“Thank You, Lady Luck!”: Andrii Novak Wins the WSOP Online Main Event ($3,931,259)

How Andrii Novak Won the $5K Main Event WSOP Online

The tournament attracted 6,008 entries and became the third-largest prize pool in online poker history:

On Day 2 of the tournament, Novak’s VPIP dropped to 16. But according to the eventual winner, this didn’t bother him much.

With three tables remaining, he eliminated Pascal Lefrancois: AQo > A5s in a 43 BB pot. In 11th place, he eliminated 2Bet Bluff: AKo > AQs in a 46 BB pot. His stack grew to 67 BB. After the blinds rolled back, Novak had 108.5 BB.

Novak led for the first two hours of final-table play until he lost a hand to Simon Beckmann in the 5-max. Beckmann made a full house with 8 7 on a 7 8 9 10 8 board. Novak had A 2 . Beckmann took the chip lead, while Novak dropped to second.

In the 5-max, Novak’s stack fell to 20 BB, but not for long. First, he won a preflop all-in with pocket threes against AJs held by Charles “LaughingStorm” La Boissonniere. The flop brought a three and a jack, but the backdoors didn’t come in. The pot was 25.4 BB.

Then Beckmann shoved from the BTN with A 4 and ran into the top of Novak’s range: he had pocket kings in the SB. The pot was 69 BB. On the J 3 7 5 turn, Beckmann had plenty of outs, but none of them came in.

Novak entered heads-up with 31 BB against Beckmann’s 71 BB. In one hand, he doubled up with AKo vs. Q5s in a 67 BB pot. On the final hand, Beckmann shoved Q 7 , and Novak called with A J . The board ran out 4 K A 10 5 .

$5K Main Event WSOP Online 2026 Final Table Payouts

Place	Country	Player	Prize
1		Andrii Novak	$3,931,259
2		Simon Beckmann	$3,030,486
3		Moyan Chen	$2,336,938
4		Fernando Jose Liano More	$1,802,141
5		Charles La Boissoniere	$1,389,754
6		Pavlo Yakovliev	$1,071,761
7		Arian Hassankashani	$826,555
8		Yury Nadinsky	$673,476
9		Pablo Silva	$491,676

Novak Credits Lady Luck for His WSOP Online Main Event Victory

Andrii commented on his result:

Very happy with the result. Thanks to everyone who was rooting for me. About 25 people messaged me in the morning. The aura stepped in. Everyone saw it: any of the top five could have won.

I’m very happy. I didn’t know what to expect from this tournament. I wanted to win, but there’s nothing you can do to influence that. I was preparing for the win. In case anyone’s wondering, I didn’t take any ice baths or meditate (like BencB). The result is simply down to Lady Luck.

This is life-changing money for me.

In fact, Andrii is being a little modest. He has been playing poker for more than 15 years and has won online tournaments across a wide range of series, including EPT Online, GGOC, SCOOP, WCOOP, OSS XL and others. But, of course, winning the WSOP Main Event gave him his biggest cash.