Lucas Jumalon Leads Final Seven In 2026 WSOP Main Event Poker News
During the 2003 WSOP in what may be the most famous Main Event in history, Chris Moneymaker defeated poker pro Sammy Farha heads-up to win $2.5 million and his lone career bracelet. Since 1989, The Poker Brat has gone on to win 17 WSOP bracelets, and stands as the decisive all-time leader in WSOP victories. Jostens Inc., the current manufacturer of WSOP trophies, creates hundreds of bracelets and rings for event winners at not only the WSOP, but also WSOP Paradise, WSOP Europe, and the WSOP Circuit.
The 57th-annual running of this storied event attracted 9,208 entries by the time registration officially closed, making it the fourth-largest yet. Further adding to a historic summer, Japanese poker pro Shiina Okamoto made history by becoming the first woman to win the WSOP Ladies Event in back-to-back years. Winning the two toughest poker tournaments in a single year, an accomplishment many thought was impossible, the governing board of the Poker Hall of Fame held an emergency vote, and unanimously voted Mizrachi into the Hall of Fame. Moving to the Horseshoe and Paris in 2022, for the first time in the event’s history, the WSOP would be held on the Las Vegas Strip. Since Spinella’s lone WSOP bracelet victory in 2015, he has gone on to win five WSOP Circuit rings and accrue over $1.7 million in WSOP tournament winnings. From the momentum spurred by Chris Moneymaker’s WSOP Main Event in 2003 and the ensuing Poker Boom, the WSOP saw record attendance year after year, culminating in the largest tournaments in the event’s history.
Just over half an hour was played when he turned kings full only to run into the flopped quads queens of Hisashi Yamanouchi. Gold was one of the most notable casualties today, along with Phil Ivey. Once the chips were bagged up, the tournament info screens showed a total of 4,997 entries for Day 1d of the 2025 WSOP Main Event to bring the overall tally to 8,694. All tournament areas at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas were filled to the brim. The largest first-place prize was $12,100,000, won by Daniel Weinman for winning the 2024 WSOP Main event.
This summer I saw my former WPT colleagues, Mickey Doft and BJ Nemeth, both working with the streaming crew in Vegas. If they want only the fun and sanitized poker stories, that is what you write. So, if livestreams are paramount, they can demand you delay your updates and you have to say yes. You are also beholden to your client to deliver a product they want. However, since the media has largely moved in-house or to a model in which the outlet is a contractor of the casino or tour, you only get one version of the story. On the flip side, I think poker tours consolidating media in house or to official contractors has really killed the rest of poker content.
Even with those two knockouts, Negreanu remained ahead going into three-handed play. Martirosian’s surge up the leaderboard continued after he eliminated bracelet winner Philip Sternheimer in fourth place ($705,448). Yosuke Miki’s flush draw turned into a rivered straight to best the flopped set of tens of Sergio Martinez Gonzalez, ending the Spaniard’s run in seventh place ($312,233). Ausmus eventually settled for $259,047 as the eighth-place finisher.
Shaun Deeb is the reigning WSOP Player of the Year, having cashed in 18 live events, six online bracelet events, and reached five final tables in 2025. From the smallest fields to the largest, the $1,500 Monster Stack and $500 Colossus, will once again draw enormous crowds, as players of all levels embark on their annual poker pilgrimage to play two of the summer’s most popular events. With a $5,000 pricetag, the event is sure to draw some of poker’s best full-time professional players who look to secure a big score and add a shiny, new WSOP gold bracelet to their wrist. Elsewhere at the SHRPO series, statistical anomalies were on tap as three different players won four events in the series. The most prestigious mixed-game poker tournament of the year is down to its final six contenders, and the remaining half dozen players include some of the most decorated names in the game.
After the incredible accomplishment of winning his fourth Poker Players Championship title, a tournament regarded by many as the hardest to win, Michael Mizrachi would go on to win the WSOP Main Event as well. Although she finished in 5th place, Enright solidified herself in WSOP history, and has added three WSOP bracelets to her list of accolades. The final hand from the 1986 WSOP Main Event, in which Chan defeated Erik Seidel to win the title, was included in the film. The most prized bracelet of them all, the WSOP Main Event bracelet stands above all others in size and value.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12
Hosting poker’s biggest yearly event for nearly two decades, The Rio in Las Vegas would host its final summer WSOP in 2021. A successful online player who got his start at only 15 years old, Cada made his first trip to the WSOP in 2009 and left Las Vegas as the youngest world champion in poker history. Just when it seemed Johnny Chan would win his third WSOP Main Event in a row, a 24 year-old Phil Hellmuth would deny Chan the three-peat as he became the youngest poker player at the time to win poker’s greatest title.
