That’s what’s going on this week at PokerOrg HQ. One of ours won big, one of ours had disturbing photos of his body published, and one of ours said goodbye to us.

In the middle of all that, Daniel Negreanu, Garrett Adelstein, and Rampage dealt with loss, love, and a love lost with a profit!

Here are some of the 50,000 ways to leave your lover (or sell them with a sweet ROI), highlighted by the love between WSOP bracelet winner and his dragon.

• Garrett Adelstein on Nick Vertucci: “Nick didn’t love me; he loved the money I put in his pocket by showing up twice a week.” We’ve got the context behind that in this excerpt from Adelstein’s new book.

• You can’t win’em all, DNegs. Daniel Negreanu made his Ali-like return to big time televised cash games. He ended up taking the L, but says he didn’t hate it enough to not return.

• Lots and lots of you play PokerOrg’s Pick 3 Fantasy game, so we’re not surprised to learn a seasoned poker veteran managed to take down the EPT Barcelona Pick 3 and win a free trip to EPT Prague.

• Remember back when we told you how Ethan “Rampage” Yau decided to not sell his ridiculously valuable Pokemon card earlier this summer? Welp, apparently somebody made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

• Matt Higgins has a $1 million win from the 2026 WSOP, a brand new WSOP Circuit Tunica Main Event win, and a new passport. Now, the man has some big plans.

• Speaking of familiar winners, our own Tiffany Michelle was working for us at EPT Barcelona and had some spare time. So, she went and won the Ladies High Roller. Because she’s a boss.

• And she managed it even after taking this beat.

• Here’s one for The Notebook: Hollywood bigwig Nick Cassavetes had a Face/Off with Alpha Dog Sam Soverel on High Stakes Poker Live. Though it was no reason to Panic, it didn’t turn out great for the man from Tinseltown.

• And if you want to see the biggest pot in High Stakes Poker history, be warned: Nick Schulman was only commentating but worried he was gonna pass out.

Can DNegs pull of this river bluff?

When your boys are late to your final table

ONE time for Dolly Parton!

• Our guy Lefty might not be the prettiest model on the runway, but if you can make it through his sexy shots, you’ll see how you can get some sweet shots of yourself when PokerOrg is at a live event!

• You been sweating PokerOrg Instant News? You should be if you want the most updated and up-to-the-minute happenings in poker. Go sweat!

• Sending peace to the friends and family of our old pal and one-time WSOP November Niner Pierre Neuville who died this week at the age of 83.

• Finally, a message we hate to write. Today is the first day we’ve had at PokerOrg in years without Aleeyah “Elle“ Jadavji. She’s got new plans for her life that don’t involve being the rock and roll badass behind our social media. She helped make PokerOrg into what it’s become. We’ll miss you, Elle. Now, go be everything you want to be.

MOST-CLICKED ON POKER ORG

‘Beneath The Cards’ review: Garrett Adelstein makes his case

MOST-CLICKED IN THE ORG

‘I’m a recovering perfectionist’: Exclusive interview with Garrett Adelstein

MOST-WATCHED ON INSTAGRAM

The BEST thing about EPT Barcelona

Photo of the week:
WSOP Circuit Tunica had a lot of great beards, but none so glorious as the one hanging from Joe Sullins’ face.

We’ve got that story, Garrett Adelstein dishing on the J-4 hand, and a sneaky peek into Daniel Negreau’s golf game.

• WSOP Main Event champion Lucas Jumalon is blessed with a lot of things, and one of those things is relentless optimism. In his most recent PokerOrg interview, Jumalon says his goal is…wait for it…to get online poker legalized across the USA.

• Garrett Adelstein is doubling and tripling down about what he believes happened in the infamous J-4 hand, and he says he was just a convenient mark. Craig Tapscott has the whole sordid story in this exclusive interview.

• Daniel Negreanu’s return to televised cash games may end up being the story of the week. Nik Airball is already running his mouth. Here’s a deeper dive into the why, when, and what of the whole production.

• Matt Hansen wanted to know: is Daniel Negreanu actually good at golf? And when Hansen wants to know something he digs for the receipts.

• Phil Hellmuth is re-writing his WSOP plans and schedule, because he has decided he is winning 24 bracelets before it’s all said and done.

• And if you want to know why the Poker Brat is re-writing his personal script, well…the dude is haunted.

Garrett Adelstein was a mark?

Now THAT is a pay jump

The hand that haunts Phil Hellmuth

• Patrick Leonard has a take that may not really mesh with Hellmuth’s plans. Pads says Daniel Negreanu will eventually be the overall WSOP bracelet leader. And it will happen quickly.

• Will the WSOP stick with the delayed Main Event final table next year? And is that delay too damned long?

• Registration is closed for the PokerOrg Pick 3 fantasy contest, so now is the time to start checking your team’s progress to see if you’ll win the trip to EPT Prague.

• If you want more up-to-date info on how your team or anybody else at the EPT Barcelona festival is doing, keep your eyes peeled on PokerOrg Instant News.

• It’s about damned time Virginia had a WSOP Circuit event. If you want to try to win a ring in Old Dominion, here are all the details.

• If there is anything good left in the world, the new Hard Rock joint on the Vegas Strip will have a poker room in it. After all, it sits right where the effing Mirage sat, right? Let’s engage in some idle speculation.

• It feels good to be right, right? That’s why we need to be right, right? But have you considered that your need to be right might make you a worse poker player? No? Well, then read this from Jason Su, alright? Right.

