WSOP THE 2026 WORLD SERIES OF POKER MAIN EVENT REACHES ITS FINAL TABLE

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.

The meat of my career was live updates, so I hold a soft spot for those because that remains the best way to really embrace the game itself and break down a hand. Even after being on camera in various capacities for years, when I worked as the WPT Live Update Hostess in Season X, the larger poker community still pushed back. Thankfully, Wicked Chops Poker created this position for me on their weekly poker show where I popped in and gave them the major headlines from the industry for five minutes. As a tournament reporter, I was so behind the scenes and so low on the ladder that I did not feel that pressure. A lot of people would say poker was pretty nasty with misogyny during that period.

More famous players added their names to WSOP history, as Dan Harrington, Huck Seed and Scotty Nguyen all won Main Events. The full schedule released in February, showing 100 bracelet events with buy-ins ranging from $300 to $250,000. From your first Circuit event to a final table in Las Vegas, WSOP is still where you go to prove something. It’s the only platform in the US where you can win a poker tournament for official WSOP gold bracelets without leaving home!

For players in Nevada, New Jersey, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, WSOP Online has become something worth paying attention to. This app is the essential tool for player wanting to take advantage of the full event experience Playing online poker should always be fun. If “poker winnings” isn’t enough to satisfy Nevada operators, the Las Vegas poker landscape could face hard times in the future. On the other hand, it could create huge hurdles for people to play high-stakes poker in Sin City.

“Poker is filled with unexpected storylines, and nobody is better equipped to showcase the stories that unfold throughout a tournament more than ESPN. With our new ownership’s commitment to growth, this is the perfect time to bring the ‘World Championship’ back to the biggest stage in sports.” See the full 2025 WSOP schedule below and find the buy-in and date of every single official event at this year’s Series. This was the German pro’s second seven-figure score, with the earlier also coming in a $100,000 PLO event.

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 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.

I think this was a time where there was a very narrow idea of what women in poker could really do. I always thought it was an advantage to be a woman in the tournament reporting space because poker tournaments are very boring and these guys are stuck in their seats and just want someone to talk to. But, as someone who walked by the media room a half dozen times this summer and never saw a soul inside it, I doubt people would grasp just how many people were in there. So, by the end of my first summer, I picked up an extra gig working for the WPT as a tournament reporter for Bellagio Cup. On my first day I remember the time for the first post was drawing near and I just sat at the computer afraid I would mess it up.

Maxwell Franklin rebounded from less than one big blind to make the final table, while Nick Yunis surged from three big blinds to the chip lead by the time the unofficial final table was reached. In the meantime, Nakai cracked aces and ace-king with king-seven in a three-way all-in to triple up, though he remained well behind chip leaders Wong and Jongwook Lee when play reached the final two tables. More players quickly hit the rail after the restart, including Trung Le (78th), the only casualty of a three-way all-in.

Like his victory in the 2024 WSOP $50,000 Poker Players Championship, Negreanu won this title while filming his popular WSOP vlog, which features daily coverage of his ups and downs from the series. This was the fourth-largest payday of the Poker Hall of Famer’s career. Hot on the heels of Benny Glaser, Michael Mizrachi, and Shaun Deeb all securing their ninth career bracelets, Daniel Negreanu managed one of the biggest titles of his career to keep pace. Caesars Entertainment, Inc. offers diversified gaming, entertainment and hospitality amenities, one-of-a-kind destinations, and a full suite of mobile and online gaming and sports betting experiences. Reduced room rates are available across Caesars Entertainment’s Las Vegas resorts for the series.

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?

Hachem and Brunson remain in contention to make history as the younger half of a father-and-son WSOP main event championship combo, with Joe Hachem having won in 2005 and the late Doyle Brunson in 1976 and 1977. I also care less about the pay jumps than most, and I’m trying to win the tournament no matter what day it is. Trayner also took down the return of the Aussie Millions main event earlier this year. One of them will eventually hoist this year’s championship gold bracelet, and bank the $10,000,000 first-place prize from the fourth-largest world championship in history. Stream live NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, college sports, plus SportsCenter, First Take, and all your favorite ESPN shows—anytime, anywhere—only in the ESPN app. If you’re a poker fan, there’s no bigger tournament than this.

