Various COVID-19 lockdowns across the world have meant a big boost for video gaming online. Let’s be honest, there’s not much else to do. And what better way to spend your downtime than immersing yourself in another world, or an alternative life, while playing with real people or even pals online?

However, we know that sometimes gaming can cause relationship rifts. In fact, according to Iain Macintosh’s book, ‘Football Manager Stole My Life’, the titular game was cited as a factor in a whopping 35 divorce cases back in 2012.

Here at CardsChat, this got us all wondering which online games are causing the most arguments in relationships right now. We decided to find out by asking over 1,000 adults in the UK.

Whether you’re the Fortnite fanatic, the put-upon partner of a Call of Duty devotee, or simply annoyed because you can’t get on the console yourself, this one’s for you …

Chris Moneymaker was an unemployed poker pro for all of four weeks. The ex-PokerStars ambassador has just announced a new sponsorship deal with Americas Cardroom (ACR).

Chris Money has partnered with Americas Cardroom just a few weeks after ending his contract with PokerStars. (Image: Twitter/ACR)

CardsChat spoke to Moneymaker after his split from PokerStars. He told us that a “great new opportunity” had come his way, but he couldn’t say what it was.

Now we know that opportunity was a partnership with Americas Cardroom. Fueling his decision to represent the US-facing poker site is a desire to stay home and play online.

Doug Polk dominated Daniel Negreanu one last time on Wednesday, as the challenge came to its conclusion …. finally. Afterwards, he praised the effort and dedication of his opponent.

Doug Polk roughed Daniel Negreanu up once again as the High Stakes Duel winds down. (Image: YouTube)

The poker pros finished up a 25,000-hand heads-up no-limit hold’em challenge. Playing at $200/$400 stakes, Polk’s had this thing all but wrapped up for quite some time.

Entering Day 36, the Upswing Poker founder held a $946,085 lead with 1,718 hands remaining. There simply weren’t enough hands left for “DNegs” to rally.

The World Poker Tour (WPT) is breaking new ground in more ways than one thanks to a new partnership with Poker King.

Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey will be among the celebrities playing the mobile-only WPT Spring Festival on Poker King. (Image: Kakuchopurei)

Poker King made headlines last year when it recruited Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey to peddle its wares. Now, with its mobile poker app gaining momentum in Asia, it’s linked up with the WPT for a unique tournament series.

The WPT Spring Festival will run between February 11 and 22. Ivey and Dwan will taking part, but the real USP is the fact it’s a mobile-only series.

Doug Polk and Daniel Negreanu have finally buried the hatchet after years of bickering. All it took was a 25,000-hand heads-up poker challenge that was a bit more competitive than many expected.

Doug Polk and Daniel Negreanu may have recently realized they have a lot in common. (Image: Poker Central)

The poker pros began feuding in 2014 when Negreanu claimed he can beat $25/$50 no-limit hold’em 6-max online games after studying for a few weeks. That irked Polk, who felt the PokerStars ambassador at the time was being cocky and disrespectful to the grinders who work hard to hone their craft.

He then continued verbally attacking Negreanu over the next six years for various issues, mostly petty ones. In 2018, he took out a billboard outside the Rio during the WSOP, which read “More Rake is Better,” mocking Negreanu’s claims that increased rake on PokerStars was good for the game as a whole.

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has published new rules that will make slot gaming slower but leave online poker largely unaffected.

The UK Gambling Commission has introduced new rules designed to help consumers control their spending. (Image: Fifplay)

As part of its ongoing effort to make online betting and gaming safer, the UKGC, in tandem with the British government, launched a consultation in late 2020.

The aim was to procure feedback from consumers and operators before implementing new gambling regulations that are fit for the digital area. The changes were published on February 2 and, for the most part, poker remains untouched.

Even Doug Polk knows his heads-up battle against Daniel Negreanu is no longer in doubt. He said as much during the Upswing Poker live-stream in which he won another $212,000 over more than seven hours of play, far and away the lengthiest of 35 sessions.

Doug Polk is on pace to finish up his battle against Daniel Negreanu winning an impressive 10 big blinds per 100 hands. (Image: YouTube)

With only around 1,500 hands remaining, Wednesday’s session very well could be the end. That’s right, folks, the challenge that feels like it’s gone on for eternity is finally approaching its conclusion.

Although there isn’t much suspense in terms of who will win the heads-up contest, there are still some reasons to continue paying attention. First off, many poker players have side bets on the outcome of the match, including Polk’s overall profit. And will Negreanu make the final tally respectable?

Casino Sochi is getting ready for two months’ worth of tournament action thanks to the World Poker Tour (WPT) and the European Poker Tour (EPT).

WPT Russia will take place inside Casino Sochi this month and pave the way for PokerStars’ EPT in March. (Image: Partypoker Live)

Despite COVID-19 restrictions across much of Europe, the WPT has confirmed that it will return to Russia this month.

Partypoker will co-host the 14-event festival set to take place inside Casino Sochi from February 19 to 28. Once the WPT’s bandwagon has departed, PokerStars will roll into town on March 19.

Doug Polk appears to be headed towards poker retirement, again. Again. That is assuming he sticks to his recent Twitter comments.

Doug Polk is done with poker yet again. (Image: Upswing Poker)

The Upswing Poker founder is in the midst of a lengthy heads-up battle against his long-time rival Daniel Negreanu. His lead ($736,000), with under 5,000 hands remaining, seems to be nearly insurmountable barring a miracle. So, he’s likely going to win a bunch of money from “DNegs” along with his massive side bets against other gamblers.

Polk came out of retirement to play in this challenge. Outside of prepping for the match for two months, he hadn’t played poker in more than a year. And it had been a few years since he played regularly. The three-time WSOP bracelet winner said when he “retired” in 2018 that he no longer enjoyed the game, and that playing poker gives him anxiety.