A classic poker game that does not involve a flop and is often played as a limit game. Omaha poker is an action game often played as a pot-limit or fixed-limit game Ten levels are scheduled or playing down to 48 players. Among other things, visitors will find a daily dose of articles with the latest poker news, live reporting from tournaments, exclusive videos, podcasts, reviews and bonuses and so much more.
- Mark your calendars and bank those vacation days.
- 2023 APT Taipei Main Event champion Punnat Punsri will join the Day 3 field from the Natural8 ‘Onlive’ flight with 492,000.
- Each winner of a WSOP event is awarded a gold bracelet, considered the highest achievement any poker player can achieve.
- This was his largest tournament score yet, topping the $103,000 he earned for a seventh-place showing in a $10,000 Triton One Jeju event this spring.
WSOP+ is the must-have app for every player heading to Las Vegas this summer. This marked the fourth consecutive year that the WSOP took place in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip, offering a mix of high-stakes drama and opportunities for players of all levels. Having a hot start to the 2026 WSOP, after final tabling the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event, Stephen Hubbard went on to win the $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw to nab his first bracelet and $155,819.
Where to Find 2025 WSOP Updates?
A high roller event with a format that encourages exciting poker action! Under the tutelage of five-time WSOP bracelet winner Kristen Foxen, Philip Chun won his first WSOP bracelet and turned his $550 buy-in into $400,000. There are many storylines to follow this summer, starting with Seiver, who won three bracelets last year. The 56th annual poker extravaganza kicked off with the $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em Mystery Millions event. Winning a WSOP bracelet within two days, Myles Mullaly goes on a heater and pulls off a heads-up comeback against Pete Chen to win his first WSOP bracelet.
The annual migration cycle of poker players to Las Vegas for the WSOP is now over, and runners are now returning to the other poker hot spots for more action. The PLO event will end on Day 2 and the NLH edition will play down to a final table on September 1. The first two weeks of December may not have enough players for two giant festivals at the same time, but there’s still plenty of interest to go around if they all learn to share. However, since I play mainly high-stakes tournaments in the US, most of the players I’m familiar with are also high-stakes regulars. The tables are livelier; they’re more willing to chase draws and take gambles, and their fundamentals are still a bit weaker compared to US players. The biggest difference between tournaments in Asia and those in the US is that Asian players tend to play more aggressively.
Seth Palansky in particular, got a lot of unwarranted hate back in the day. Working directly for the WSOP did give me a great appreciation for the importance of logistics which were often lost on the larger poker community. When you later worked on the official WSOP side, how did your understanding of the event change?
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.
Sign up for MyStack today and control your own narrative from the felt. PokerNews is proud to announce its return as the official live reporting partner of the 2025 World Series of Poker (WSOP). The top nine finishers are all set to earn at least seven-figure paydays, with the runner-up taking home $6,000,000. Prior to her repeat victories, Shiina finished second in the Ladies Event in 2023, being just one spot shy of winning the event three years in a row.
The crown jewel of the series, the $10,000 Main Event®, will take place from Wednesday, July 2, to Wednesday, July 16, 2025. The WSOP features dozens of tournaments across various poker formats, including No-Limit Hold’em, Omaha, and mixed games. The 2025 WSOP kicks off on Tuesday, May 27, and runs through Wednesday, July 16, 2025, promising nearly two months of nonstop poker action. With an array of tournaments catering to various buy-ins and formats, the series is still a must-attend for professionals and amateurs alike.
Be sure to tune in for this high-stakes event. The WSOP has taken place in Las Vegas every year since its inception in 1970, making Sin City the indisputable home of the annual tournament. The field will be the biggest of the summer, attracting a variety of competitors, from amatuers to professionals and even high rollers.
Well Armed: Players Reveal How Many Bullets They Fired at World Series of Poker
\”I caught some cards and I won some big pots. It seemed every time the pot got really big, especially three-handed, I had the best hand. That was helpful.” “It feels like every time I get into the situation, I just can’t. “Down here in Florida, I don’t feel like I’ve ever done as well as I should have,” McKeehen told SHRPO live reporter BJ Nemeth.
Yet, it took until late on day 5 of the 2026 WSOP main event for Mizrachi’s shot at another impossibility to come to an end. Ensan was one of four WSOP main event champions who started day 5 with hopes of repeating their former glory. Only one previous WSOP main event champion reached day 6, and that’s 2019 winner Hossein Ensan.
The following year, the tournament saw its first buy-in of $5,000 and this was increased to $10,000 in 1972. The first World Series took place in 1970 and featured no tournaments at all. Each year, a dedicated team of live reporters, editors, presenters, videographers and photographers help make PokerNews the place to be when it comes to staying up-to-date on the World Series. PokerNews has attended every World Series of Poker since 2007, and is proud to serve as the official live coverage partner of the WSOP, including Main Event coverage.