MOST-CLICKED ON POKER ORG

WSOPC Atlantic City live updates

MOST-CLICKED IN THE ORG

EPT Pick 3 Fantasy sign-up

MOST-WATCHED ON INSTAGRAM

Tilt call…super-duper gross

Photo of the week:
Russell Dunlevy, sneaky Phillies fan

We’ve got that story…and a free chance at an $8,000 EPT Prague package exclusively for members of The Org.

Ready? Then summon that energy, folks. You know what kind of energy we’re talking about…

• Yep. It’s all happening. After a multi-year break from televised cash games, Daniel Negreanu is jumping back in with both feet. He’ll be on the Hustler Casino Live game later this month with a $50K min-buy-in. And if you needed an AI gospel choir singing about Big D Energy to get you up and ready, here you go.

• Do you want to get in a big game of your own? How about going to EPT Prague later this year for free? Well, we’re giving away that $8,000 package to the member of The Org who has the best team in our Pick 3 Fantasy contest. Enter now before it’s too late!

• No matter how you felt about this year’s WSOP coverage on ESPN, you might be curious about how the production team came to make its decisions on what to cover and when. We now have those answers.

• And if you were wondering about the WSOP ratings, how many people watched on ESPN, and how those numbers compared to the poker boom, Lance Bradley is on the case.

• Our Inside the Boom series continued this week with Jessica Welman who had a lot to say about the poker boom era and how it compares to today. She was the reporter who became an expert in meeting the fans where they were. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks.

• Speaking of the critical characters of the poker boom, John Caldwell (the man behind PokerNews, Team PokerStars Pro, and countless things in poker) is launching one of the coolest projects we’ve seen in a while. Here’s a sneak peek of Wise Uncle: Career stories from thirty years in Rock and Roll and Gambling.

• If you saw Caitlin Arnwine at the WSOP and couldn’t quite figure out what was happening in her chest region, there is now a detailed explanation, straight from the mama’s mouth. Well, not her mouth. You know…just read this.

• If we had to pick one dealer to deal every one of our games, this guy has jumped to the front of the pack. We think you’ll understand why.

• Imagine winning a tournament, celebrating like crazy, and hoisting the trophy over your head, only to have someone say, “Er…sorry. You didn’t actually win yet.” That’s what happened at the APT Incheon Main Event.

• Oh, and if you’re looking for the next poker boom, the people behind the APT say…just look east.

• For more updates from Korea, the EPT Barcelona festival, and everything else happening in poker right now, set a shortcut on your phone for PokerOrg Instant News.

• The Poker Hall of Fame weirdness from this year is still echoing a little bit. Daniel Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth are still talking about it, as is our guy Lefty.

• Oh, and speaking of Lefty, it’s hard to know what hurt more…busting the Cherokee Main…or this needle from the masterful Aaron Barone.

• Spoiler alert: The man in the photo below made the WSOP Circuit Cherokee final table, but you’re advised to be very careful when looking at the final table photo. You look in the wrong place, and you’re gonna feel it from that dude.

Photo of the week:
Donta Moss has a look that will make you fold the nuts
(Hayley Hochstetler)

MOST-CLICKED ON POKER ORG

WSOPC Cherokee (August) live updates

MOST-CLICKED IN THE ORG

One WSOP Main Event finalist lost over half his winnings to the taxman

MOST-WATCHED ON INSTAGRAM

What’s a bigger flex than a high roller buy-in?

No, sir, I will not be bubbling

TJ Reid is straight up SHOOK

Rob Kuhn is full of shame

Bah! Probably no big deal in an industry looking for respect in America.

Don’t worry about any of that…we also have everything else that happened in poker this week!

• An eleven-minute hand decided the 2026 WSOP Main Event, and it was a doozy. We spoke to the man who made the tragic hero call about what went into his decision.

• Lauri Saaskilahti also talked at length to our Craig Tapscott about everything else that went into his runner-up WSOP finish. One quote: “I put in the fewest hours of preparation going into the final table.”

• Tapscott also talked to Daniel Negreanu about that big final hand. Negreanu was, in a word, shocked.

• While that eleven-minute hand decided it all, PokerOrg also broke down five other crucial hands that led to Lucas Jumalon becoming the second-youngest WSOP Main Event winner in history.

• One thing you can count on: if somebody becomes one of the most famous poker players in the world, it won’t be long before Poker Royalty is repping them. Most recent example, of course, is Lucas Jumalon. He said, “My goal now is to be a real ambassador for this game.”

• And while that looks like a big ol’ pile of money, Uncle Sam was hanging out on the rail with his IRS wheelbarrow. Here’s the breakdown of how much every final table player will actually take home after taxes.

• If you missed some of the WSOP Extras last week, you might have missed part of our on-going series Inside the Boom where we looked back at the poker boom and the people who lived through it. Lance Bradley was one of those people who saw it from nearly every angle.

• Since then, PokerOrg’s Lee Jones has taken a deep dive into his years before, during, and after the boom. His take: poker has gotten better, but….imagine if…

• Stay tuned this week for another Inside the Boom piece featuring another unique perspective from industry veteran Jessica Welman.

• The great thing about ClubWPT Gold’s marketing team? Consistency. No context. No joke. Just an AI-altered screen shot, a dare to any confused Wall Street Journal reader to deposit on its site, and endless echoes of “But, Mom…it’s funny to ME!”

• What happens if a cement truck tries to invoke an Act of God clause?

