Lucas Jumalon Leads Final Seven In 2026 WSOP Main Event Poker News
The 62-year-old German ended day 7 in seventh place overall, and maintained his chance to become the first repeat WSOP main event champion since Stu Ungar won his third main event in 1997. The 2026 World Series of Poker $10,000 no-limit hold’em main event has reached a crucial juncture. We offer daily poker and casino news, poker professionals’ blogs and tweets, exclusive gambling videos, thousands of free gambling articles, as well as coverage from all major poker tournaments in the world. All remaining players have locked up at least $57,500 from a prize pool of $85,634,400.
The overall chip leader heading into day 8 is Australia’s Malcolm Trayner, with 63,200,000 (105 big blinds). The average stack of 3,176,206 represents 39 big blinds when play resumes. @TheGrinder44 puts his Main Event life on the line as he looks to keep his title defense alive on Day 5 of the 2026 WSOP Main Event. I had my A-game on day 5, I controlled a lot of pots, and I’m still in.”
Ever wonder who is the best poker player in the world? The Japanese player earned $516,160 for his fifth-place showing, the second-largest score of his tournament career. This was his fourth final-table finish of the series, having placed third in both the $25,000 six-max no-limit hold’em and $25,000 PLO/NLH mix, as well as fourth in the $250,000 super high roller. The six-figure bubble burst on day 2, with three-time bracelet winner Naoya Kihara being the last to be sent to the rail empty-handed. The 100 bracelet events that make up the World Series of Poker 2026 will shape the race for the revamped WSOP Player of the Year (POY) competition.
Glaser has also come close to winning this event before, finishing fourth in 2022. Ivey has more than $54.9 million in prior earnings and has locked up at least $226,172 by making it down to the final six from a field of 108 entries in this year’s PPC. The champion will add theirs to the Chip Reese Memorial trophy, in addition to earning a WSOP bracelet and the top prize of $1,343,764. The day 10 broadcast kicks off on ESPN at 8 p.m. Action resumes on Tuesday, Aug. 4, at approximately 4 p.m.
Winning the largest piece of the $90,535,500 total prize pool, Mizrachi takes home $10 million along with a Main Event bracelet valued at half a million dollars. In her free time, she enjoys baking, getting outdoors and discovering new music. Stream ESPN, ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and 100+ top channels of live TV and sports without cable.
From Aug. 3-5, the final table will play out live on ESPN platforms for the first time in six years, rekindling one of the oldest relationships in poker broadcasting. The fourth-largest WSOP main event of all time features top players from multiple eras of the game, some new standouts, and one previous main event champion looking for the unlikeliest of repeat performances. Only 174 players remain from a field of 9,208 in the 2026 World Series of Poker $10,000 no-limit hold’em main event. As expected, they include Specialty Landmark Mega Satellites taking place each day, allowing players to satellite into the following day’s $5,000 or $10,000 buy-in events.
The WSOP’s official announcement includes a tantalizing line suggesting a format shift many thought had been left behind, with a delayed final table, a modern spin on the “November Nine,” seemingly on the cards. At the top end, there are 18 $10,000 buy-in events, six $25,000 high rollers, four $50,000 events, two $100,000 buy-ins, and the $250,000 Super High Roller standing alone at the summit. This 2026 WSOP guide covers everything you need to know including the full schedule, Main Event details, the hottest new events to watch for in 2026, and much more.
Benny Glaser and Josh Arieh Among The Remaining Six With A Shot At The $1.3 Million Top Prize
“It’s part of the thing that makes me play so well. I’m not super excited and my adrenaline’s not pumping. It’s just another day at the office for me.” “Hopefully I’ll be the first player to bink the Aussie Millions and the Main Event in the pokernewsdaily.com same year.” Returning with 7,800,000 chips, Brunson remains in contention to win poker’s biggest tournament exactly 50 years after his late father Doyle Brunson captured his second Main Event title. Ensan believes he’s an even better player than he was during that championship run. A victory for Ensan would make him the first player since Johnny Chan (1987, 1988) to win the WSOP Main Event twice. Three ways to the 10♥8♦6♥ flop, Philippe Souki in the big blind checked and so did the third player in the hand before Robert Zarzycki on the button bet 1,500.