The average stack of 26,317,142 represents just shy of 44 big blinds when play resumes. Zhang entered the day as one of the short stacks and was unable to spin it up, taking home $150,000 for her efforts! It increased her career tournament earnings to $482,761. Zhang took a race shortly after play began, with her Q♠7♠ unable to outrun the 5♥5♣ of Thomas Clack. The 36-year-old fashion brand consultant from Shanghai, China came into the day as one of the very shortest stacks, having lost the majority of her stack late on day 6 with A♣K♠ against J♥J♦ for Felix Kuemayr.
For the second time in his career, Mizrachi made the final table of the WSOP main event. In addition to all of the live events on offer, 30 WSOP online bracelet events are set to take place in parallel to the Las Vegas live action. The 57th annual edition of the most famous poker festival in the world once again features 100 live gold bracelet events inside the Horseshoe Las Vegas and Paris Las Vegas. Two-time bracelet winner Martin Zamani, who had finished fourth in the $10,000 pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better event just a couple of days earlier, scored Castro’s bounty. Leo Margets finished seventh in 2025 for $1.5 million, following in the footsteps of Barbara Enright to record just the second final-table showing ever by a female player in this tournament.
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.
About World Series of PokerThe World Series of Poker® is the largest, richest and most prestigious gaming event and poker brand in the world, having awarded more than $4 billion in prize money over the past six decades. To qualify online for WSOP 2026, please visit GGPoker.com to find out more about WSOP Express, or wsoponline.com if located in the United States. New for 2026, WSOP will award $1M in total to POY competitors, with the player who finishes first receiving a $100,000 WSOP Paradise 2026 package. As always, the centerpiece of the summer is the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em World Championship, better known as the ‘Main Event’, which begins on Thursday, July 2. Returning to the Horseshoe Las Vegas and Paris Las Vegas on the iconic Las Vegas Strip, the 2026 WSOP promises a summer of unparalleled action, where new legends will be made and 100 gold bracelets will be awarded. “Mizrachi has completed what might be the most impressive feat in poker history by winning the two most difficult tournaments to win in the same year,” said WSOP Chief Executive Officer Ty Stewart.
He was soon all-in and at risk again, this time with Q♠3♦ against K♣6♠ for Foxen. He has over $1.2 million in earnings across five cashes so far this series. pokernewsdaily.com He placed fifth in the $600 Deepstack NLH/PLO less than a week before this win, then finished sixth in the $100,000 high roller a few days after that. Super fortunate for how we started out this summer,” said Foxen. This was his fifth title and 10th final-table finish of 2026. He’s made the top ten in the final POY standings every year from 2018 on, stacking result on top of result as he continues to build one of the best resumés that the game has ever seen.
Shawn Buchanan (73rd), Dominick Sarle (70th), Samuel Ju (41st), and 2013 WSOP Main Event champion Ryan Riess (29th) also bowed out after the dinner break as the field shrank to the final three tables. That’s why I played this one feeling better,” he said. “Oh my God, oh my God,” Wong kept repeating in disbelief after winning his bracelet. Nakai earned $144,101 for his runner-up finish, while Dzmitry Urbanovich, winner of the $10,000 8-Game Mixed Championship earlier this summer, rounded out the podium with a third-place finish worth $104,032. A total of 1,699 entries were recorded in this tournament, creating a $1,495,120 prize pool. Is there a better way to end the 2026 World Series of Poker (WSOP) than by winning a bracelet?
However, if you are asking about my academic research, the paper I had written was about non-verbal communication among poker cohorts, so that really didn’t address the scope of the WSOP. These were the days when multiple outlets still showed up to report on these things so I got a tiny glimpse of how media row worked. I had a glimpse of what tournaments looked like because the WSOP Circuit had come through Caesars Southern Indiana. Along the way, she found a place for herself in an industry that often had a very narrow idea of what a woman in poker media was supposed to look like and do. Jessica Welman arrived at the WSOP pretending a summer in Las Vegas counted as academic research.
Owning over $143 thousand in live tournament earnings, Wasnock’s largest career cash of $56,330 has been far surpassed with his performance in the Main Event. WSOP Europe moved from the fall to the spring, with 15 events that took place in early April. Behind the late Johnny Moss, who sits in sixth place all time with nine bracelet wins, the possibility of another 10-time winner being crowned in 2026 looms large. Phil Hellmuth maintains a tight grip on the all-time record for most gold bracelets, with 17. Instead, it was Shaun Deeb, on the strength of a resume anchored by his seventh career WSOP bracelet win and two runner-up finishes, among a long list of results. The second time around, he won it in dominant fashion, claiming the $10 million first-place prize and his eighth career bracelet.
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.