• While our attention over the past week has been on the WSOP, we’re now deep into the Asian Poker Tour. If your poker interests have an eastern tilt, you’ll want to keep an eye on our home page and PokerOrg Instant News.

• And finally, no matter how many frames-per-second a video can capture, when a still photographer grabs a single frame, it hits different(ly). Here are some of our favorite WSOP final table photos Hayley Hochstetler took this week. And the one below is the one many of us think captures the moment the best.

Photo of the week:
Lucas Jumalon wins 2026 WSOP Main Event
(Hayley Hochstetler)

MOST-CLICKED ON POKER ORG

One WSOP Main Event finalist lost over half his winnings to the taxman

MOST-CLICKED IN THE ORG

No shot clock…wait, shot clock! Wait…no shot clock!

MOST-WATCHED ON INSTAGRAM

Wanna really, really trust your dealer?

Hero call goes $4M worth of wrong

Lefty needs a ride to Pennsylvania

Wanna really, really trust your dealer?

Lucas Jumalon is 22 years old. He went wire-to-wire at the final table. He cried. His dad cried. Most of the people on his rail cried.

He is the the second-youngest WSOP Main Event champion in history. He banked $10 million.

It’s been a long summer, but that’s the story.

Lucas Jumalon is the 2026 WSOP Main Event champion.

The interview

The moment

The money

This is what it looks like when the second-youngest WSOP Main Event winner in history collects his prize.

Monday night at the 2026 WSOP Main Event final table was a slog. Tuesday night? Carnage. Bad beats. Suck outs. Professional laddering. All of it happened in record time.

Before anyone could blink, the Main Event was heads up and headed to tonight’s championship on ESPN.

As always, spoilers are ahead. But if you want to get ready for tonight’s heads-up contest for poker’s biggest title, keep scrolling.

We’ve also got the wild reaction to this year’s Poker Hall of Fame vote and the best photos you will see from last night’s action in Vegas. Ready? Well, let’s go.

I’m waiting…

Nipple count…

So…so confident

How hard did our photographer Hayley Hochstetler work last night? If the Global Poker Awards were still a thing, just reserve her spot on the podium.

Over the course of six hours of televised play, the final table lost only two players. It’s a good thing they still have two nights to play before they crown the $10 million Main Event Champion.

If you’re gonna watch later today, there are spoilers ahead. So, tread carefully. But if you want to know the only player to make the Poker Hall of Fame this year, read on.

• Seven players remain at the World Series of Poker Main Event final table. Evagoras Evagorou busted in ninth. Mario Boos went out in eighth. Now, the players get a quick nap, and then they will be back at it tomorrow night on ESPN. To catch up with everything from the first night, hit up the PokerOrg Instant News feed.

• Oh, you know how the WSOP instituted a shot clock on Day 7 of the Main Event? Did you notice how that wasn’t a thing at the final table? Yeah, that rule that wasn’t a rule…is now not a rule again.

• When the Poker Hall of Fame changed its procedures this years, most people expected a lot more candidates to get in. Most people were wrong. Jason Koon was the only one on the short list who got enough votes. The one thing no one disputes: Koon 100% deserves the honor.

• If you watched the first part of the WSOP Main Event final table tonight on ESPN, you might have heard the iconic theme music from the poker boom days of ESPN’s coverage. Lance Bradley tracked down the man behind that song, and the dude is awesome. As Lance wrote, “he’s never even played poker - but did play for David Bowie.”

• Meanwhile, if your early education in poker TV began in those years, we talked to the man behind ESPN’s boom coverage, Matt Maranz, and how his production company ended up leaving Las Vegas.

• That interview is part of a series we’ve been running this week called Inside the Boom. We ask: how can we use what we learned during the boom to make poker better in 2026?

• The series also looks back at some of the folks who helped shape the way we remember those boom years. One of them is veteran photographer Joe Giron.

• Something you rarely see in any regular WSOP coverage: true behind-the-scenes coverage. The poker boom had that chaos coverage in spades if you’d bookmarked the gonzo Deadhead blogger who showed us what ESPN didn’t.

• You know one thing that would have made the poker boom better? More pink feather boas.

• We can only hope Han Feng broke the feather boa fetish news to his father at the same time he broke the news that, um, he plays poker.

• If you can’t find the ESPN broadcasts and want the latest updates from the final table, you gotta check our Instant News feed. We’ll make sure you know who’s up, who’s down and who’s out.

• It’s where you can learn, for instance, that David Baker is…wait for it…allergic to feathers (and, presumably, also feather boas).

• How closely are people watching when you’re on an ESPN poker broadcast? Tiffany Michelle asked a normal person what they remembered about the final table players. The results were fantastic.

There is only so much you can see on TV. You can see a lot more if you have access to someone like Hayley Hochstetler who battled for some of the best shots of the night. Here are just a few.

MOST-CLICKED ON POKER ORG

WSOPC Choctaw live updates

MOST-CLICKED IN THE ORG

‘I’ve got the recipe’: Maurice Hawkins grabs WSOP ring #26, extends record

MOST-WATCHED ON INSTAGRAM

When tails prevail…

Jumalon meets Moneymaker

What you don’t see on the ESPN stream

Family night at the Hall of Fame

on the world’s most important sports network…

but nobody was there to watch it…

did it really ever happen?

It ain’t quite Schrödinger’s WSOP, but all the talk this week is about the World Series of Poker’s early ESPN ratings. We’re still hopeful for the week to come and what we’ll see at the final table next week. But if poker people are talking about it, so are we. So, let’s get into it.

