button in Safari2026 WSOP Day 5: Round of 16 Set In $25k Heads Up Championship Event
Day 5 of the 2026 World Series of Poker saw two bracelets awarded at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas.
The bracelet for Event #5: $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha found its way to Yang Wang after he beat Jesse Lonis heads up. Yang won the $595,388 first-place prize and his first bracelet, while Lonis won $396,892 for second and missed out on winning his third bracelet.
Additionally, James Cheung won $103,185 and his first bracelet when he took down Event #6: $1,500 Seven Card Stud.
Meanwhile, the high-stakes action continued in the $25,000 Heads Up event (which Alan Keating failed to turn up for), the Mini Mystery Millions surpassed 20,000 entries, and the Omaha and Badugi events racked up star-studded fields.
Round of 16 Confirmed In $25,000 Heads Up Championship
Event #7: $25,000 Heads Up No Limit Hold’em Championship started with a surprise. Alan Keating failed to show up for his Round 1 match, eventually calling in to forfeit.
Other than that initial hiccup, the event ran smoothly with eight players remaining from an initial bracket of 64. With the brackets now filled, the event has hit its expected prize pool of $3,008,000, with $750,000 up top. Everyone who survived Day 1 will earn at least a min-cash.
The eight players who won all their matches were Nikita Kuznetsov, the first player to advance to Day 2; Nikolai Mamut, who knocked Doug Polk out of the event; along with Julien Sitbon, Brandon Wilson, Biao Ding, Thomas Boivin, Ryuta Nakai, and Florian Pesce.
Among those who did not make Day 2 were Doug Polk, Shaun Deeb, and Viktor Blom.
These players will return for a new bracket shuffled in with the round 1 survivors in Round 4. Round 4 round will start at noon local time on Sunday.
Day 1b Bracket Results
Mike Matusow, Jen Harman and Gus Hansen Bag Day 1 of $10k Omaha Hi-Lo Championship
James Chen leads an impressive field after Day 1 of Event #9: $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship. Chen finished the day with 359,000 in his bag.
With 162 entries, the prize pool was set at $1,506,600 when the action ended. However, those numbers still have room to grow, since late registration continues until the end of the first level of Day 2.
At the end of Day 1, 78 of these players still had chips on the table.
Among those 78 are big names like James Obst (332,000), Robert Mizrachi (330,000), Todd Brunson (182,000), Josh Arieh (164,000), Mike Matusow (126,000), Jennifer Harman (112,000), and Gus Hansen (75,000), for whom — as always — it is going to be a great summer.
These players will all return at 1:00 p.m. local time on May 31 for Day 2.
Day 1 Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | James Chen | United States | 359,000 | 45 |
| 2 | Qinghai Pan | United States | 342,000 | 43 |
| 3 | James Obst | Australia | 332,000 | 42 |
| 4 | Robert Mizrachi | United States | 330,000 | 41 |
| 5 | Dylan Lambe | United States | 318,000 | 40 |
| 6 | Nicolas Milgrom | France | 265,000 | 33 |
| 7 | Jason Daly | United States | 252,000 | 32 |
| 8 | Yong Wang | China | 239,000 | 30 |
| 9 | Yehuda Buchalter | United States | 223,000 | 28 |
| 10 | Maksim Pisarenko | Russian Federation | 212,000 | 27 |
Seiver, Schulman, and Dzivielevski Among Last Ten Badugi Event Competitors
Event #8: $1,500 Badugi got 554 entries, of whom 99 made it to the start of Day 2. By the end of Day 2, just ten of those players remained.
This group of survivors is led by Michael Casella with a stack of 4,065,000.
But that could change on the turn of a card as Casella is up against a strong field with Scott Seiver (2,120,000) in second place and Gary Benson (2,045,000) in third. Nick Schulman (1,985,000) and Yuri Dzivielevski (295,000) are also still in the game, although Dzivielevski is down to just under three big bets.
With a prize pool of $735,435, this event has $141,963 up top for whoever takes home the bracelet. The journey towards this bracelet starts up again at 1:00 p.m. local time. The betting limits will be 50,000/100,000.
