP Main Event to this week’s excitement at WSOP Paradise, there have been big winners all around the world all year. From Las Vegas to London, past Florida and The Bahamas, major tournaments have thrilled poker fans around the world.
Here on PokerStake, some of the brightest poker talents have told their stories. They’ve sold their action, they’ve made buyers on the site millions of dollars in winnings from the comfort of their own homes. But we’ve also got to know them and in 2025, we’re going to do so even more.
Here are some of the stories we brought you in Spring of 2024 as the poker world geared up for a huge year at the felt.
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Jonathan Little Wins the PokerGO Cup
It was a huge year for Jonathan Little who bagged millions at the felt once again as well as coaching many thousands of poker players to self-improvement. January was dominated by Little performances in the PokerGO Cup, which kicked off a busy year on the PokerGO Tour in style. In the end, four cashes and two outright wins meant over $730,000 in winnings inside a fortnight for the PokerStake player Jonathan, who celebrated in style. He’s kicking off 2025 by playing the PGT Last Chance event series.
Read all about Jonathan Little’s PokerGO Cup triumph in detail here.
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Phill Hellmuth Calls Out Isaac Haxton
“He’s using it to give himself an advantage!”
In February, the 17-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth called out Ike Haxton for wearing a face mask at final tables. A popular preventative measure during the global pandemic of 2020 and 2021, face masks have – for better or worse – more or less become a thing of the past. Hellmuth believed Haxton was wearing it as an edge.
“He’s using it to give himself an advantage,” he said. “When there are six people left in a tournament, you don’t really have any real concerns about COVID. Maybe Ike Haxton is a tellbox.”
Read the full explosive article here as The Poker Brat blew up!
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Poker Players Go Crazy for Super Bowl
Also in February, Taylor Swift’s boyfriend played a football match. OK, that’s simplifying it just a little. But that did happen and as the Kansas City Chiefs roared to a 25-22 overtime victory and Travis and Taylor embraced on the field, poker players were enjoying the action in the only way they know how – punting millions on the result.
Sean Perry lost seven figures, others reconnected with families. It was a profitable magical time.
Read about the 58th Super Bowl through the eyes of poker players here.
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PokerStake Legends Celebrate Global Poker Award Success
The 5th Annual Global Poker Awards were a resounding success, presented as they were by Drea Renee and Jeff Platt in downtown Las Vegas in late February. With huge wins for the WSOP Main Event, which was won by new PokerStake player Jonathan Tamayo, Kristen Foxen collecting her seemingly annual GPI Female Player of the Year award and many others celebrating, it was glitz and glamor all the way.
Check out all the winners – and near-misses – at PokerGO broadcast the action and we rounded up the results right here.
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Barny Boatman Breaks the Mould
Ask many poker players and fans who they’d imagine would become the latest sponsored pro and not many of them would come up with the name Barny Boatman. Not because the co-inventor of The Hendon Mob isn’t a superb player, but he’s in his late sixties.
All that changed in March, however, when Boatman added an EPT Main Event title to his two WSOP bracelets and many other major trophies.
In winning EPT Paris, Boatman broke the mould not only for EPT winners, becoming the oldest player ever to lift the fabled trophy, but his sponsorship afterwards was a reminder of just how great he is. In days gone by, Boatman – one of four members of The Hendon Mob with Joe Beevers, Ram Vaswani and Barny’s brother Ross – might have been expected to look towards retirement at his age.
Not a bit of it.
Boatman is still so strong a player and so vibrant a personality that he has garnered a whole new following among younger fans. His universal appeal, coupled with an ability to inspire the stoic older generation into adapting their game and putting in volume – make him one of poker’s most sought-after stars.
In 2024, Barny Boatman reminded us all just how much of a poker legend he truly is.
There will be an all-new round-up of the action in April to June 2024 released on Christmas Day as the WSOP kicks off in Las Vegas with a very big multiple bracelet winner…