• Who’s watching the World Series of Poker on ESPN? If you read the raw numbers, it doesn’t look great, That said, it might actually be a lot more people than you’d expect based on how much the WSOP is surfacing the broadcasts on its front page. Let’s run a quick “find on page” search…

• Our Dave Woods picked up his opinion pen and says he liked what he saw on ESPN, but it ain’t enough by a long shot.

• Matt Berkey may not have his own show anymore, but he didn’t stop having opinions. Re: televised poker and the WSOP, Berkey says, poker is “desperate for an overhaul.”

• It might help if we all convinced our lawmakers to make live and online poker legal across the United States. Need a quick reference for the laws in every state? We’ve got that for you right here.

• That being said, there are some pretty cool stories coming from the WSOP final table. To wit: Greg Mueller’s comeback story.

• Or the story of Michael Gagliano’s journey from taking over his mom’s housefor a poker tournament to making the WSOP final table.

• Or Jamie Shaevel, who barely plays poker tournaments at all but now has final tabled the one that counts.

• What happens when a New Yorker cartoon artist visits the World Series of Poker? It’s pretty remarkable.

• The WSOP Main Event final table starts in six days and our Instant News feed is keeping you up to date on anything that happens at the WSOP or anywhere else in poker.

• As an example of what you’ll find in our Instant News feed, how about our former PokerOrger TJ Reid explaining how he torched his summer.

• Ethan “Rampage” Yau has decided this is the time to start swinging at…wait, Allen Kessler? Rampage is slinging around not just the c-word “cancer” but the c-word we’re not gonna print here…and it’s about Chainsaw?

• We don’t think Chainsaw was sweating, but just in case, Shaun Deeb has his back. Rampage drops the c-word, Deeb drops nukes.

• Meanwhile, Chef Maurice Hawkins says he has the recipe to whip up WSOP Circuit rings. His most recent receipt? A record-breaking 26th ring.

MOST-CLICKED ON POKER ORG

‘I’ve got the recipe’: Maurice Hawkins grabs WSOP ring #26, extends record

MOST-CLICKED IN THE ORG

Negreanu crushes WSOP with $1.6M profit, 8th bracelet and Fantasy win

MOST-WATCHED ON INSTAGRAM

What do you think of the new chip-stacking rule?

Hold for the shuffle

Verbal slow roll?

Table change, please

As we watched Kid Poker close out his WSOP, we couldn’t help but think of that old show. After what seemed to be a sideways start to his summer, he booked a seven-figure profit, won a WSOP bracelet, and triumphed over the $25K Fantasy contest. All that, and he’s gonna be a daddy.

We may still be struggling to wake up in the morning without tasting WSOP hot dogs on the backs of our tongues, but we’re still working. We’ve got that DNegs story, a new radio show for Nick Schulman, and the winners of our Fantasy Freeroll and WSOP Pick 3 contests. Settle in, folks. It’s accounting time.

• Love him or hate him, you will probably have some feelings about the final accounting of Daniel Negreanu’s WSOP summer. Oh, and if you hate him, you might wanna watch another show or something. This one ain’t for you.

• It’s worth noting, a lot of other people didn’t fare nearly as well. Some of thetop pros opened up about the number of bullets they fired that never found a target, let alone a bullseye.

• And while on the subject of winners and losers, we’re all still waiting for the other duct taped shoe to drop in the case of Jared Griener, his $57K, and a fairly involved Airbnb heist.

• Alert! Nick Schulman is getting a shot at his own mainstream poker radio show on SiriusXM Mad Dog Sports Radio. The show debuted on Saturdayand runs for at least another five weeks.

• You mileage may vary, but these were PokerOrg’s picks for five of the best stories from this summer at the WSOP.

• And as for one of the…well, not best stories of the summer, Lee Jones has an informed if not entirely popular opinion about the WSOP’s unplanned introduction of a shot clock in the Main Event.

• One of our best experiences at the WSOP every year is being looked after by the venerable Kevin “Kevmath” Mathers. Neither we nor he knows if the WSOP will have him back on staff next year. Mark our words: if Kevmath ain’t at the World Series, the WSOP has made a big mistake.

• Oh, and just because we’re still in the throes of a WSOP hangover, it doesn’t mean the Main Event is over. It all kicks back off on August 3. Here’s how you can watch.

• In the lead-up to the WSOP Main Event final table, our Instant News feed is still running hot. It’s not all WSOP all of the time. It’s all poker all of the time. Bookmark the page to be as up-to-date as we are.

• The same dude who created the (let’s just admit it super spooky) AI poker tells detector has now revealed he has a brand new AI tool for content creators. If you make poker content, it could end up saving you a lot of damned time.

• Did you win on of the prizes in the PokerOrg Fantasy Freeroll? If you don’t know, you can check right here.

• And if you didn’t win that, did you win our WSOP Pick 3 contest and a trip to Aruba? Maybe you should check here.

• Finally, we thought it was dead, and then we thought it was alive, and then we thought it was a zombie, but it looks like’s The Chip Race podcast is still alive and well and about to drop it’s 200th episode (presumably no zombies or otherwise undead will be featured).

MOST-CLICKED ON POKER ORG

Meet the 2026 WSOP Main Event final table

MOST-CLICKED IN THE ORG

Meet the 2026 WSOP Main Event final table

MOST-WATCHED ON INSTAGRAM

From chip leader to bubbling the World Series of Poker Main Event final table

WSOP Final Table

No Red Bull needed

Wait for it…

Yeah, it’s a trick question. None of them do, because…poker.