Poker player Daniel Moravec may have helped the GameStop stock price rise late Friday due to a viral post he made on the subreddit forum WallStreetBets. The Minnesota native, who spoke with CardsChat News, discovered a trick to help heavily bankrolled investors buy restricted stocks from Robinhood and other trading apps.

Did this poker player cause a late surge for GameStop stock on Friday? (Image: CardsChat News)

Although the company is headed towards bankruptcy due to its failing stores nationwide, GameStop’s stock (GME) price has risen to unthinkable heights the past week due to a push from Reddit investors such as Moravec, a passionate poker player who now resides in Las Vegas, on the WallStreetBets forum.

The video game retailer’s stock has gone from under $20 per share a few weeks ago to a closing price of $325 on Friday. Earlier in the day, it surpassed $400. Many investors made a killing this past week and believe this is only the beginning. Some investors on Reddit and Twitter anticipate an eventual $1,000 mark.

Doug Polk had a huge lead throughout much of the session on Friday, but Daniel Negreanu fought back only to end up suffering another loss. And in doing so, his chances of winning are slowly dwindling away.

Doug Polk is running away with it against Daniel Negreanu. (Image: YouTube)

With just over 4,000 hands left to go out of 25,000, it would take nothing short of a miracle at this point. Negreanu is now down so far that he’d need to win about one small blind every hand, on average, to pull this thing out. We aren’t saying that it’s impossible or that he should just give up. But you must consider the probabilities here.

As Doyle Brunson famously uttered on the Poker After Dark intro, “there’s an old saying in poker, the only thing you need to play this game is a chip and a chair, but to sit down and win against the best, you need a whole lot more.”

Winning poker players become winners because we think. We read. We watch videos. We’re part of poker discussion groups, and we consider our poker action before we make it. We do all of these things to gain edges over our competition.

We gain an edge because we understand and apply poker strategy better than our opponents do.

Implosions are a regular occurrence in Las Vegas. That doesn’t mean, you should let them happen to you at the poker table. (Image: RivieraHotel.com)

Ironically, however, our thinking can sometimes get us into trouble; serious trouble. With just one blunder, we can destroy a stack that was built over an entire session of good play.

At long last, PokerStars is back in the Wolverine State for the first time since Black Friday in 2011, and becomes Michigan’s first legal poker site. FOX Bet, a mobile sports betting platform powered by the Fox Corporation, is partnering to bring online poker to Michigan.

Online poker is finally back in Michigan. (Image: MLive.com)

The state legalized online gambling late in 2019. As of Friday, the online casinos are officially in operation. Michigan is a huge pick up for the US poker industry given the state’s sizable population (10 million).

Poker isn’t the only form of gambling approved in the Wolverine State. Sports betting, blackjack, table games, and slots will also be offered in the Stars Casino, which is the first internet casino to launch in the land of the Maize and Blue.

The new poker year is underway, and there’s so much action going on, we almost forgot we were in a pandemic. And it’s not all online; live poker is showing its face, too. Below, we give you the quick-and-dirty on who’s running hot around the globe, and who booked big poker wins for the week ending today, Friday, Jan. 29:

Phil Galfond

Galfond Challenge vs. Chance Kornuth

WSOP.com

Relationships in the Moorman household may be a little strained this week after Chris Moorman beat his wife, Katie Lindsay, in a WSOP Online Circuit Super Series event.

Chris Moorman put his relationship on hold this week after beating his wife, Katie Lindsay, in a WSOP Online Circuit event. (Image: 888Poker)

With 410 players paying the $320 buy-in and 202 re-entries added to the mix, the odds of Moorman and Lindsay meeting were low.

However, when the rest fell away, the happy couple had to put their wedding vows on hold. Instead of working to protect each other, self-preservation was the name of the game.

In the first major live poker tournament in the US in nearly a year, a relatively unknown Ilyas Muradi took down the main event of the World Poker Tour’s Lucky Hearts Poker Open at the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida. For Muradi, it was a $620,000, life-changing score. For a poker community starved for major tournament action in the face of the coronavirus, the whole series was like a breath of fresh air.

Plexiglass separators and mask requirements provided safety for competitors in the World Poker Tour Lucky Hearts Poker Open at the Seminole Hard Rock in South Florida. (Image: WPT)

Mask-wearing players took their seats at 8-handed tables, protected by plexiglass dividers. WPT hero Darren Elias ran deep yet again, while a former Survivor contestant came just shy of victory.

In the first major live event since the pandemic struck, the tournament drew a massive field of 1,573 — nearly twice the size of 2020’s event. Entries were split over two Day 1s.

It’s all happening at Partypoker right now. With the WPT Montreal event currently in progress, the poker site struck while the iron is hot and announced Millions Online.

Millions Online will return as Partypoker looks to continue its MTT momentum. (Image: Partypoker)

The third installment of the annual series will build on a recent bevy of MTT action on the popular site. Moreover, it’s another chance for Partypoker to set a few more records.

The second incarnation of Millions Online surpassed expectations and, this time around, organizers want to raise the bar again.

Daniel Negreanu opened Wednesday’s session by tanking often, which angered Doug Polk, who stepped away from the table briefly to force Negreanu to speed up the action. He then returned to the virtual felt and proceeded to demolish his opponent yet again.

Daniel Negreanu and Doug Polk are no longer buddies, again. (Image: YouTube)

It appears the days of these two fierce rivals despising each other are back. After two months of cordial behavior between them, the bitterness has returned.

On Day 32, Polk changed up his style of play and began limping buttons pre-flop. He did so because he is attempting to lower variance to preserve his massive lead down the stretch of this 25,000-hand heads-up no-limit hold’em challenge.