Predictions Ahead of the World Series of Poker Vegas 2026

Record-Breaking Main Event Field?

In the last three years alone, the WSOP Main Event entrants’ record has been broken and almost surpassed. 2024 currently holds the record for entrants, with 10,112 taking to the felt over the course of the tournament, which saw Jonathan Tamayo take home the bracelet. This broke the previous record set the year before, but only just, as the 2023 outing attracted 10,043 entrants, and was won by Daniel Weinman.

2025 saw a slight decrease in entrants, with 9,735 taking to the tables during Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi’s famous victory, in which he won the $50,000 Poker Players Championship that same summer. It is evident that poker is booming globally, and it would be no surprise to see a 10,000+-runner field in the world’s most famous poker tournament. On GGPoker this month during the World Festival, the site hit a new milestone of hosting 900,000 players concurrently across tournaments and cash games. Poker has been booming on the live felt, too. With multiflight Day 1 tournaments offering huge guarantees, to small buy-in events attracting huge fields, it is clear that the appetite for poker is hard to satiate in 2026. One of the largest events this summer will be the $300 WSOP Gladiators. In 2023, the event attracted a staggering field of 23,088, the second-largest turnout for a poker tournament. A field size usually reserved for the online streets, the 2024 edition attracted 20,647 players. Based on these numbers, it would be no surprise to see this tournament, or any of the smaller buy-in tournaments, see a field size of around 25,000 runners. With a plethora of satellites on GGPoker to qualify for the Main Event and heightened interest in the game not seen since the mid-2000s, the conditions seem set for a record-breaking Main Event this summer.

Satellite Your Way to Vegas

Here is how to get to Vegas through GGPoker satellites.

Step 1 — $0.50 buy-in

• 4-player “All-In or Fold” Sit & Go
• Win → get a Step 2 ticket

Step 2 — $2 buy-in

• 6-player Spin & Gold format
• Spin prizes can include:
  • Step 3 tickets
  • Step 4 tickets
  • sometimes direct WSOP Passes

Step 3 — $10 buy-in

• Turbo “Target Stack” satellite
• Reach the chip target → instantly win a Step 4 ticket

Step 4 — $150 buy-in

Final-stage satellite

Top finishers win WSOP packages/passes

Will Shaun Deeb Go Back-to-Back in the Player of the Year Race?

As of this year, the Player of the Year Leaderboard will be decided across all three WSOP live events, instead of just Las Vegas. This puts the current champion, Shaun Deeb, in a prime position to become the first player to win Player of the Year three times and the first player to win the accolade in back-to-back years. He is currently second in the leaderboard with 1,350, surpassed by the €5,300 Main Event Champion, Marius Kudzmanas. Deeb finished second in two bracelet events, losing to quads in the final hand both times in the €3,300 Mixed PLO / PLO8 / Big O and the €565 COLOSSUS NLHE.. Here are the top 10 heading into Vegas. Positions 1-3 receive a $100,000 Paradise Package, and 4-10 will win one worth $30,000.

Rank	Player	Flag Code	Prize Package	Points
1	Marius Kudzmanas		$100K Paradise Package	1,392
2	Shaun Deeb		$100K Paradise Package	1,350
3	Pedro Faustino		$100K Paradise Package	1,078
4	Michael Leah		$30K Super Main Event Package	1,061
5	Nikolai Ogoltsov		$30K Super Main Event Package	1,052
6	Christopher Nguyen		$30K Super Main Event Package	1,018
7	Corel Theuma		$30K Super Main Event Package	997
8	Christian Frimodt		$30K Super Main Event Package	984
9	Fahredin Mustafov		$30K Super Main Event Package	962
10	Gilles Silbernagel		$30K Super Main Event Package	944

Mixed Game advantage for Deeb puts him in good standing. One of the most experienced and knowledgeable players across a broad range of games, Deeb will be playing everything and anything over the summer. Bracelet number seven came last summer for him. Attached was a career-best score of $2,957,229 for winning the $100,000 Pot Limit Omaha High Roller. It is still very early days, but Deeb has a considerable head start over the field, taking to the WSOP felts for the first time this year in Vegas. If any player can go back-to-back in the POY leaderboard, it is Deeb. However, the leaderboard won’t end in Vegas, and he may have to see out a successful defence in Paradise come December. Here are the eight bracelets he will be looking to add to in the summer.

Shaun Deeb Bracelet Wins

Will Any Player Be Disqualified Over a Patch?

They say all publicity is good publicity. During the upcoming WSOP, we could see whether that famous phrase rings true. The WSOP announced stricter rules on branding and promotion. Players now need advance approval from WSOP management to wear sponsor patches or branded apparel on feature tables and broadcasts. These rules were put in place to target unregulated and offshore gambling sites, crypto casinos and potentially obscene material.

The site that has been targeted the most is CoinPoker, one of the leading names in the cryptogaming space for poker. The new policy has received criticism from numerous players. Maria Konnikova criticised the policy because a table can suddenly become streamed, making the “submit 24 hours in advance” requirement difficult to comply with.

Recently, Patrick “pads1161” Leonard had one patch request denied and one accepted. One can assume the request that was denied was for a CoinPoker patch, the site for which Leonard serves as an ambassador.

CoinPoker hasn’t been the only high-profile rejection: Phenom Poker and WPT Gold branding have also been rejected by the now GGPoker-owned WSOP. Whether a poker player will risk their reputation over a company branding violation remains to be seen, but players who do could face stiff penalties. If they wear a non-pre-approved patch and cannot, or refuse to remove it, they could be subject to fines and disqualification.

It seems unlikely that anyone will take this too far, and it would take a lot of doing to get disqualified. If someone decides to die on the sword of corporate advertising, it would probably take 3-4 tournaments of refusing to remove branding to get disqualified. If someone does get disqualified, it may even be good for the site on the patch, as that will give them time in the spotlight, even though it is attached to a negative.

