Denys Chufarin’s story, is a bit more dramatic than your typical grind-to-riches tale.
The Ukrainian high-stakes pro started with just $65 and built it into a four million dollar bankroll, all while fleeing war and starting over in Canada. The video focuses on his resilience, both at the tables and in life.
A law career was in the cards for Chufarin, but he chose the felt instead. When conflict hit Ukraine, he moved his family to BC and kept competing against the toughest fields in online poker. He says the game is about making the best decisions possible with incomplete information, which, according to him, is a lot like life when you’re forced to uproot everything.
“Just like in poker, you do the best you can with the info you have.”
There’s less glamour and more grit in his story. But apparently, grit can build a bankroll too.
More from this week
Today
What are a couple of common mistakes players make deep in tournaments that cost them great results?
Alex Fitzgerald takes a deep dive into this topic and brings some of his own observations as well as tips how you can remove these obstacles.
Ana Marquez: accidental poker pro.
Ana Marquez’s path to the top of Spanish poker was anything but conventional. Growing up in Málaga, she had zero exposure to the game until a move to Washington, D.C. for her studies. There, poker first caught her eye as a topic for a university thesis. That research quickly turned into a passion, and later, a career.
Marquez credits her success to treating poker as a strategic game rather than gambling. She says, “Once I realized how much I loved the game, I consciously gave myself a year to explore whether I could make a living from it. That year ended up changing my life.”
Her achievements include being named GPI Female Player of the Year in 2013 and becoming an ambassador for ACRPoker. According to Marquez, her story is proof that sometimes the best opportunities come from unexpected places.
PokerStars Ambassador, David Lappin, takes a look at the shot clock, introduced at the WSOP Main Event to curb stalling.
The intent was to cut down on endless tanking, but the article argues that giving everyone a fixed time per decision might actually encourage slow play rather than fix it.
Players now have 20 seconds for their first decision and 30 seconds for subsequent ones, with a handful of extensions.
All dissected in the article below.
Wait, what? Alex Livingston lost $40K playing beer pong at 22?!
Incredible degeneration stories on the Face the Ace podcast.
Did you know within The Chip Race podcast is a treasure trove of strategy advice and lessons?
By David Lappin’s calculations there is 20 hours of free strategy content for you to get your teeth into.
This is pretty cool from Octopi Poker.
Replay every WSOP streamed hand and then play the final table. It’s actually a super cool concept, imo.
It’s still hard to wrap my head around stand up players like Pads and Jeremy, showing support for CoinPoker.
Honestly, what are we missing, cos the outfit seems shady AF.
PokerStars on FanDuel celebrated its largest jackpot to date, awarding $250,000 to a Pennsylvania player who turned a $50 buy-in into a life-changing windfall.
The win came from a Spin-and-Go tournament, where the player, “Jesuz1sBlac,” not only spun the highest multiplier but also outlasted two other competitors.
The million-dollar jackpot, first introduced before the 2026 World Cup, still looms in the $5 games.
BetRivers Poker is running a couple of summer promos aimed at SNG and cash game players across four states.
The SNG Cub3d Punch Card gives you a shot at free tickets for every three SNGs you play, and you do not even have to opt in. Entry to daily raffles is automatic, and you can get multiple prizes if you play at several stakes.
For cash game fans, the Splash2 promo returns 25 percent of all rake generated to players as Splash Pots during peak hours. The idea is simple: the more you play when the games are busy, the more you could get back, if you are lucky enough to hit a Splash Pot.
Daniel Negreanu on Jason Mercier.
TBF, Daniel absolutely nails this one!
Yesterday
Day 1B of the WSOPC Main Event in Las Vegas gets underway.
Yesterday, only 39 players managed to find a bag at the conclusion of the Day 1A action.
The Maryland State Poker Championship sponsored by PokerStars on FanDuel is set for August.
The series will feature 16 trophy-awarding events and more than a cool million in overall guarantees.
Who were the biggest winners and losers of the 2026 WSOP?
Lance Bradley did some digging to figure out who did really well during the summer poker camp and who won’t be taking any particularly fond memories home.
Squeezing can be a powerful weapon in poker.
You just need to pay attention and be aware of players who are opening too wide.
Tune in for High Stakes Wednesday tonight on Hustler Casino Live.
It’s another great lineup, with Rampage, Britney, Nik Airball, and a few other usual suspects, so we pretty much know what to expect!
