2025 PokerStars Year in Review
Table of Contents
The action-packed year that was 2025 flew by, and that can only mean one thing: we were having way too much fun.
From the launch of the PokerStars Open festivals to the return of the Spin & Go Championship Live, and all the sensational online series and European Poker Tour stops in between, it’s been a heck of a year.
Here’s the 2025 PokerStars Year in Review, including all our highlights, the best features of the year, and a look ahead to 2026.
SCHEMION WINS NEW YEAR SERIES MAIN EVENT
JANUARY 2025
The year began, as it always does (hint, hint – keep your eyes peeled), with the New Year Series on PokerStars – 24 days of non-stop action that saw almost $36 million awarded in prizes.
Ole “wizowizo” Schemion captured not only the $5K Main Event title but also the largest overall prize of the series, winning $224,425 after besting a 230-entry field made up of poker’s best and brightest. Brazil’s Renan “Internett93o” Bruschi was the runner-up and banked $171,081.
POKERSTARS AND AMBASSADORS WIN BIG AT GLOBAL POKER AWARDS
FEBRUARY 2025
It was a big night for PokerStars at the Global Poker Awards 2025. There were wins in several major categories with recognition for events, Ambassadors, and team members behind the scenes.
These wins reinforce why PokerStars is at the forefront of the industry.
- Best Industry Person – Francine Watson
- Best Final Table Performance – Barny Boatman
- Best Live Streamer – Spraggy
- Best Episodic Poker Series – The Big Game on Tour by PokerStars
- Best Short-form Content Creator – Marle Spragg
- Most Entertaining Player – Alejandro “Papo MC” Lococo
- Best Photo – Danny Maxwell
- GPI Breakout Player – Rania Nasreddine
- Best Mid-Major Tour/Circuit – Brazilian Series of Poker (BSOP)
- Best Stand-alone Festival/Series – Irish Open
POKERSTARS OPEN KICKS OFF IN CAMPIONE
MARCH 2025
The maiden PokerStars Open Main Event was a huge success in Campione, smashing guarantees and exceeding all expectations. Players from far and wide filled the Casino di Campione for a week of poker and a shot at becoming this exciting new tour’s first champion.
Adrian-Sorel State of Romania topped the 2,434-entry field after one of the longest final tournament days in recent memory, winning €363,000.
AUGUSTO MARTINS WINS 19TH SUNDAY MILLION ANNIVERSARY
APRIL 2025
The tournament, which marked another year of the world’s most iconic weekly online poker event, attracted 28,444 entries at $215 each and paid out a total of $6,000,000 in prizes.
For the finalists, it was a gruelling three-day marathon. But for the ultimate champion Carlos Augusto “gutAoAllin” Martins – who took home an astonishing $391,436.39 – the journey to the title began long before…
THERE’S ONLY ONE SIMON WILSON! LOCAL LAD WINS IRISH OPEN FOR €600K
APRIL 2025
Local lad Simon Wilson had one of the all-time great poker rails at the final table of the largest Irish Open Main Event in the festival’s 45-year history. You simply couldn’t move on his side of the table. And in the end, his skill and home-court advantage proved too much for everyone.
Wilson took down the record-breaking 4,562-entry Irish Open Main Event and heads back to Ashbourne, 20 kilometres north of Dublin, with a staggering €600,000.
“It’s really special,” said Wilson after his victory. “I come every year, thousands of people enter, it’s always been a pipe dream. Yeah…F**k!”
SHEVLIAKOV LANDS €1M AT EPT MONTE CARLO
MAY 2025
The EPT Monte Carlo Main Event ended with a long and tense heads-up battle between Russia’s Aleksandr Shevliakov and Ukraine’s Amir Kokhestani, which concluded a day punctuated by controversy and filled with thrilling poker.
The eventual winner was the 37-year-old Shevliakov, who topped the 1,195-entry field for a cool €1,000,000.
SCOOP 2025 — THE YEAR OF SIMON ‘C. DARWIN2’ MATTSSON
MAY 2025
We saw seismic shifts on SCOOP’s all-time title list, with Simon “C. Darwin2” Mattsson cementing himself as the Spring Championship’s GOAT. The Swede won five titles this year, taking his total tally up to 14 (and with multiple runner-up finishes, it could have been a lot more).
Two players won four titles this year – Renan “Internett93o” Bruschi and ‘FAL1st’, and Brazil outdid itself once again, smashing its previous series record of 89 titles (2023) to finish with 101 titles overall.
POKERSTARS AMBASSADOR KENNY HALLAERT MAKES SECOND WSOP MAIN EVENT FINAL TABLE
JULY 2025
This summer, Kenny Hallaert was among the final nine for the second time in his career — an incredible feat.
The PokerStars Ambassador, already well known in the poker world for his online results and work as a tournament director, announced himself to the live poker world when he finished sixth in the 2016 Main Event for a career-best $1,464,258. And this year, after eight days of play and a field of 9,735 players, the Belgian was once again playing for millions on poker’s biggest stage.