A mere 24 hours ago, Todd Brunson, Shaun Deeb, and 2019 WSOP champ Hossein Ensan were part of the final 21 players vying for a spot at the nine-handed WSOP Main Event final table. None of them made it.

For people looking for a familiar poker bedtime story, it was a shock. For people looking for a tale they haven’t heard? Well, it begins like this:

Once upon a time there was a kid named Lucas…

• If you cover poker long enough, you’ll learn one thing: no matter how many superstars you think are going to win, somebody new will step up and say, “Excuse me. It’s my turn.” At the WSOP Main Event, that was a young man named Lucas Jumalon.

• Lucas Jumalon has a substantial chip lead over the rest of the field, but he has veteran crushers and bracelet winners ready to battle when the Main Event resumes on August 3. Here’s a look at the WSOP Main Event final table.

• Those stories tell you all you need to know about the final nine in the Main Event, but if you want a quick look back at everything that happened to get there, check out our Instant News feed.

• Doyle Brunson won the WSOP Main Event exactly 50 years ago. His son Todd was still in the 2026 Main Event with 20 players remaining. It had the potential to be one of the greatest poker stories ever told. But, pocket aces suck.

• Will Givens did not make the final table of the WSOP, and regardless of how you feel about him as a player, please take a moment to watch one of the single greatest live interviews in the history of poker, executed on the fly while walking across a giant ballroom with one of the most unpredictable players in this year’s Main Event. Perfect execution by Jeff Platt and his team.

• Oh, and if you missed it, the WSOP solved a stalling problem during the Main Event by snap-instituting an unprecedented shot clock in the middle of the event. The reaction was…well, it was this from the masses.

  • And this from Justin Hammer.

  • And this from Daniel Negreanu.

• Almost lost in everything that happened above: there was a real chance Michael Mizrachi would go back-to-back in the WSOP Main Event. That really got closer to happening than anyone might have predicted.

• And hey, while we’re talking about almost impossible things, how about this one? Couple honeymoons in Vegas, plays the WSOP Main Event together, and both wife and husband make the money. That’s how you stay married forever, folks.

• We still don’t know, but we’re still asking the question: did Phil Hellmuth accidentally-on-purpose leak some information about the upcoming Poker Hall of Fame inductees?

• And we still don’t know, but is Bryn Kenney telegraphing something he knows that we don’t about the results of the Hall of Fame vote? Because Kenney’s saying if Justin Bonomo isn’t in, he doesn’t wanna be either.

• If you had your money on Maurice Hawkins winning his first WSOP bracelet last night when he made the final table of the WSOP Mid-Stakes Championship, we hope you hedged. The title went to Yanting Jiang. And if you need a finer point put on it: the bracelet went to a brand new female open-event bracelet winner.

• Vanity, thy name is Greg “FTB” Mueller. But, ya know, we’re here for the honesty. Dude doesn’t plan to study poker before the biggest final table of his life, but, dammit, he’s gonna look good on ESPN.

• And finally, shout out to every person in media, content, or whatever we call it these days who made it through the entire WSOP without quitting, ending up in Urgent Care, or getting 86’d from the event by white-shirt security. Even if you couldn’t tell every story you found, you lasted longer than at least one player’s dad who flew halfway around the world to watch his kid play…and then didn’t get to see the end because he broke a rule he didn’t know he he was breaking. If there is one thing everyone in the business learns, it’s this: everything you see doesn’t end up on TV, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Get some rest, y’all. It ain’t done yet.

MOST-CLICKED ON POKER ORG

Hellmuth bites, Matusow gets one-orbit penalty as Main Event goes old school

MOST-CLICKED IN THE ORG

How big will the 2026 Main Event be?

MOST-WATCHED ON INSTAGRAM

Will Givens did not return from dinner break…

We’re fortunate to have an amazing team of photographers who capture the best images for us. We’ve had Joe Giron, Katerina Lukina, and Omar Sader finding the best photos for us all summer at the Aria Poker Classic and World Series of Poker. They’ve told the story of our poker summer in perfect single frames.

They’re led by our head of photography, Hayley Hochstetler, who was on hand last night as the WSOP Main Event found its way to the final table. Here are just a few of the images she captured in the final moments before the final table.

Day 5 of the 2026 World Series of Poker begins in just a few hours, and by the time we put out The Org next Tuesday, the event will be on a break for three weeks. We’re entering the most important stages of the world’s biggest and best poker event and our crew is working to bring you everything you’d want to know from Las Vegas.

Are you ready for a big weekend? Then, let’s go.

Did DNegs just leak his HOF vote?

Only at the WSOP Main Event

What was Moneymaker doing?

Thanks to our hard-working photographers for their work this week. Here are of our favorite pics from the WSOP Main Event over the last few days.

What have you missed over the last several days? Martin Kabrhel winning another bracelet. South Africa finding its own version of Chris Moneymaker. Fighters, and Santas, and porn stars, oh my!

• So, about those WSOP Main Event numbers…here’s the breakdown of where things stand with a few hours of late registration remaining.

• Indeed, Martin Kabrhel won himself another bracelet, this time alongside a stuffed hippo.

• We told you in The Org WSOP Extra on Friday about Daniel Negreanuwinning his eighth WSOP bracelet. That means Negreanu’s $25K Fantasy bet on himself might pay off big time.

• Every WSOP Main Event seat has a story, but we’d never heard one like this. Friend leaves Main Event seat in his will.