Jourdan Baptiste stole some of the spotlight during ESPN’s new WSOP Main Event coverage, according to PokerNews.
Jamie Gold, who became famous for his table banter in 2006, faced off with Baptiste, a relative unknown with only one live cash to his name. Their verbal sparring brought back memories for both the commentators and fans.
Daniel Negreanu called the broadcast 'exceptionally good,’ and social media agreed, crediting the new production for spotlighting old-school stars and banter. Omaha Productions leaned into the nostalgia by featuring poker boom era icons like Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Jennifer Tilly, Chris Moneymaker, and Erick Lindgren.
WSOP Main Event finalist Evagoras Evagorou on reaching the final table.
Win or lose, Evagorou makes history as the first Cypriot to ever make it this far in the competition.
The 2026 WSOP Online bracelet series just wrapped; Anuj dives into the numbers.
The headline: a noticeable decline in both prize pools and participation for the second year running. With $24.5 million in prizes from over 43,000 entries, online events averaged just over $800,000 each, a meaningful drop from last year’s $30 million total.
Only eight tournaments managed to cross the million-dollar prize pool mark, and the largest field drew just over 5,000 players. Live events, on the other hand, continued to set records and break attendance barriers.
Just look at Adrian Mateos’ 2026 results. 📈
The data table is from The Hendon Mob: just wow! I missed the fact he was playing in the Wynn Summer Classic, as I was so wrapped up in the WSOP. He came first place in the high roller. Absolute scenes!
We didn’t get to watch the actual show, but I must say the trailer has got me hooked.
Michael Gagliano knows all about the repetitive grind of the WSOP Main Event.
According to PokerNews, the BetMGM Poker ambassador compared the experience to being stuck in Groundhog Day—days blend together as the field slowly thins. His long poker resume includes over 150 cashes and multiple bracelets, but the Main Event final table had always eluded him until now.
Speaking after bagging up 46,500,000 chips for fifth place, Gagliano reflected, 'I’ve been saying for many days that it feels like Groundhog Day. Like, the more people that bust, it just feels like the number just doesn’t go down.’ He told PokerNews he’d only be happy when nine players remained.
I hadn’t properly considered that this may be the only competition where you can play against some of the top players in the world, even if you are just a rec.
Does the same apply for Chess?
July 21
The final table is set for the Borgata Poker Summer Open PLO Championship.
You can follow the action as it happens. Who’ll take home over $24k for first?
Allen Kessler is looking for a win.
Kessler did not manage to capture any WSOP bracelets this summer, but the grind continues.
It’s Hellmuth vs. a burger once more!
Forget about big pots, bluffs, and bad beats. Phil Hellmuth taking on a burger is always top-tier content.
Alex Livingston shares some tips on what is really needed to win in mixed games.
If you want to become better at mixed games and improve your win rates, this man certainly has the right credentials to offer valuable insights.
River bets make up a big portion of your hourly at cash game tables.
It is worth taking some extra time on the river to come up with the best decision regarding the bet size that stands to produce the most value in the long run.
Alex Foxen continues to rack up trophies.
The WSOP may be over, but Foxen never misses an opportunity to add another trophy to his ever-growing collection. And this one does look really cool.
Tune in tonight for the first two Main Event episodes on the Main Event on ESPN.
While we are waiting for the final table to start, this is an opportunity to relive some of the biggest and most intense moments of the tournament.
If your post-WSOP blues are lingering, we have some news that could perk you up: BetRivers Poker is launching the Road to the Multi-State Summer Series with a weekly $10,000 satellite ticket giveaway.
The promo runs from July 19 to August 1 and is open to all registered players in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and West Virginia.
Players are split into three tiers based on their tournament buy-ins, so whether you’re throwing in $1 or $100, you can get in on the action. For every two entries in a given tier, you snag a ticket for that week’s drawing.
200 episodes of The Chip Race podcast.
How did that happen
Another GGPoker Online Poker Millionaires episode is about to land.
This may be the slowest release schedule of all time—I think the first episode came out nearly a year ago—but it is a great series. Episode 3 drops tomorrow.
Was the WSOP adding a shot clock into the Main Event unfair?
The boys over at PokerNews discuss. The pod dropped last week, but I need to get my retrospective WSOP content somehow.
What’s in the cards for CoinPoker and the growing army of players/influencers promoting the site on YouTube?