History of the World Series of Poker Main Event
- He was one of only two players, along with Scott Ruegsegger, to bag over two million in chips.
- I can promise you, more often than not, the voice in the meetings speaking up for the players was Seth’s.
- These progress into a $2 buy-in (or Step 2 ticket) Spin & Gold 6-Max SNG, then a $10 buy-in (or Step 3) Turbo Tournament, before a $150 buy-in (or Step 4 ticket) regular tournament opens the door for a WSOP bracelet pass.
- The WSOP welcomes poker players from around the globe.
- Then she obtained a verified check from another casino, and the WSOP allowed her to play.
He sits one spot ahead of his wife, Kristen Foxen, who won her sixth bracelet just a week earlier to extend her leads on both the women’s all-time money list and WSOP titles leaderboards. The former collegiate football player now has $60,565,402 in career cashes to his name after this victory. “I think your career is really about repeated performance and an entire body of work, rather than one event proving something,” Foxen told PokerNews live reporters after closing out the win. In fact, from 2016 through 2025, he had the second-best record of any player on the planet when it comes to Card Player Player of the Year points accumulated. Alex Foxen has been an elite poker tournament performer over the past decade. In the last three years in the WSOP main event, Nagami finished in 21st in 2024, 170th in 2025, and now 23rd place ($325,000) in 2026.
The Main Event is the most prestigious tournament in the entire World Series of Poker schedule. “The 2026 World Series of Poker Main Event will go down as one of the most memorable of all time,” said Ty Stewart, Chief Executive Officer of WSOP. The road to the 2026 Final Table was one of the most grueling tests of endurance in poker history. Watch daily poker clips on the PokerGO YouTube channel. The 2019 world champion Hossein Ensan ended the day 16th in chips on 1,280,000 after a bullish day at the felt, while other former winners in John Cynn (927,000), Joe Hachem (353,000), Chris Moneymaker (221,000) and Greg Raymer (205,000) performed brilliantly too. Liu came into play on a big stack but really stepped on the gas, and powered to her lead in impressive fashion.
Jing brought a large sum of cash from Hustler Casino and used it to buy into the $100-$200 no-limit hold’em game. There are also Day 2s in the $25,000 PLO with the survivors from its two starting flights combining for the first time at 12 p.m., and the $2,500 Freezeout, which gets underway an hour later at 1 p.m. Other notables through to Day 3 include Matt Glantz (625,000), Main Event final tablist John Wasnock (410,000), and Karina Jett (380,000). They will have a day’s rest before returning for Day 3 on Thursday. There were plenty of bracelet winners advancing from Day 1b in the Seniors Championship. Calvin Anderson who also ended Day 1 with the chip lead, bagged the overall chip lead on Day 2 as well, having already won this event in 2018.
Breaking from tradition, the $500 Industry Employees no-limit hold’em event moved to the second day of the 2026 WSOP. The 2026 WSOP main event begins on Thursday, July 2, and runs through Monday, July 13. The 35-year-old professional’s latest major addition saw him defeat a field of 466 entries in the 2026 World Series of Poker $10,000 no-limit hold’em super turbo bounty event for $594,246 and his fourth career gold bracelet. All remaining players have locked up at least $325,000 from a prize pool of $85,634,400. It was a disastrous final level, during which Liu went from a stack of over 56 million, and the chip lead late on day 7, to out of the tournament.
In 1995, Barbara Enright made poker history by becoming the first woman to reach the WSOP Main Event final table. In 1976, the WSOP would begin awarding tournament winners gold bracelets, considered by many to be the most prized trophies in all of poker. With the lasting prominence of the biggest poker tournament of the year, the 2026 WSOP Main Event may be the largest in the event’s history. Once requested to vote on who they thought was the second-best player in the event, Johnny Moss was selected as the very first WSOP Main Event champion.