• Imagine you’re playing at a Moneymaker Social Club and win a seat to the WSOP Main Event, and then you show up and see who the random draw put on your left. Yeah, that happened to Brandon Guldenschuh on Day 1D of the Main.

• Speaking of Chris Moneymaker, did South Africa just find the kid to kick off that country’s poker boom?

• If you didn’t already know, Moneymaker and our guy Lefty fight like a couple of brothers for reasons we don’t understand. Now, Lefty is coming after the title Moneymaker once held.

• Imagine this scene: you’re a Spanish poker player in the Main Event on the same day Spain knocks out Portugal. And then you look up at seat nine and see…Gerard Pique, Spanish World Cup champion.

• That Pique story appeared in our Instant News yesterday, and as the Main Event starts to move faster and faster, you’ll want to keep an eye on that space for the latest from the tournament floor.

• There are nearly no points left to get, but the top of PokerOrg Fantasy Freerollleaderboard is tight enough that everything could change in the Main Event. Go check your team’s results right here!

• The winner of our 2025 Fantasy Freeroll cashed in his free Main Event ticket on Sunday…and he bagged! Michael Ventola will be back today to play Day 2. Here’s his full story. Good luck, Michael!

• You might not necessarily think a man dressed in light-up shoes and and an American flag suit would be a serious man. But you should. He didn’t just survive Day 1. He’s now advanced to Day 2!

• Hey, it’s Santa Claus at the WSOP! Or does he sit on a throne of lies?!

• And yes, Phil Hellmuth dressed up like a super hero for his Day 1 entrance. If you thought that old ESPN video of him brushing his teeth was bad, you should see him in spandex tights.

MOST-CLICKED ON POKER ORG

Aria Poker Classic live updates

MOST-CLICKED IN THE ORG

$100K bounty puller spins up big stack after charity pledge

MOST-WATCHED ON INSTAGRAM

Are YOU good enough to raise-fold JACKS in the Main Event?

There are lots of famous poker players at the World Series of Poker, but there are more than a few people who got famous doing something else. Here are a few we have seen in the last few days.

But not not to be outdone, Daniel Negreanu chose the very same day to win his eighth bracelet and a lot of freaking money. In this WSOP Extra edition, we’ve got that, a new Pick 3 Fantasy contest that could send you to Aruba, the story of Shaun Deeb getting right at just the right time, and a lot more. And for the latest from the last few hours (like Martin Kabrhel winning his 6th bracelet with a hippo), you can always check Instant News!

Negreanu bluffs way to 8th bracelet

Pick the best three, go to Aruba on us!

Negreanu shows us his pair

Now is the time to pay attention.

The WSOP Main Event begins this week, and Vegas is priming the pump for the kind of feel-good we haven’t felt in too long.

In the last few hours:

Michael Mizrachi won his 9th WSOP bracelet.

Rampage won his second bracelet (and saved his grail Pokémon card).

Oh, and those stories? They both broke after we had written this newsletter. We were actually planning on leading with three of the best stories of the summer. Now we’re thinking there might still be a better story on the way.

Can it actually happen? We’re about to find out.

• So, yeah, we were already sorta freaked out about the number of disembodied arms wearing WSOP bracelets we showed you last Friday, but Michael Mizrachi said, “Hold on. You gotta make room for one more.”

• And then Rampage is about to sell his grail-level Pokémon card…but then wins a bracelet over one of the best players in the world.

• And then WSOP Circuit crusher Matt Higgins finally got himself a WSOP bracelet.

• And this was our best story before all of that that: Dude drives a car with 170,000 miles on it, had never cashed for more than $17,000 in poker tournament, and was better known at home for being a damned good bowler. And then one day at the WSOP…he became a millionaire.

• Brian Smith didn’t pull a million-dollar-bounty, but he found $100,000 in a box and pledged it to his favorite charity. And then…instant karma.

• Speaking of instant…how about our new Instant News? Don’t wade through meaningless updates. Don’t wait for the next-day recap. Get the news that matters as it happens.

_{Disclaimer: Hell no, of course we’re not gonna violate the media rules and have our WSOP access denied or spoil the stream or make Jeff Platt stomp his feet. We’re crazy, but we ain’t insane…yet.}

• Like…if all of a sudden William Kassouf clears his WSOP ban and shows back up at the Horseshoe, we’ll let you know!

• Benny Glaser: a dude famously slow-rolled last year, facing off against Phil Ivey and Josh Arieh at the final table of the most prestigious tournament in poker, and then…a ninth bracelet. You aren’t gonna cry?

• No one ever told us to watch out for mahjong players at the poker table, but here we are. The WSOP Ladies Event has a new champ. She had only played two poker tournaments but she is one of the top ten at mahjong.

• We’re coming down to the wire in the PokerOrg Fantasy Freeroll!! The top of the leaderboard is still super tight. If you think you still have a shot, check your team’s results right here!

• Oh, and pro tip when it comes to Fantasy Poker…if you haven’t done particularly well in this freeroll, keep your eye on your inbox this week. We might just have a little something new for you! Sssh! Don’t tell the others!

• This is what happens when X translations strike back and make a molehill out of the mountain that is former football star and current poker milliionire Alex Foxen.

• What’s happening over at WPT Prime? All the X posts are gone and it looks be branded as WPT Home Game now. Probably no big thing. If we have learned one thing about the WPT family in the past 18 months, it’s that we can count on it being consistent and make sense. Right?

