Damian Salas has already done his part in reaching the heads-up portion of the WSOP Main Event. He now awaits his foe, as he shoots for a world title.

Damian Salas has an opportunity to avenge a past defeat. (Image: Las Vegas Review-Journal)

Salas won the final table at King’s Casino in the Czech Republic on Dec. 15 for $1,550,969. He beat out a field of 674 players, all who paid $10,000 to enter (or won a satellite), in a tournament that began on GGPoker.

Despite having won the GGPoker WSOP Main Event portion, the Argentinian still isn’t poker’s world champion. Salas will await the winner of the WSOP.com Main Event final table, which is set to be played on Monday at the Rio in Las Vegas.

What does the upcoming year have in store for the poker world? After COVID-19 put us all on tilt in 2020, we can only hope for a more prosperous year, starting with the return of major live tournaments.

Will the 2021 WSOP in Las Vegas take place, or will COVID-19 win again? (Image: WSOP.com)

I made some predictions for 2020 a year ago, but I won’t spend much time revisiting them, simply because most of our picks were based on live tournament play. Given that only a few major tournaments ran in 2020 due to COVID-19, there’s really no point in rehashing the poker year that wasn’t.

Instead, we’ll move forward to what will hopefully be a better year for us all.

Daniel Negreanu is helping raise money for something other than Doug Polk’s retirement fund. The GGPoker ambassador, via his pal Eric “Barstool Nate” Nathan, will match up to $25,000 in donations towards The Barstool Fund, a charity drive raising money for small businesses struggling to survive during COVID-19.

“Barstool Nate” and Daniel Negreanu are raising money for a good cause. (Image: WSOP.com)

Billionaire entrepreneur Marcus Lemonis challenged Barstool founder Dave Portnoy to “put your money where your mouth is” and raise money for the small business owners he claims to support. Portnoy obliged and created a charity drive that has raised over $4.6 million this month.

The first recipient of the small business fund was Frank Borrelli, owner of Borrelli’s pizzeria in New York. If you follow Barstool Sports, that name may sound familiar. Borrelli’s son, Frankie, is a producer for Barstool. His family’s restaurant has been in business for 65 years but was struggling to make ends due to COVID-19. Portnoy jumped in and shipped the business owner a $500,000 check. An emotional Borrelli left a video message for the Barstool Sports founder.

Tom Dwan has given us a small but intriguing insight into how you can win $6 million+ pots with a complete bluff.

Tom Dwan has recounted his biggest ever bluff in a pot worth more than $6 million. (Image: PokerVIP)

The latest installment of Dwan’s Ask Me Anything (AMA) dissects his greatest bluff and, surprisingly, it’s not the infamous hand against Phil Ivey.

In this hand, the man known as Durrrr put it all on the line with air in a pot that sounds as though it was worth at least $6 million and, potentially, more than $10 million.

Doug Polk had to work for his money on Wednesday. He also had to withstand a furious rally by Daniel Negreanu. But after all was said and done, he ended one of the longest sessions of the challenge with yet another six-figure win.

Doug Polk battled for five hours to book a six-figure profit. (Image: YouTube)

Negreanu was coming off two straight winning sessions in which he profited over $260,000 total. He was looking to continue his winning ways, but couldn’t shrug off an early massive deficit.

Polk entered Day 21 of the $200/$400 heads-up no-limit hold’em competition on WSOP.com with a $696,000 lead. The long-time feuding poker pros had completed 11,318 hands of a 25,000-hand challenge. On Thursday, they nearly hit the midway point, and Negreanu is now down by a margin that will be difficult, but not impossible, to come back from.