Hallaert did even better this time, finishing fourth for a cool $3 million.
THOMAS EYCHENNE MAKES GOOD ON ENORMOUS PROMISE TO LAND EPT BARCELONA MAIN EVENT
AUGUST 2025
He is the man who entertained thousands on Twitch with a series of bankroll challenges that he made seem easy. And he made his way to the final table of the monstrous PokerStars Players Championship in the Bahamas in 2023, underlining his serious skills.
Eychenne completed his inevitable rise to the very top of the game when he took down the €5,300 Main Event at EPT Barcelona, beating a field of 2,045 entries to bank a career-best €1,217,175.
His time had truly arrived. What a way to mark a first outright tournament win.
“It’s amazing, I’m struggling to come down from the cloud I’m on right now,” Eychenne, 35, told reporters as he began the celebrations. “It’s an amazing feeling.”
KLEIST WINS SPIN & GO CHAMPIONSHIP LIVE
AUGUST 2025
The electrifying Spin & Go Championship Live returned in 2025 for another exclusive, rapid-fire live event, following the success of the inaugural competition in Prague last December.
Taking place during the iconic EPT Barcelona festival, the field consisted of 81 players who battled for a €275,000 prize pool over two days, with a massive €100,000 and a championship trophy going to the winner.
This wasn’t just another tournament. The Spin & Go Championship Live is an exciting, frenetic live format replicating the three-handed, action-packed Spin & Go’s you play on PokerStars. It’s quick, accessible, and a whole lot of fun.
In the end, it was Brazil’s Guilherme Kleist–a prior participant in Prague–who took it down, with his wife (and fellow tournament opponent) by his side.
ANOTHER SENSATIONAL WCOOP SERIES
SEPTEMBER 2025
378 poker tournaments completed. Hundreds of champions crowned. Almost $79 million awarded in prize money.
The 2025 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) was one of the best yet…
BRILLIANT BRZEZINSKI SURVIVES HEADS-UP INSANITY AT EPT MALTA AT HIS SECOND CONSECUTIVE FINAL
OCTOBER 2025
Not long after he finished fourth in Barcelona, Poland’s Tomasz Brzezinski prevailed from the 898-entry EPT Malta Main Event, recording a career-best score of €631,632.
He did so only after surviving one of the most ridiculous heads-up battles the tour has ever seen, with his final opponent, Mykhailo Ostash, doubling up no fewer than 11 times to survive. Brzezinski continually had his Ukrainian opponent on the brink of elimination, but Ostash continually clung on…
KRAKOW CRACKS KURTULUS TO WIN EPT PRAGUE MAIN EVENT
DECEMBER 2025
Israel’s Matan Krakow is the latest champion on the European Poker Tour (EPT), taking only around three-and-a-half hours to complete victory on the last day of the Main Event in Prague.
A 44-year-old former journalist from Tel Aviv, Krakow’s closest previous brush with poker fame came when he helped co-write Eli Elezra’s autobiography Pulling the Trigger. But Krakow found all the right spots to pick his way through this tricky final table, which featured a host of unfamiliar faces but offered an entertaining denouement to this six-day event.
Krakow’s prize for beating a field of 1,224 entries was a first prize of €778,255.
BEST FEATURES OF 2025
THE RECORD-SETTING GRIND BEHIND POWER PATH’S GREATEST PLAYER
Meet Matt Harniman, whose relentless grind has made him Power Path’s greatest player with more Passes won than anyone else.
VISUALISING VICTORY: INSIDE JASON KOON’S RELENTLESS MINDSET
For Jason Koon, there’s never been a choice. Here, he lets us inside the relentless mindset that’s made him one of poker’s all-time greats.
THE WELCOME RETURN OF THE POKER COACHING O.G. RAUL MESTRE
How the former cash-game crusher Raul Mestre became one of the most respected innovators in poker — and why he’s now back at the tables of EPT Malta.
HOW DOES KENNY HALLAERT DO IT? SECRETS FOR THE LONG GRIND FROM ONE OF THE BEST
In a 20-year career, he’s been to two WSOP finals and he’s challenging for the Live League. How does the PokerStars Ambassador Kenny Hallaert stay fresh?
LOOSE CANNON LUKE MOY’S BIG GAME JOURNEY – PROOF THE DREAM ISN’T DEAD
Loose Cannon Luke Moy’s Big Game on Tour — how a pub player won a seat, faced poker’s best and proved the dream isn’t dead.
LOOKING FORWARD TO 2026
There’s already so much to look forward to on the PokerStars calendar next year, and hardly anything has been announced yet!
Get the dates for EPT Paris in February and EPT Monte Carlo in April/May on your calendars.
We’ve also got an earlier start for the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) 2026, which is running in March 2026 rather than its usual May schedule.
Plus, we’ve got the next edition of the exhilarating Spin & Go Championship Live taking place in Paris during the EPT.
But there will be a whole lot more.
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