Lucas Jumalon Leads Final Seven In 2026 WSOP Main Event Poker News
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.
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.
In December 2023, the Bahamas hosted a WSOP bracelet series for the first time. With essentially every poker game and format to choose from, and buy-ins from $300 up to $250,000, this year’s schedule has something for every player and fan. Those survivors will lock up at least $1 million before returning to Las Vegas on August 3 to play for poker’s most coveted title, the gold bracelet and the $10 million first-place prize. Zhao Liu, who started third in chips, was the final player to fall. Gaston was the only player to finish Saturday with more than 20 million chips, yet his big stack translated into a 36th-place finish. Deeb, meanwhile, continues to treat poker’s biggest tournament like it’s just another day at the office.
Live coverage of WSOP Paradise can be found on PokerNews, with information on livestreaming to be announced at a later date. Players in Ontario and across the world were also able to compete for a spot in the Millionaire Maker in Paradise event. GGPoker also gave away 200 $35,000 High Roller packages into the $25,000 GGMillion$ event. Main Event packages included the $5,000 buy-in, as well as 11 nights of hotel accommodation and a buffet lunch every day. Elsewhere, bracelets also went to Matthias Eibinger, David Coleman, Tom Vogelsang, and Imari Love
Media Summary: WSOP Day 42 of 51
The powers that be behind the WSOP brought some heavy hitters on board to round out the broadcast team, including long-time PokerStars and European Poker Tour broadcaster Joe Stapleton. Beginning today, May 26, the action carries on every day through July 15. Tuesday afternoon marks the beginning of the 2026 World Series of Poker.
World Series of Poker – WSOP
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.
More than ten poker players have already won WSOP bracelets and life-changing scores at the 2026 WSOP, some being first-time champions and others further adding to their list of WSOP accolades. WSOP Europe and WSOP Paradise now bring bracelet competition to international destinations, and dozens of Circuit events run year-round for players who want serious competition closer to home. Fans and players are also encouraged to download the WSOP Live app, a one-stop shop for players to not only follow chip stacks and updates in real time, but also register for WSOP events held at the Las Vegas Paris and Horseshoe. It remains one of the largest and most popular poker events in the world, attracting recreational players and poker pros alike.
Every summer since 2022, thousands of poker players from all over the world have made the trip to Las Vegas to compete for WSOP bracelets and life-changing money at Horseshoe and Paris. The group of players who reached the final table each year would be dubbed the November Nine, contributing to a significant chapter in WSOP and televised poker history. In an effort to capitalize on popularity and boost viewership, from 2008 to 2016, the WSOP Main Event would play out during the yearly summer series, but would hold the final table of the event four months later in November. A recreational poker player who won his $10,000 buy-in through a $86 online satellite tournament, Moneymaker’s Main Event win inspired people around the world to take up the game of poker both online and live, triggering the Poker Boom of the early 2000’s. Completing one of, if not the greatest career comeback in poker history, Ungar went on to win the 1997 Main Event, joining Johnny Moss as the only two players to win the event 3 times. In the late 1960s, casino magnate Benny Binion aspired to hold an event pitting the best poker players in the world against each other at the poker table.
Las Vegas, Nevada (February 16, 2026) – The World Series of Poker (WSOP®) today announced the daily event schedule for the 2026 World Series of Poker, the 57th edition of the world’s richest and most prestigious poker series. The WSOP welcomes poker players from around the globe. Designed to streamline your entire WSOP experience, the free app lets you pre-register for bracelet events and skip cage lines and receive real-time seat alerts. Together, these two venues will provide a world-class stage for the world’s best poker players.
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.
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 56th ANNUAL WORLD SERIES OF POKER® SETS NEW RECORDS
CardPlayer.com is the world’s oldest and most well-respected poker magazine and online gambling guide. He now sits in 10th place in the POY race standings presented by CoinPoker, having made 11 final tables and won three titles so far in 2026. In the final hand of the tournament, Martirosian three-bet shoved over Negreanu’s button pot with A♣9♦8♦8♥.
The 2024 World Series of Poker (WSOP) is scheduled to take place from Tuesday, May 28 through Wednesday, July 17 at the Horseshoe and Paris Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. With MyPlayers, you can track your favorite pros, friends, or family members across every reported event. Other sites may post summaries, but only PokerNews has the full hand histories, photos, and chip counts reported live from the floor. PokerNews is the official source for official WSOP live reporting coverage. Expect on-the-fly video content, and daily recaps to keep you up to speed even if you miss the live action.
Michelle Chin joins Kristen Foxen as the only women thus far to win bracelets at the 2026 WSOP. Las Vegas, Nevada (June 25, 2026) – The 2026 World Series of Poker continues to produce unforgettable moments as the summer grind rolls on in Las Vegas. A few hands later, Wong’s ace-deuce held against Nakai’s eight-nine, securing the victory and sending the bracelet to Wong. Nakai and Wong began heads-up play with almost identical stacks. He eventually moved all in with ace-queen but lost a coin flip to Wong’s pocket nines.
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.