MOST-CLICKED ON POKER ORG

Negreanu pops straight flush at his latest WSOP final table

MOST-CLICKED IN THE ORG

Seated next to your ex in a massive poker tournament

MOST-WATCHED ON INSTAGRAM

Sometimes he is Tony Burns and sometimes he’s just cooked

It was a big, emotional week at the World Series of Poker, and our photographers were right there to record it all. Here are some of the best images we’ve seen over the last few days.

Benny breaks down

Jon Schiller pulls $1m bounty

Caitlin Comeskey at Ladies final

Smitty pulls $100K for charity

Glaser now has nine WSOP bracelets and needs just one more to be tied for third in overall career WSOP titles.

We’ve got that story, the story of a crusher who finally won his first bracelet, and a straight flush for Daniel Negreanu. Want to catch up on all the latest? Click that Instant News banner below!

Glaser drops the poker face

Daniel Negreanu binks a straight flush

When you’re due, you’re due

You think poker players are emotionless? Let’s check with Benny Glaser

(Hayley Hochstetler)

Everyone is salty, decorum is a memory, and even the seat draws have a sick sense of humor. Shaun Deeb, Texas Mike, and countless others must have looked back at Sodom.

You? Keep your eyes forward, don’t look back, and mind your manners. We’ll get through this together.

• Shaun Deeb might still be cursed at the WSOP. He almost won a bracelet, but then he didn’t, and then didn’t shake the winner’s hand. He said he had his reasons, but we don’t know much more. Shaun, tell us…how did the bad man hurt you?

• Texas Mike is cranky, and he says it’s not about losing seven figures in a streamed cash game. He’s salty about nitty pot snipers and people (read: Daniel Negreanu) griping about Martin Kabrhel.

• As we passed the midpoint of the WSOP, it was clear people were on the edge of losing it. And now it’s clear, they are no longer on the edge. They are over it. Witness: dude who just says, “Screw it” and lights up a smoke at the table.

• There is running bad and then there is getting a WSOP seat draw that puts you directly beside…your ex.

• For once, Phil Hellmuth is excited about #NEGATIVITY. The Brat has been sidelined with COVID for a bit, but he’s tested negative and on his way back.

• Question is, how well can a recently-ill Hellmuth handle the mark-up police?

• What happens when a singer-songwriter from Canada wins a WSOP bracelet? Well, in this case, you get a dude who wants to sing his own national anthemat his bracelet ceremony!

• That story headlined Chris Moneymaker’s Guest Editor report yesterday. If you want to see the stuff Moneymaker likes the most, click here to see Chris’ latest report.

• If you are in the PokerOrg Fantasy Freeroll, this was a great week to have Alex Foxen and Calvin Anderson on your team. The current top ten teams are below, and you can check your team’s results right here!

• And why is it good to have Calvin Anderson on your team? Well, he did the back-to-back bracelet thing this week. Yeah, that’s two bracelets in three days.

• The best thing about the WSOP $50K Poker Players Championship is that it’s a freezeout. You’ve got one bullet, and your aim better be good. The rough thing about the PPC is that when you go bust, you won’t play that event again until next year. Turns out, last year’s champ Michael Mizrachi’s bullet was a dud.

• We’ve been friends with PokerGo’s Tim Duckworth for a while, and we know the World Cup is taking its toll on our Aussie buddy, but we’re starting to get worried about the guy. We’re sure this isn’t what it looks like.

• WSOP host Natalie Bodie might be doing her best work at the Series this year, but she also just became Miss Nevada and is on her way to Miss USA!

MOST-CLICKED ON POKER ORG

‘I would have banned him’ – Negreanu blasts ‘problematic’ player at the WSOP

MOST-CLICKED IN THE ORG

‘I would have banned him’ – Negreanu blasts ‘problematic’ player at the WSOP

MOST-WATCHED ON INSTAGRAM

Does lying count as bluffing?🤔😂

Our photographers are working their tails off at the World Series of Poker, and if you want to see some of the best of their work, check out some of our 2026 WSOP photo galleries.

As we reach the halfway point of the WSOP, Mike Matusow is melting down, Phil Hellmuth is betting on blood, and Old Man Negreanu is feeling nostalgic.

And don’t forget Chris Moneymaker is grinding as our Guest Editor throughout the whole WSOP!

WTF is Faraz doing?

Gross or efficient?

Good boy!

Looking for more of the best pictures from the World Series of Poker? We’ve got some new galleries!

And that’s just one blip in the middle of an already wild and wooly WSOP.

This week, the Poker Hall of Fame changed its rules (again), Liv Boeree played Mafia with some of the richest tech bros in the world, and we have discovered the best poker dog in the world.

• You know how a poker video on Instagram ends up getting more than 1.7 million views in a matter of hours? Well it starts with Martin Kabrhel being himself and Daniel Negreanu not being in the mood for it.

• From the files of “It’s about freaking time…” the Poker Hall of Fame is finally updating its rules to actually make sense in 2026.

• So, who could and who should make the Poker HOF this year? Poker’s biggest names have made their opinions clear.

• Shaun Deeb is eligible for the Hall this year, and he’s still in contention for Player of the Year…but, man, he has been having a terribad summer.

• No matter how you feel about dogs at the poker table, you’re gonna love this one. There are good boys, there are great boys, and then there is the best boy, Chief.

• That was one of Chris Moneymaker’s favorite stories this week as he guides our coverage. Click here to see his latest report.

• Dead Money at the top of the PokerOrg Fantasy Freeroll? Well, there is this week. Helps when you draft Jeremy Ausmus and Kristen Foxen. Check where your team stands right here.