There are more and more YT channels promoting CoinPoker as the operator has selected this approach as its main growth strategy. However, the latest video from Poker Room Review highlights many problems with this approach and why it could all come crashing down (and soon), bringing with many consequences for the creators involved:
The company registration information is a mess – several different countries listed, depending on where you look.
CoinPoker is licensed by Anjouan – the license itself specifically states that it doesn’t cover UK, USA, and several other countries that represent CoinPoker’s main markets.
The Anjouan license isn’t even a government-backed thing. The country’s own government came out saying that this is a shady operation that is actually ran by an entity located in the UAE.
There is a pattern emerging for regulators/law enforcement worldwide coming after creators/promoters of illegal gambling sites – he mentions a massive operation in Australia, a Brazil operation that saw a number of prominent creators actually arrested, takedowns in the Netherlands, Italy, and more.
The Italian takedown is particularly important because they also went after YT/Google, claiming they are active participants, not merely platform providers. The EU court upheld this decision, Google was fined a couple of million, but the precedent was set – Google, as a company, is responsible – they don’t get to wash hand and say we just provide a service, what people do isn’t our concern, because they are making money from these creators.
Risk for YouTubers promoting CoinPoker – depends on where they’re located. Certain US states, like NJ, have laws that allow even criminal prosecution. Different countries worldwide have different laws, but in the US, Canada, and EU, there are varying levels of exposure.
His conclusion is that, with all these developments, there will be a massive takedown within a year or two, especially with Google now directly implied. When that happens, creators who worked with these sites could find themselves in difficult positions, where losing their channels could be the least of their worries.
🚨 Everything you don’t want to hear about Coin Poker. 🚨
This is a great overview on Coin Poker, and what it could mean to YOU if you promote it.
Did you know Nick Schulman played in Molly’s Game?
NEITHER. DID. WE.
Another WILD story from Garrett Adelstein’s upcoming book.
Mate, these privates games sound insane. And I am here for it. 👀
Really not sure why this came up on my feed, thank you algorithm, but it did, and now you get to watch it too.
On his YouTube channel, Gary Blackwood takes viewers through a hand that most players only have nightmares about: folding pocket kings preflop in the WSOP Main Event.
He explains his reasoning with a calmness that only someone who has accepted their fate could muster. According to the video, it was a spot where “the only hands that make sense are aces,” and he decided his kings weren’t good enough.
“Sometimes, the right play just feels wrong. But that’s poker.”
The comments section is already full of armchair analysts debating whether they’d have the discipline to make the same fold. For most, the answer is probably not.
Has anyone checked out Nightly Stars over on PokerStars on FanDuel}, yet?
We haven’t but there’s also a $10 Mini-Nightly Stars $2,000 guaranteed tournament running each night, which is NEW!
Watch: “I’m DONE playing 1/3…so I’m moving up in stakes!!”
That is how the latest episode of “I QUIT MY JOBFOR POKER” tees up the story. Leah has left their job behind to play poker in Las Vegas and is now upping the ante, quite literally.
The big question is whether this is a calculated risk or just a case of questionable bankroll management.
July 20
It’s Max Pain Monday over at the HCL live stream.
With the WSOP over, we are looking for some poker content to keep us entertained. HCL’s Max Pain Monday streams are usually a lot of fun to watch, and there is one happening tonight.
Terrance Reid shares his WSOP numbers as well.
A bit late to the party, but Reid joins the group of pros who took it to X to share their actual WSOP results for the whole world to see. It wasn’t a stellar summer for Reid, but breaking even over a few dozen tournaments and having spent $180k in buy-ins is nothing to be ashamed of, either.
New season of No Gamble No Future is available now on PokerGO.
Big names collide once more under the bright lights of the PokerGO studio. Enjoy the action featuring the likes of Shaun Deeb, Abby Merk, Jen Tilly, '3Coin,’ and more.
Jonathan Tamayo joins Table 1 Podcast.
The 2024 Main Event champion talks about his poker beginnings, his ups and downs, Black Friday, and, of course, the 2024 Main Event run and the infamous laptopgate.
This is a pretty wild story about $5k stolen at a poker table.
It’s a pretty long one, but worth listening to, especially if you’re a part of the poker community. There are some interesting twists and turns in there.
Luke Geel, a US Air Force AI engineer and avid poker player, has managed to get his homemade 'AI tells detector’ onto ESPN’s WSOP broadcasts.
According to his column on PokerOrg, ESPN producers reached out to trial his tool, which analyzes player footage for tells after they’ve busted out of the WSOP Main Event.