The world’s biggest poker festival returns to the Las Vegas Strip from May 26 through July 15, once again staged across Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. Pacific Standard Time, the first of six day one flights for the Mini Mystery Millions will begin. Today, Tuesday, May 26, 2026, day one of the 57th annual World Series of Poker begins at the Horseshoe and Paris in Las Vegas, Nevada. Players should follow @WSOP on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram or check WSOP.com for more news and updates on this year’s WSOP event. This agreement restores that historic collaboration, ensuring that the next generation of world champions is crowned in prime time. Bringing the WSOP back reflects our continued commitment to delivering premium competition and that connects with fans in new and exciting ways.”
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 second woman of the series to nab a World Series of Poker bracelet, Michelle Chin, defeats Daniel Strelitz heads-up to claim victory in the $1,500 Limit 2-7 Lowball Triple Draw for his maiden bracelet. Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews for all the latest news on the final nine before they battle for poker’s most prestigious title! After hanging on for quite some time, Cynthia Vencebi eventually bowed out in fifth place.
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 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.
- At the 2025 WSOP, the $1,000 Mystery Millions drew an entry total of 19,654, the largest in the event’s history, with eventual winner Michael Wilklow claiming his first bracelet and the $1,000,000 top prize.
- 2023 APT Taipei Main Event champion Punnat Punsri will join the Day 3 field from the Natural8 ‘Onlive’ flight with 492,000.
- While the other students in her graduate program spent the summer teaching or taking classes, Welman headed to Las Vegas under the extremely convenient premise that the trip would further her research into poker players.
- In July 2025, GGPoker launched the WSOP Express, allowing its players to win their way to the 2026 WSOP Main Event for as little as $0.50.
- Tony ‘Ren’ Lin has expanded his high stakes prowess to his home continent of Asia as he looks to add APT accolades to his esteemed poker resume.
If you miss out on a WSOP bracelet, you could return home with a WSOPC ring. One would imagine those numbers will be much larger this summer. A WSOP Circuit runs during the 2026 WSOP for the first time in the festival’s history. As mentioned, the $550 Mini Mystery Millions opens the series on May 26 and it could be one of the best curtain raisers for the series.
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.
The nine players who make it to the end of the night on Monday guarantee themselves at least $1 million. Zhao Liu went out in 22nd place, on the final hand of day 7 of the 2026 WSOP main event. A total of 431 women played in this year’s main event, a new record for the tournament. That includes Poker Hall of Famer Todd Brunson, who pushed through a tough final level on day 7 as he goes for his best WSOP main event run yet. Almost half of the remaining field, 10 out of the 21 players, have at least one WSOP bracelet to their name.
Outside of the Main Event, the WSOP schedule would also continue to grow, with 15 events scheduled in 1990. The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a live poker festival held every year in Las Vegas. The WSOP bracelet is the ultimate symbol of poker history and greatness. The tournament took place at LES A Casino in Jeju and attracted 71 entries. As a result, in 2019, British Columbia casino revenue tanked. In 2018, the Canadian government implemented strict anti-money laundering regulations on casinos in British Columbia.
Not a bad payday for a roughly $1,765 buy-in. If you’re playing at a higher level, or if you just want to stop by and watch those who are, the PokerGO Tour will be back on the beat with its fall schedule. No matter where you might toss the dart on the calendar, you’ll find something to play, so we did a deep dive on the schedule to map out the rest of 2026. The World Series of Poker is gone but poker never stops in Las Vegas. It was definitely the summer of PLO for me, where my biggest scores came. There were a couple of spots where if he had called, the tournament would have been over.
A dedicated mixed game player, Canada’s Patrick Stacey wins his first WSOP bracelet after defeating high-stakes professional poker player Danny Tang heads-up. Professional poker player Caitlin Comeskey continued her successful summer at the World Series of Poker by making Day 5 of the Main Event. Las Vegas resident Ralph Perry held the unofficial chip lead in the World Series of Poker Main Event on Day 6 Saturday with 90 players still standing. When Day 7 of the WSOP Main Event started Sunday, all the remaining players were notified a “shot clock” would be implemented in an effort to speed up play. Malcolm Trayner of Australia had the chip lead in the World Series of Poker Main Event when action was paused on Day 7 late Sunday with 21 players left.
Daniel and Amanda Negreanu posing with WSOP bracelet number eight. Las Vegas, Nevada (July 6, 2026) – Now well within the initial days of the 2026 WSOP Main Event, the excitement and pressure have kicked up a notch here at the Las Vegas Paris and Horseshoe. Players should follow @WSOP on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram or check WSOP.com for more event news and updates. Before all eyes turn to the 2026 WSOP Main Event, get caught up on all that has unfolded these past few days at pokernewsdaily.com the WSOP. Greg Mueller of White Rock, British Columbia, made a magical run in this year’s World Series of Poker Main Event after the longtime pro burned out on the game. After six hours of action in the World Series of Poker Main Event at Horseshoe Events Center, play was halted with Lucas Jumalon maintaining the chip lead.
As it turns out, it’s been a long time coming for the North Wales, Pennsylvania pro. Players will be able to play multiple Venom starting flights and combine their stacks for Day 2. Meanwhile, the PLO event features a $3M prize pool, with bounties that range from $5K to $250K. Will WPT scale down the event and return to Vegas in December, or move to a less crowded spot in January?
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.