The cards are in the air for what should be another monster summer for the World Series of Poker in its first year under GGPoker ownership. A second tournament, $500 Industry Employees No-Limit Hold’em, will begin at 2 p.m. We’re all soon going to have those questions answered as the 2025 WSOP officially got underway at Horesehoe and Paris Las Vegas at noon PT on Tuesday. Who will be the surprise of the summer? Will Phil Hellmuth extend his World Seires of Poker (WSOP) bracelet record? Playing one of the most exciting formats offered at the 2026 WSOP, Justin Fawcett nabs his second WSOP bracelet.

There’s 2019 champion Hossein Ensan (29,700,000), who is just one day away from another Main Event final table as he chases history. It’s starting to feel real for the players still standing in the 2026 World Series of Poker Main Event. Liu called to the 6♠ turn, which both players checked. Similar to the previous three flights, there were several casualties in the first level, and the unfortunate honor of the first player being eliminated belonged to Kacper Pyzara this time. More than $83.5 million in prize money has already been generated for the world’s largest live poker tournament of the year in Sin City.

Event #46: $25,000 PLO High Roller Day 1b Top 10 Chip Counts

The day belonged to Sasha Liu, however, who bagged a big chip lead when she ended Day 3 on 2,364,000 chips, some way clear of second-placed Martin Zamani (1,963,000), with Levon Khachatryan (1,745,000), Robert Gill (1,604,000) and Zdenek Zizka (1,576,000) rounding out the top five. Day 3 of the 2026 WSOP Main Event was the most dramatic yet as former champions either thrived or saw their tournament chances die in thrilling fashion. Though 2026 payment methods haven’t been confirmed yet, it’s expected to include cash, credit/debit cards, ACH transfers, wire transfers, and tournament buy-in chips or credits, similar to previous years. Among them will be Jeff Platt, who last month announced a new role with the WSOP after a near decade-long association with previous series broadcaster PokerGO. Or, even better, there’s a chance you could capture both pieces of sought-after poker jewelry.

This year’s Player of the Year race will award $1 million in prizes across the 100 best-performing players, including a $100,000 WSOP Paradise package for the eventual champion. The 100 bracelet-awarding events that make up the 2026 WSOP will play a significant role in the race for the revamped WSOP Player of the Year competition. Coming from a sports journalism background, Platt told PokerNews last month that fans can expect a “new era” of broadcasts, showcasing “more tournaments, more players, and more storylines.” Alongside the new events, the way fans watch this summer’s WSOP is set for a major shake-up, with a free daily livestream available to an international audience on the WSOP’s YouTube channel. Scheduled to run between July 14-25, during the final days of the WSOP bracelet series, the WSOP Circuit Las Vegas schedule features a $400 Mini Main Event, a $2,200 No-Limit High Roller, and a $1,700 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event.

• While Binion’s prediction would prove accurate, the casino titan likely had no idea just how large the event would eventually grow.
• 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.
• Under the new agreement, poker fans can expect wall-to-wall coverage, with each tournament day receiving a minimum of six hours of programming.
• Jarod Minghini (Lake Tahoe, Nevada, United States) – 23,600,000 ChipsJarod Minghini, 37, is a poker tournament grinder based out of Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

The $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em Online WSOP Bracelet event broke new ground for the WSOP, allowing poker players across the state of Nevada to compete for WSOP glory from the comfort of their laptops and computers. Acknowledging the prominence and impact online poker had on the industry, in 2015 the WSOP offered its first online WSOP bracelet events. One of the greatest poker players of all time, Chan’s success on the felt transcended poker, as he famously made a cameo in the 1998 poker film Rounders, starring Matt Damon and Edward Norton.

Most other poker rooms around town will have a regular offering of daily tournaments, and they can be convenient if you are staying nearby. But it’s Las Vegas, and we don’t stop playing poker just because the WSOP left town. I’ve won every tournament I’ve ever played heads-up in PLO. You don’t get punished for that as you would in no-limit, because the crux of the game is played post-flop. The way I would describe it is that preflop, when you’re playing no-limit hold’em, you can make some really big mistakes.