The process isn’t exactly instant: “It would then take around 8-9 hours to run the footage through the tool, clean and prep the data, and send it back to them so they could edit it and get it ready for the broadcast.”
Geel’s invention, which compares physical and verbal behavior with hand strength, has now gone from personal experiment to TV tech. As he writes, “It’s been amazing to see it go from this very personal project to something featured on ESPN. I was even invited to go on NBC News to talk about it.”
For poker content creators, Geel has something new in the works—a free tool to help make their lives a little easier. Keep an eye out for more AI at the table.
Donnie Peters delivers a quick update on the 2026 World Series of Poker Player of the Year standings, tracking the tight race as the series heads into its final stretch.
He also breaks down the results from the 25K Fantasy League, where some picks soared and others, predictably, tanked.
According to Donnie, “The POY race is heating up and the 25K Fantasy is all but decided, but there’s always room for a late surge.”
The latest PokerNews Podcast features Phillip “P3” Hellmuth III, son of the notorious Poker Brat himself.
P3 reveals he only started playing poker after a long stint in banking and now is learning the ropes, including how to handle social media outrage when your dad tells you to charge a 1.4 markup for the WSOP Main Event.
He discusses the backlash, the family’s public profile, and how his father’s reputation as a poker legend and a character shaped his own journey.
“Growing up a Hellmuth prepared me for a lot of things, but nothing quite like the markup police.”
DraftKings made a move that even industry insiders didn’t see coming: it merged its Electric Poker player pools from Michigan, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
There was no big announcement from DraftKings, just a statement from the Michigan Gaming Control Board, who seemed happier than the operator itself.
“MGCB authorizes DraftKings to launch multi-state poker in Michigan. This approval reflects the strength of our partnership with Bay Mills Indian Community and the thoroughness of our regulatory process. As Michigan’s multistate poker network continues to grow, we remain focused on ensuring every operator meets the same high bar for fairness, security, and player protection.”
Electric Poker, which debuted in Michigan in August 2024, is DraftKings’ take on the jackpot sit and go. Its twist is that players are forced all-in after a certain time, which means the skill element is pretty much on a timer.
The combined pool should help games start a bit quicker, but with so little recent promotion, the surprise is that DraftKings bothered at all.
Negreanu finally cashes in on his own league.
Daniel Negreanu finally gets his fantasy league trophy, and it only took him 15 years and a $250,000 payday. Turns out, being the commissioner does have its perks—unless you drafted Ben Lamb, who decided to sit this one out and scored a heroic zero.
Yes, it’s all the WSOP content you may have missed. This time Negreanu v Hellmuth.
Honestly just spoon feed me WSOP content until the WSOP Main Event returns on August 3.
Shout out to Tony Dunst and girlfriend for fostering abandoned cats in the Las Vegas area.
If you are local and looking for a cat to re-home, look not further!
The 57th annual World Series of Poker has come to a close, and according to @anuj2212 it was another record-breaking summer for the books.
Attendance hit an all-time high with nearly 252,000 entries, even though the prize pools fell a hair short of last year’s numbers. Players paid over $517 million in buy-ins, with almost $470 million handed back as prize money.
The sale offers great value as the buy-in is halved from the usual price.
PokerStars is celebrating the 20th Anniversary of its iconic Sunday Million tournament by giving away $800,000 in tickets over two months.
Players can enter the Ticket Machine raffle by completing up to six weekly challenges, with a potential of 24 entries per week.
The challenges are all about playing your regular games—MTTs, Zoom, Spin & Gos, and even cash games. For each challenge you complete, you get an entry into the ticket raffle, with $100,000 in Sunday Million tickets awarded every week.
Whether you agree or not with dogs being allowed at the poker tables, it seems no brainer that Chief is allowed. What an absolute babe.
Who does Daniel Negreanu hate playing against?
Find out in his last WSOP vlog via PokerOrgs write up.
Do the Foxen’s ever not succeed?
Kristen and Alex Foxen have only gone and won the WSOPODB Fantasy League for $100K. 🤯
Where can we listen to this if not in the 🇺🇸?
Seems for now it’s only available for US listeners via the Sirius XM app.
The six-episode weekly series will debut this Saturday, July 18 (8:00 pm ET) and air exclusively on SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Sports Radio (channel 82). Listeners across North America can tune in to hear Schulman deliver tips for players of various levels, tell inside stories from his 20+ year career as a pro, and share his insights into the big poker events happening around the world.