• We are nearly halfway through the 2026 World Series of Poker, and the bracelets are piling up. You want to see who’s taken home gold already? Check out our list of all the 2026 WSOP bracelet winner so far.

• Poker’s King of Cool Nick Schulman is on that list, because he just scored his 8th WSOP bracelet.

• Last year Paul Gibbons made a deep run in in the WSOP Main Event. Now he’s back in Vegas. Weirdly, he’s not even taken a day off work, because he now has AI doing most of it for him.

• Juggling poker and jobs is tough. Juggling poker and…juggling? Gus Hansen seems to be handling that pretty well on every break at the WSOP.

• In news outside the World Series of Poker, Aria dealer Clyde “Snack Attack” Gaskins has a new dealer tool, and watching him at work is a thing of beauty.

• You might have played Werewolf or Mafia, but have you ever played it with with the titans of tech and Liv Boeree? This is what that looks like.

MOST-CLICKED ON POKER ORG

Kristen Foxen wins 6th bracelet and career-best cash in WSOP High Roller

MOST-CLICKED IN THE ORG

PokerOrg Fantasy Freeroll Leaderboard

MOST-WATCHED ON INSTAGRAM

Is Daniel Negreanu finally FED UP with Martin Kabrhel??😳👀

The World Series of Poker is one of the most visual poker events of the year, and we’ve been having a ball going through all the pictures our pro photographers are taking. If you want to take a look for yourself, check out any of these fun galleries.

We’re not even three weeks into the WSOP, and we’ve already got all sorts of silly stuff we’ll be talking about for a while. Daniel Negreanu vs. Maurice Hawkins, some bad behavior on the WSOP rail, and a No Doubt lucky hoodie.

We’ve also got Chris Moneymaker in a Guest Editor role (click the banner below to read his daily reports) and a lot more. Extra, extra!

Daniel Negreanu vs. Maurice Hawkins

Lucky hoodie? No Doubt!

DON’T. DO. THIS. SERIOUSLY.

Looking for more of the best pictures from the World Series of Poker? We’ve got some new galleries!

Actually, you can’t, but you should want to, because she’s met every element of eligibility except for one she can’t control.

We’ve got that story, a couple of festering World Series of Poker controversies, plus an actual curse on Shaun Deeb and his hopes to become WSOP Player of the Year.

Image courtesy WSOP

• You know why Kristen Foxen won’t be in the Poker Hall of Fame this year? Because she’s still too young. That’s it. That’s the only reason. If there was any other reason, she erased all doubt Sunday night when she won her sixth bracelet in the $25,000 8-Max High Roller for $1,773,083.

• Naoya Kihara was the first person from Japan to ever win a World Series of Poker bracelet. This year? He’s already won two more.

• And while we’re on amazing accomplishments, how about Frederic Normandwho won a WSOP bracelet while, indeed, playing a game he’d never played before.

• As we mentioned last week, Chris Moneymaker is serving as our guest editor during this whole summer. He’s been in Vegas for the past week trying to win a bracelet while picking out his favorite stories. You can see his latest effort here and scroll back to see any of his previous reports.

• And while his recent vlogs have shown Moneymaker looking like a pack mule for Coke Zero bottles, he insists it’s all in some editing trickery. We remain unconvinced.

• WSOP controversy #1 - KYC Gone Wild: Twenty years ago, a duffel bag of cash was a must-have fashion statement at the WSOP. Now, if you show up with a few stacks of high society and want to play with it, you better have a ready way to explain how you ended up with all that money in the first place. They might not let you play at all…or they might pick you up in the middle of a cash game stream.

• WSOP controversy #2 - Parking for Dummies: Being a high roller doesn’t guarantee you any love in a parking deck. Some WSOP regulars say the Paris/Horseshoe parking garages are places where…well, you can park your car any time you like, but you can never leave.

• Are you keeping an eye on your 2026 PokerOrg Fantasy Freeroll entry? You should be, especially if you really like the A key on your keyboard. Here’s the leaderboard as of last night!

• If you’re keeping track of your leaderboard or just want some quick reference on who has won bracelets so far this year, here’s your quickest way to find out every 2026 WSOP bracelet winner so far.

• Forget about sweating Shaun Deeb’s WSOP Player of the Year race. He’s been cursed. No, seriously, he’s been cursed by a professional curser.

• Hey…if something bad happens to you in poker, take a moment to think about Ricky Landais who not only had the weirdest bad beat of the year but also remained really zen about the whole thing.

• Hey, if you’re reading about all this WSOP stuff from somewhere that doesn’t get all the ESPN coverage and such, guess what? WSOP coverage could be getting to your part of the world soon!

• And finally, pop quiz, hot shot: see if you can figure out who is juggling in the middle of the WSOP floor before the camera shows his face.

MOST-CLICKED ON POKER ORG

HCL regular removed from WSOP’s first High Stakes Live cash game

MOST-CLICKED IN THE ORG

‘Oh, I’m partying’ – Rec player pulls $1 million bounty in $550 WSOP event

MOST-WATCHED ON INSTAGRAM

How do you play your button… when your wife is in the big blind??

These days you get your World Series of Poker news in real time. Back in the early days, if you wanted the best of the best stories, you could wait a couple of years. To wit: it was this week in 1983 that the classic WSOP book The Biggest Game in Townhit the shelves…chronicling the…er…1981 World Series of Poker. But, it was worth the wait, because Al Alverez’s book is one of the best ever written on the summer series.