Event #8: $1,500 Badugi Day 2 Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Bets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michael Casella | United States | 4,065,000 | 41 |
| 2 | Scott Seiver | United States | 2,120,000 | 21 |
| 3 | Gary Benson | Australia | 2,045,000 | 20 |
| 4 | Nick Schulman | United States | 1,985,000 | 20 |
| 5 | Stephan Nussrallah | United States | 1,385,000 | 14 |
| 6 | Kyle Arora | United States | 905,000 | 9 |
| 7 | Walter Chambers | United States | 685,000 | 7 |
| 8 | Jon Turner | United States | 300,000 | 3 |
| 9 | Yuri Dzivielevski | Brazil | 295,000 | 3 |
| 10 | Brant Hale | United States | 115,000 | 1 |
20,488 Entries In $550 Mini Mystery Millions
Event #1: $550 Mini Mystery Millions ran two massive Day 1 flights today.
Day 1e brought in 6,805 entries and Day 1f (Turb) brought in another 3,457. Together, these two flights tipped the event over the 20k mark with a total of 20,488 entries across all six Day 1 flights.
This put $9,352,772 in the pot, which will be doled out as prizes ($3,649,482) and bounties ($4,097,600). The bounties will begin starting on Day 2, and one lucky bounty winner will get $1,000,000.
The influx of players included Martin Pineiro of Argentina who bagged 4,205,000. This put him at the top of the event's leaderboard going into Day 2.
Day 2 begins at 1:00 p.m. local time on Sunday.
Event #1: $550 Mini Mystery Millions End of Day 1e Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maxime Broutier | France | 1,420,000 | 36 |
| 2 | Dong Chen | China | 1,415,000 | 35 |
| 3 | Michael Berk | United States | 1,205,000 | 30 |
| 4 | Nirath Rean | United States | 1,200,000 | 30 |
| 5 | Thomas Brown | United States | 1,180,000 | 30 |
| 6 | Julien Vanpelt | France | 1,175,000 | 29 |
| 7 | Vito Abramov | United States | 1,155,000 | 29 |
| 8 | Yaniv Peretz | Latvia | 1,145,000 | 29 |
| 9 | Elliott Hayes | - | 1,075,000 | 27 |
| 10 | Gnana Duddukuru | United States | 1,035,000 | 26 |
Event #1: $550 Mini Mystery Millions End of Day 1f Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Martin Pineiro | Argentina | 4,205,000 | 105 |
| 2 | Anthony Reategui | United States | 3,560,000 | 89 |
| 3 | Alexander Kaviani | United States | 2,190,000 | 55 |
| 4 | Christopher Bissinger | United States | 2,120,000 | 53 |
| 5 | Steven Stillman | United States | 2,110,000 | 53 |
| 6 | Ugo Taurines | France | 2,040,000 | 51 |
| 7 | Jonathan Prince | United States | 1,920,000 | 48 |
| 8 | Leonard Sande | United States | 1,800,000 | 45 |
| 9 | Timothy Vu | United States | 1,735,000 | 43 |
| 10 | Peter Li | United States | 1,650,000 | 41 |
What to Expect on Day 4 of the 2026 WSOP
On May 31, the 2026 WSOP moves into its sixth day. Three new events are set to kick off, and one bracelet is scheduled to be won.
The bracelet will go to whoever wins Event #8: $1,500 Badugi. The final table lineup will be back at 1:00 p.m. local time to play down to a winner.
The first new event starts at 10:00 a.m. local time and is Event #10: $600 No-Limit Hold'em Deepstack.
This is followed at noon local time by the first flight of the Event #11: $10,000 GGMillion$ No-Limit Hold'em High Roller. Then the last of the new events is the Event #12: $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw, always a niche event for the viewers, but the lowball games usually attract the very best poker players.
There will also be three events where the action will then carry over from Day 6 into Day 7 of the WSOP. The biggest of these will be Day 2 of the Event #7: $25,000 Heads Up No Limit Hold’em Championship. With its high stakes, big names, and one-on-one action, this event is not one to miss.
The Day 1 fields of Event #1: $550 Mini Mystery Millions will combine and, more importantly, the mystery bounties will kick in. At least one person will have a $1,000,000 bounty on their head.
Day 2 of Event #9: $10,000 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better Championship will also get underway at 1:00 p.m., with one blind level of late registration.
PokerNews will have live coverage of all these events right here.
