Malcolm Trayner Leads 2026 World Series of Poker Main Event Into Day 8 Poker News

Live reporting of both events will start on Thursday, June 18. Similar to other events, including the Colossus and Senior Championship, this event will have corresponding Day 2 flights, before the field combines for Day 3 on Monday, June 22. He was one of only two players, along with Scott Ruegsegger, to bag over two million in chips.

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.”

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.

GGPoker sent more than 1,000 online qualifiers to the WSOP Main Event in 2025, and that impressive number is expected to increase this summer. Deeb also captured his seventh bracelet in the $100,000 Pot Limit Omaha High Roller. You’re going to need somewhere to rest and recuperate between 2026 WSOP events, and what better place to do that than at a Caesars Entertainment property?

His team is currently leading the 25K Fantasy with 871 points, largely thanks to Josh Arieh’s stellar summer and recent runner-up finish in the PPC. That happened in 2024, when he won the most prestigious title of his lengthy career in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship for $1.1 million, but still finished the summer in the red. And he can have a good summer even if he loses. “In my mind state, the idea of playing until 1 or 2 in the morning, its five o clock right now, the chances that I’m going to put in a good effort are very low,” he explained from his car. And while he is constantly firing and looking to “optimize” $25k Fantasy points, Negreanu isn’t afraid to take an evening off to rest or spend time at home. He failed to cash the biggest buy-in of the summer, the $250,000 Super High Roller, and it was the same story in the $100,000 High Roller.

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 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.

Lucas Jumalon increased his chip lead in the World Series of Poker $10,000 buy-in No-limit Hold’em World Championship on the first day of the final table. We are the number one source for poker news, gambling industry updates, reviews and free educational content for players of all levels. Phil Ivey has 11 bracelet wins, with Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, and Erik Seidel (10) the only players with double-digit WSOP bracelet wins. In 2015, the WSOP awarded their first online poker gold bracelet, with Anthony ‘casedismised’ Spinella winning the inaugural event. The first WSOP took place in 1970, and it continues to attract some of the best poker players in the world. It doesn’t appear that Caesars is forcing players to comply with measures of that magnitude.

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.

Already the winner of the Aussie pokernewsdaily.com Millions Main Event earlier this year, Trayner now has a chance to do something truly unique in poker. McGraw showed 5♥5♣ for a full house, but Wick’s A♣9♣ gave him a bigger one and knocked McGraw out of the tournament minutes away from Day 2. Day 2abc will feature those having advanced from the first three starting days while Day 2d includes all those who have bagged up chips tonight. The following two days will show whether or not a five-figure tally can be reached for the third year in a row.

Blaz Zerjav and Joshua Remitio joined Glaser and Deeb as multi-time 2025 bracelet winners, with Remitio taking home his third and fourth bracelets, both online. In taking down his seventh career bracelet, too, Mizrachi would’ve been set for another incredible summer with that victory alone. Nick Schulman earned his seventh career WSOP gold bracelet and later in the summer locked up Poker Hall of Fame honors. For 2026, the first gold bracelet event to kick off is a $500 mini Mystery Millions, featuring six starting flights across five days.

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.

Results-wise, Negreanu has still had a decent summer. But, given his proven results for decades, there’s plenty of time to turn it around. In his latest vlog, Negreanu shared his results for the summer so far, showing him to be down $571,729. Daniel Negreanu has cashed for $464,521 this summer, but that number only tells part of the story. There are a variety of ways to qualify online via the GGPoker international platform and WSOP platforms in the US and Ontario.

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 start of the 1980s was heralded by back-to-back wins for Stu Ungar and the following year, the field surpassed 100 for the first time.
• The surviving finalists will reconvene 20 days later for a live, three-day televised finale airing August 3-5 from 9pm-12am EST.
• 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.
• When people remember the boom-era WSOP, they tend to focus on famous players and televised hands.

“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.

Meet the 2026 WSOP Main Event Final Table

PokerListings is one of the world’s oldest trusted poker sites. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the postponement of the World Series of Poker for the first time in its history. Maurice Hawkins holds the record for most circuit rings with 25.

Where is the 2024 World Series of Poker held?

Take, for example, the discussion around the WSOP streams this summer. There were some reporters who refused to do chip counts because they thought it beneath them even though tournament coverage without chip counts is like a baseball game without a scoreboard. As your own questions to me attest, being a tournament reporter was always considered this horrible grunt work. The fact these episodes are lost to time guts me, as I would give a lot to be able to go back and listen.

Everyone who made day 8 is guaranteed at least $325,000, but the prospect of the bracelet and a first-place prize of $10,000,000 is tantalizingly close. Won the main event, won the PPC, got to  make a deep run in the main event again.” He followed all of that up with a ninth career WSOP bracelet earlier this summer. A fourth career WSOP Poker Players Championship victory, leading straight into Mizrachi’s 2025 WSOP main event win and instant Hall of Fame induction, is the stuff of legend. It wasn’t long before a third main event winner would fall.

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.”

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.

“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 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.

As the exclusive destination for live updates from poker’s most prestigious festival, PokerNews will deliver industry-leading coverage from every corner of the action this summer. The numbers are in for the 2026 World Series of Poker $10,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event. Continuing to build upon his poker legacy after winning “The Big One”, Cada has won three more WSOP bracelets since his historic victory in 2009, and has over $14 million in career WSOP tournament winnings. In 2009, Michigan native and professional poker player Joe Cada became the youngest poker player in history to win the WSOP Main Event. The debut of the delayed WSOP Main Event final table in 2008 proved a resounding success, with ratings of the televised event increasing 49 percent from the previous year and garnering 2.4 million viewers, totals that outperformed ESPN’s average viewership of both the NBA and MLB. Displaying one of the greatest hot streaks in WSOP history, TV producer Jamie Gold would cruise through the entirety of the tournament, capturing the 2006 WSOP Main Event title and the largest prize in the event’s history.

Starting on May 29, live streams will emanate from a brand new streaming stage in the Paris ballroom, after years of content being streamed from the Horseshoe side of the convention space. After airing content on PokerGO in recent years, everything beyond the scope of ESPN later in the summer is set to air on WSOP-branded platforms throughout the summer. The WSOP has also cracked down on patches and logos that will be allowed during WSOP play.

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.