While Mueller’s been a mixed game player for the bulk of his professional poker career, he’s afforded himself incredibly well thus far in the 2026 WSOP main event. Two other multi-time bracelet winners also advanced to day 8 of the 2026 WSOP main event. Speaking of Ensan, the 2019 WSOP main event champion is one day away from a return to the final table in 2026. The final 174 players will return for day 6 at noon on Saturday, July 11, with blinds of 30,000-60,000 and a 60,000 big blind ante for level 25. Among the final 174 players, 24 have already won at least one WSOP bracelet. With the WSOP Main Event deep in the middle of its run and no championships events concluding until the start of the weekend, the PokerGO Tour Leaderboard remains as it was yesterday, with Sean Winter leading from the Finnish player Eelis Parssinen.
Las Vegas, Nevada (May 26, 2026) – After a festive Memorial Day weekend here in Sin City, the biggest poker series of the year is ready to get underway! ESPN first broadcast the WSOP Main Event in 1978 and remained the dominant broadcaster of the event for decades, helping to fuel the global poker boom. Known for innovative hits like Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli (the “ManningCast”) and Netflix’s “Quarterback” and “Receiver”, Omaha Productions will apply its signature storytelling lens to the poker table.
Winning his first WSOP bracelet as well as the highest score of his poker tournament career, cash game grinder Markus Gonsalves joins one of poker’s most exclusive clubs. International satellites to WSOP live events are hosted exclusively at GGPoker, the World’s Biggest Poker Room. In 2025, the flagship event in Las Vegas attracted 246,960 entrants and awarded more than $481 million in prize money – both all-time records for the series. After years of grinding on the felt towards poker’s biggest prize, poker pro Dylan Smith finally nabs his first WSOP bracelet in the $2,500 Mixed Big Bet Event. Defeating Aubrey Williams in a thrilling heads-up duel, Skye Chen not only scores her first live tournament cash, but her first WSOP bracelet. Former champion Chris Moneymaker was eliminated from the World Series of Poker Main Event early in Day 4, ensuring all the remaining players made the money.
$30M in Prizes, $12M in Taxes: What 2026 WSOP Main Event Finalists Keep
The 2026 World Series of Poker Main Event will crown its newest world champion Wednesday night in Las Vegas. Catch all the action LIVE now on the APT livestream with Punnat Punsri at the feature table. $374K+ goes to the winner and they’ll be a day away from it in just hours. All operators listed by PokerListings are licensed and safe to play at. If you play for real money, make sure that you do not play for more than you can afford losing, and that you only play at safe and regulated operators.
It was another action-packed day at The Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas, with Justin Smith defeating an enormous 16,269-player field to win the Colossus and Daniel Aharoni winning his first bracelet in the $10,000 Big O Championship. We believe that an independent media company will help shape the future of poker by providing an authentic platform for players’ views. PokerOrg represents the independent voice and passion of poker players. Particularly with so many overlapping poker festivals in Asia taking place after the conclusion of WSOP, the continued growth is a strong reflection of the confidence players have in the APT.”
Players can now access all tournament details via the WSOP+ app, which has already been updated with the full schedule. To bring WSOP action to a wider international audience for free, a daily stream will be broadcast live on the official WSOP YouTube channel from May 26 through to the start of the Main Event. After a number of hands were played and small pots exchanged, a flopped ace-nine two pair held by Wasnock would meet its demise after Mizrachi turned a flush with a suited ten-three.
Saaskilahti became the second player to hit the 100-million mark when he pulled off a big bluff with queen high. I just prepared a little bit, like psychologically,” he said when asked about the three-week layoff from when the final table was set back on July 13th. Jumalon continued to fall from his early high water mark when his preflop raising war with Saaskilahti ended the Finnish player five-betting A♣K♠. Neither player improved on the end and Jumalon opted not to continue bluffing with six high. After taking down that pot, he chipped up to 214,000,000, or just shy of 3,567 times the initial starting stack of 60,000 for this championship event. Bruce Buffer, the famous voice of mixed martial arts and a poker tournament regular, kicked off the proceedings with his signature catchphrase.
Mueller, like Gagliano, had some high points over the course of the first day of 2026 WSOP main event final table action. With the $500,000 Feng made for outlasting two players on day 9 of this tournament, and the potential of a lot more to come, it seems to have been a good investment. The 27-year-old poker player based out of Houston went from the second-shortest stack to start the final table to a clear second place position by the end of the session.