The prize money for the top two places was frozen, and after an internal investigation, Carroll and Yaginuma received even prizes, but the bracelet itself was withheld. He’s tied with Glaser, who tacked on three wins to get to eight in 2025, and Mizrachi, who was also a multi-time 2025 WSOP champion. Deeb, who won his eighth bracelet at WSOP Europe in 2025, added two to his total last year. His sixth, seventh, and eighth career WSOP wins, all in different mixed game formats, seemingly gave Glaser the inside track to becoming WSOP Player of the Year and the star of the festival. Starting flight offers a final opportunity to bag chips and chase big bounties.

Starting May 26, the streams will bring live action from a revamped TV set featuring some of poker’s most familiar voices. WSOP Circuit tournaments usually enjoy large crowds, but the ones in Las Vegas this summer could break attendance records with so many grinders being in Sin City for the 2026 WSOP. How do you top perhaps the greatest summer in poker history? In any other year, Michael Mizrachi winning the PPC for an unprecedented fourth time might have been the story of the summer, but you might remember “The Grinder” went and added something else to his record as well. Last year, the Millionaire Maker was one of the most talked-about stories of the series, controversial but compelling, it remains a standout event that always draws a massive crowd. The format, which ran from 2008 to 2016, featured a four-month gap between the Main Event final table being set and the next world champion being crowned.

Daniel Negreanu Wins Eighth World Series of Poker Bracelet in $100K PLO High Roller

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 series spanned everything from the $2,500 Circuit Championship Mystery Bounty and the Super Colossus to a run of Triton-branded high rollers Other winners during the series included Alex Foxen, Nick Schulman, Stephen Chidwick and PokerStars ambassador Alejandro Lococo. WSOP Paradise returned bigger than before in 2024 with a $500,000 buy-in event in partnership with Triton and a $50 million guaranteed Super Main Event. “It’s going to be an absolutely amazing experience, the best of poker at one of the world’s most luxurious resorts.”

You entered a poker industry that was overwhelmingly male, both at the tables and in the media. What would someone entering the WSOP media room today struggle to understand about the atmosphere, workload, access, and personalities of the press corps you joined? By the end of Bellagio Cup, my boss Jeff Holsey offered me a full-time role, but only if I promised not to drop out of school to take it. It wasn’t I was an amazing writer or that I had some elite level of poker acumen. In the meantime, I was quietly developing a very unique skill set virtually no one else had. As a poker fan, I got behind the ropes access to everything and made money to boot, so it always felt like a blessing.

And so I’d say in the last 15, 20 years, yes, this is the most hold’em I’ve played in a long time. “When I first got into poker, I was grinding the low-limit stuff after retiring from hockey,” said Mueller. The nine-time WSOP bracelet winner could lock down his third WSOP Player of the Year title, an emphatic 10th bracelet win, and the biggest result of his accomplished career, all in one swoop. The 2014 WSOP bracelet winner once again held court for long stretches of the ESPN+ broadcast and positioned himself for an incredible opportunity on day 8.

There’s only one previous bracelet winner in the top 10, in Australia’s Malcolm Trayner. He’s followed closely by Canadian DJ Sharma, who has 9,840,000 after a wild stretch on one of the featured tables with bracelet winner and former chip leader Will Givens. Here’s a look at the broadcast schedule for the 2026 tournament. Here’s everything you need to know about the World Series of Poker Main Event, including TV channel and streaming options for the national tournament.

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.

Prior to the introduction of gold bracelets, WSOP event winners received grey trophies for their accomplishment. In 1972, the WSOP established the $10,000 buy-in for the Main Event and made it a freezeout tournament, two stipulations that stand to this day. While Binion’s prediction would prove accurate, the casino titan likely had no idea just how large the event would eventually grow. During the early days of the WSOP, Benny Binion famously told Doyle Brunson “You know, Doyle, someday we may have a hundred people in this tournament”. Jarod Minghini (Lake Tahoe, Nevada, United States) pokernewsdaily.com – 23,600,000 ChipsJarod Minghini, 37, is a poker tournament grinder based out of Lake Tahoe, Nevada. A member of the Pokercode collective, Bojovic’s largest career score of $134,617 came from his eighth place finish in the 2024 WSOP Europe Main Event, contributing to his live tournament career winnings total of over $700 thousand.

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.