Will a Woman Reach the Main Event Final Table?

Speaking of the Main Event, last year saw Leo Margets become the first woman since Barbara Enright in 1995 to reach the final table of the WSOP Main Event. Margets departed in 8th, cashing for a career-best score of $1,500,000. Margests broke a 30-year drought of female absence from the Main Event final table, and this poker writer thinks it won’t be thirty years until another woman reaches the Main Event final table. There are a few players who have the potential to make it all the way. Margets is one of those players, as she has showcased the skills, talent and endurance to make almost all in the iconic tournament.

Another is high-stakes crusher Kristen Foxen, who is a force to be reckoned with in any lineup. In 2024, Foxen ran deep before departing in 13th place for a $600,000 payday. Since then, Foxen has gone from strength to strength, racking up wins and cashes worldwide in some of the biggest buy-in events on the schedule. MORE ABOUT HER

Shiina Okamoto is no stranger to success at the WSOP. Okamoto has won the $1,000 Ladies Event at the 2025 and 2024 WSOPs. She is consistent and knows how to run deep in huge field tournaments. At this year’s WSOPE in Prague, Okamoto tried her hand in the €5,300 Main Event. She finished 37th for €40,000, having been on the wrong end of a cooler as her full house was no good against quads.

Binder Keeps Binking

It would be no surprise to see poker’s newest high-stakes phenom continue to crush fields in Vegas. Bernhard Binder, at just 27, has already accumulated over $13,000,000 in tournament earnings according to thehendonmob.com. Third on the Austrian All-Time Money List, Binder’s total haul is mainly comprised of the $10,000,000 payday he earned for winning the $25,000 No Limit Hold’em Main Event in the Bahamas in December 2025, where he bested French philanthropist and France’s All-Time Money List leader Jean-Noel Thorel, in a lengthy heads-up battle, as well as the 2,891 that took to the felt across the event.

Since then, Binder has shown no signs of slowing down. In the opening frames of 2026, the mercurial talent won the $125,000 No Limit Hold’em Triton event in Jeju for $2,137,953, finishing runner-up in the €10,200 Mystery Bounty for €71,650 (including bounties) and in the €5,300 EPT Main Event for a cool €515,000.

There is no doubt that Binder’s stock will continue to rise throughout the year, especially if he makes a deep run in one of the high roller events. Expect to see Binder in Event #29: $50,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold’em, Event #41: $250,000 Super High Roller No-Limit Hold’em, Event #90: $50,000 High Roller No-Limit Hold’em, and, of course, the $10,300 Main Event, where Binder will look to become a dual Main Event champion.

Kabrhel Receives A Penalty (Or Two)

Shouts and cries of “not like that” and “casino royale” are expected to ring through the cardrooms at Horseshoe and Paris Casinos throughout the event’s duration. They are just two of the numerous catchphrases of poker’s favourite “villain” Martin Kabrhel. Last year, Kabrhel was front and centre for his antics, as well as his results. The Czech national won the $1,000 Mini Main Event for $843,140, besting a huge field of 10,794 entrants. He also finished 7th in the $250,000 Super High Roller, the biggest buy-in on the schedule, for $674,359. Kabrhel made a deep run in the four-card streets too, finishing 3rd in the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha for $288,775.

However, what was more eye-catching, or in this case ear-catching, was Kabrhel’s antics at the table, something he has become known for during his time on the live circuit. Like that famous yeasty product Marmite, people either love him or hate him. The consensus at last year’s WSOP returned mixed, par for the course with any Kabrhel appearance. Kabrhel gained a reputation for table talk, taking too long to make decisions, and general interactions that irritated his opponents.

Last year, during the $5,000 PLO, he received a penalty that saw his thinking time reduced to 10 seconds per decision, with the floor making the intervention after players at his table called the clock “more than 10 times” on Kabrhel. He received numerous warnings and complaints, but no official penalties. It would be no surprise to see Kabrhel continue his shenanigans, but whether the WSOP take more pressing action against Kabrhel remains to be seen. All this poker writer can say is that the tables are a lot more interesting with him at them. Whether the WSOP take a firmer stance against him this time in Vegas remains to be seen, but based on how he was handled at WSOPE, it seems Kabrhel will be free to play his own games.

Will Hellmuth Extend His Bracelet Record?

Phil Hellmuth could potentially extend his bracelet record to 18 with a win over the summer. Hellmuth posted a solid innings during the 2025 WSOP, scoring 9 cashes, two of which were final table appearances. He made it to the third day of the $10,000 Stud Hi Lo Championship and progressed to Day 2 of the $10,000 Main Event. Here is a look at the bracelets that Hellmuth has won, and subsequently given away to friends and family.

Phil Hellmuth’s Bracelet Collection

The majority of Hellmuth’s bracelets come in No Limit Hold’em. However, it seems to this poker writer that if Hellmuth is to land another bracelet, it will come in the Mixed Game streets. Hellmuth’s standing and ability are undeniable, and it would be one of the stories of the summer if he were to secure a record-extending 18th bracelet.

An Outlandish Entrance from Hellmuth

Speaking of the”Poker Brat”, he has a longstanding reputation for outlandish entrances, whether that is a musical number or a costumed walkthrough.

Last year, as seen above, he made a walkout to AC/DC’s Highway to Hell whilst dressed as an ’80s-style rockstar. Hellmuth’s lyrical recollection started and ended at “Highway to Hell”, but it was clear he was in good spirits and looking forward to an event he previously said he would boycott that year. Below is a supercut of all of Hellmuth’s best entrances, which includes him crashing a touring car in the casino car park.