The Summer Slam Series Takes Over JackPoker This August

WSOP 2026: Main Event Day 3 Drama as Mizrachi Makes Hay But Hellmuth Crashes Out

A sincere thank you to every player and staffer who came to Las Vegas and made this a summer to remember.” International players may also need additional proof of address, such as a utility bill or signed lease. Buy-ins for WSOP events range from affordable entry-level tournaments to the prestigious $10,000 Main Event. He topped a field of 10,112 players, the largest Main Event in WSOP history.

Since PocketFives Live only covered the members of the online community, we also had a lot more latitude than other outlets. These were the days when outlets that weren’t PokerNews were only allowed to post once an hour. What do you remember about those first days? Your first WSOP job was near the bottom of the poker-media ladder, but you treated it as an opportunity to prove you belonged. The behaviors I observed and wrote about certainly happened at the series, so I guess I didn’t get anything ‘wrong’ per se?

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.

The brand-new poker series was highlighted by a $5,000 Main Event that offered a $15 million guarantee, as well as the introduction of GGPoker’s innovative OnLive concept. As always, PokerNews will be on the floor from first shuffle to last bag as the final table of the 2026 WSOP Main Event is set. Local time on Monday, July 13, with blinds of 300,000/600,000 and a 600,000 big blind ante.

Visit the Card Player 2026 World Series of Poker landing page for schedules, news, interviews, and the latest event results. Stapleton, who signed on with WSOP after 15 years with PokerStars, will play a large role in the broadcasts as well, as will Jeff Platt, another recent WSOP signing. The broadcast is set to feature Ali Nejad, David Williams, Lon MacEachern, and Norman Chad in commentary roles throughout the summer. According to the WSOP’s website viewers can, “Watch every 2026 WSOP event for free on the official WSOP YouTube channel.”

But the dream quickly turned into a nightmare as Savas spiked a queen on the turn and send the Japanese player out in 23rd place. Holding pocket jacks against Daniel Savas’ pocket queens, Nagami looked destined for the final day when he flopped a set. “I just love poker, and I’ve gone a week without registering a different event at the World Series. That’s the longest of my career.”

Thus, it’s unlikely Las Vegas casinos will relax this type of scrutiny any time soon. In 2018, Dennis Blieden won the World Poker Tour Los Angeles Poker Classic main event for $1 million. 2024 WSOP main event champion Jonathan Tamayo told Card Player he needed to show a copy of his tax returns when he deposited cash. Sadly, was locked out of playing yesterday because of it.

The Summer Slam Series Takes Over JackPoker This August

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.

WSOP Event #1: $550 No-Limit Hold’em Mini Mystery Millions – Flight A

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.”

• Be sure to tune in for this high-stakes event.
• The 2026 WSOP is in full swing, as shiny, gold WSOP bracelets continue to be bestowed upon poker players from throughout the world.
• Additional flights have also been added to several of our most popular bracelet events offering players more opportunities than ever before to play their favorite WSOP events.

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.

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.”

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 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.

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. Deeb won the coveted award in 2018, so the 2025 victory saw him become only the second player in history to become a two-time WSOP Player of the Year after Daniel Negreanu (2004 and 2013). The three-day event features two starting flights and brings GG’s flagship brand to the live stage. And finally, there’s the five-day, $50,000 buy-in Poker Player’s Championship, always one of the summer’s showpiece occasions. The summer then moves into the million-dollar-inspired events as the $1,500 Millionaire Maker and $1,000 Mystery Millions, get underway on June 17 and June 23.

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.

This version will feature a $2M championship event from Nov. 5-10, a big piece of almost $4M in total guarantees across the series. The biggest buy-in of the series, the $25K Superstar Challenge still lies ahead on Friday, providing another chance for Lin to add a third lion to his young pride of APT trophies. That said, I’ll probably end up going, because I won both the $10K and $25K APT events in January, and each champion got a seat to the APT Main Event in November.

For the first time, poker’s most famous final table is within touching distance. Hundreds of other hopes to claim the title of world champion were crushed with more than 1,200 players departing today. Almost one quarter of the Day 1d field was knocked out, with an unofficial 3,778 players punching their ticket for Day 2d on Monday, July 7, 2025. Poker players from all over the world participate in the event every year Satellites have already begun on WSOP.com for players in Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Michigan and they will run continuously throughout the event. All 100 live bracelet events at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas — from the $300 Gladiators to the $250,000 Super High Roller to the Main Event.