As he looks to navigate his way through day 8 of poker’s world championship, those experiences could prove incredibly valuable. Two months ago, in his home country, Trayner won the return of the Aussie Millions main event, for just shy of another $1 million. Over the last two years, Trayner has navigated some massive fields and big spots in major live tournaments. Usually, I play poker with headphones, and I’m very locked in.
ESPN coverage of the 2026 WSOP main event is set to start with day 1a of the tournament, on Thursday, July 2, and run through the entirety of the tournament. The first official day of WSOP tournament action also includes a $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event, which kicks off at 2 p.m. Until ESPN enters the picture later in the summer, final tables and live streams will air in-house on WSOP’s digital platforms, primarily on YouTube, starting on May 29. Once the final nine players are set, chip bags come out, and players are sent on their way for an extended break. While most WSOP events last three days and several take a full week to complete, this turbo tournament was finished in a single session. He is just the ninth player to ever surpass the $60-million mark, and is now ranked ninth on poker’s all-time money list.
What did interviewing them face-to-face reveal that the public version of those players concealed? I can promise you, more often than not, the voice in the meetings speaking up for the players was Seth’s. No one ever said, \”well, you can’t interview players because you have to be hot to do that,\” but no one was really clamoring for me to interview players on camera. How did that affect the opportunities you received, the way players treated you, and how hard you had to work before people assumed you knew what you were talking about?
There are some tables that play tighter on the feature. Like most other tournaments, Deeb feels like his people-reading skills will be crucial in determining how to handle each lineup he faces. Despite losing a big pot on the second-to-last hand of the night, he has a healthy 4,300,000 going into day 6. Shaun Deeb spent much of the later stages of day 5 as one of the chip leaders. He navigated through another massive field in 2024, winning that year’s Mystery Millions event for a $1 million first-place prize.
The most recent WSOP Main Event in 2025 drew a field of 9,735, the third-largest turnout in the history of the tournament. Hailing from Barcelona, Spain, Margets is not new to success at the WSOP, having won her lone bracelet in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Closer for $376,850 in 2021. Still seeking his first career WSOP bracelet, Hallaert’s first title won in the United States could be the biggest one of them all. Already having a WSOP bracelet to his name, Dunaway won the $1,500 Monster Stack for $1,162,681 during the 2023 WSOP. Braxton Dunaway (Midland, Texas, United States) – 91,900,000 ChipsBraxton Dunaway, 42, lives in Midland, Texas, and is a family man who makes his living in the oil and gas industry.
Here’s a look at the qualified players and their chip counts entering the WSOP Main Event Final Table. Only nine elite players remain in contention for a title, and each are already guaranteed a prize of at least $1 million. It’s been a summer of poker in Las Vegas, but now it’s time to crown a champion.
The break gave players respite from the gruelling Main Event grind, the chance to drum up sponsorship deals, and fly family and friends to Las Vegas for the biggest final table of their lives. Seven-time WSOP bracelet winner and GGPoker ambassador Daniel Negreanu also pointed to expanded online qualification paths, encouraging players worldwide to “take your shot at the gold in 2026.” Returning to the WSOP for the second year and continuing to revolutionize how poker players experience WSOP events around the world, the WSOP Live App serves as a one-stop shop for everything poker players need throughout the 2026 WSOP. Taking one of the most popular events at the WSOP and lowering the buy-in to attract even more poker players, Flight A of the $550 No-Limit Hold’em Mini Mystery Millions serves as the perfect starting event for the 2026 WSOP.
PokerNews has been providing live coverage of the event for all three editions, with photos, videos, and player interviews live from the tournament floor in The Bahamas. 2026 will see another 100 live bracelet events played out inside Horseshoe Las Vegas and Paris Las Vegas, with nonstop excitement and hundreds of millions in prize money awarded along the way. MyStack lets players update their stacks in real time, directly into the PokerNews live feed. MyStack returns this year, allowing players to directly update their chip counts in the live reporting feed and give friends and followers the most accurate picture of their tournament progress. The final 1,382 players will be in the money and guaranteed at least $15,000, with the eventual champion taking home the… pic.twitter.com/w9P2acqUWH