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.

But the biggest move of the day, and the story to keep an eye on heading into Tuesday night’s WSOP main event final table action, belongs to Han Feng. The first of three days of action at the 2026 World Series of Poker main event final table is in the books. This very last event concludes PokerNews’ live coverage of the 2026 World Series of Poker until the pokernewsdaily.com WSOP Main Event final table, which will be played from August 3-5. Of the 255 players who made the money, only 95 survived through Level 21 to earn a 60-minute dinner break before returning for the final sprint to the bracelet. In 2023, GGPoker sent at least 1,000 players to WSOP Paradise through a series of online qualifiers.

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.

In 2024, more than 800 players took advantage of the extended registration period to start their journey with 75 and 60 big blinds, respectively. He topped a field of 10,043 players, the largest Main Event in WSOP history. In addition, mega satellites in 2024 will be played as “Landmark Mega Satellites”, where players will earn their seat when they reach a predetermined amount of chips. International players are required to bring an additional form of identification that shows residential address, such as a signed Las Vegas lease agreement, a utility bill or a mobile phone bill. Just log in to your free PokerNews account, star the players you care about, and they’ll always appear at the top of your chip count list.

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.”

There was only one tournament, the $25K, where I had to re-enter. Daniel Negreanu has made it crystal clear that pot-limit Omaha (PLO) is his game right now. Daniel Negreanu reveals why PLO is his game of choice, Josh Arieh’s influence and how he beat Artur Martirosian heads-up for his eighth bracelet. In the end, McKeehen outlasted 673 entries in the $5,300 buy-in to score a top prize of $462,600, which was adjusted during heads-up play.

Starting the day with over three-quarters of the chips in play, Mizrachi made quick work of the competition, eliminating fourth-place finisher Kenny Hallaert ($3,000,000) and third-place finisher Braxton Dunaway ($4,000,000) during the first two hands of the day. Here’s a look at the broadcast schedule for the 2026 final table. The WSOP portfolio of events includes approximately 40 WSOP Circuit Events annually across five continents, WSOP Europe (since 2007), WSOP Paradise (since 2023) and the record-breaking WSOP Online festival. In 2025, the flagship event in Las Vegas attracted 246,960 entrants and awarded more than $481 million in prize money – setting all-time records for the second consecutive year. More information on individual WSOP events, including schedules and structure sheets, can be found at

The last poker player to pull off back-to-back victories in the WSOP Main Event, Chan achieved poker immortality by continuing to build on his historic WSOP success, becoming the first player to win 10 WSOP bracelets in 2005. While all-time poker great Johnny Chan won his first WSOP bracelet in a Limit Hold’em event during the 1985 WSOP, his greatest poker accomplishment would begin two years later. A member of the PokerCoaching.com pro team, much of Hendrix’s over $8 million in live tournament winnings come from wins in tournaments on the PokerGO Tour as well as plenty of deep runs in WSOP events. No stranger to success on the felt, Hallaert has racked up a number of poker tournament titles across poker tournament series around Europe, contributing to $5.9 million in live tournament winnings across his career. A historic WSOP Main Event final table that includes not only a four-time Poker Players Championship winner but also the first woman since 1995, poker fans around the world look forward to a highly anticipated conclusion to the 2025 WSOP Main Event.

Those are just the first two bracelet events out of 100 this summer (plus 30 online at WSOP Online). As Japanese poker players continue to excel at the 2026 WSOP, Daisuke Ogita wins the largest score of his poker career and his first WSOP bracelet. While the biggest poker tournament in the world continues to unfold, WSOP bracelets continue to be won in other WSOP events. Las Vegas, Nevada (July 2, 2026) – Today is the day thousands of poker players from around the world have been waiting for.

In February 2025, the official 2025 WSOP schedule was released, featuring 100 bracelet events for the very first time. The best Seven Card Stud players in the world are set to battle in one of the most prestigious seven-card tournaments. But there are many other players who could bolster their PHOF credentials with strong performances this summer, potentially taking the induction away from Schulman or Seiver. PokerNews is back again providing unrivaled live reporting coverage of the greatest spectacle in poker for each bracelet event. Coming into the final day of play with a substantial chip lead, Adriaan Jacobs was able to leverage his momentum to win his first WSOP bracelet.