Jason Wheeler Says PS Open Barcelona Victory Is Up There With His Bracelet Win

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Aug 24, 2026 4 min read

You will almost certainly have crossed paths with Jason Wheeler if you have attended a PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) stop over the past 16 years. Until this weekend, Wheeler had amassed $5.78 million in live tournament cashes, but he now has $6,627,471 after winning the €1,650 PokerStars Open Barcelona Main Event.

Including re-entries, the 2026 PokerStars Open Barcelona Main Event attracted 4,333 entrants. They created a €6,239,520 prize pool, including a €731,000 first place prize. That top prize now belongs to Wheeler; it represents a new career-high for the popular grinder.

€1,650 PokerStars Open Barcelona Final Table Results

Wheeler has cashes on the EPT dating back to the 2010 EPT London stop. While he has won side events over the years, none have awarded a prize of this magnitude. In December 2017, Wheeler finished second in the €5,300 EPT Prague Main Event for €570,000, which remained his largest-ever haul until this victory in sunny Spain.

Shortly after capturing the title, PokerNews asked Wheeler about the range of emotions he was feeling.

"It's amazing," Wheeler exclaimed. "I've been chasing this for a while. You know, I kind of pulled back a little bit for some years to deal with raising a family, and I wasn't going after it as hard as some of my friends. After the pandemic, I just decided I was going to come back and give it my all.

"I didn't want to fade out of this; I wanted to go out on a high note on my own terms. And so, I came back determined to really give it my all and prove I'm still one of the best tournament players in the world."

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Wheeler won a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet in 2021. He ranks this PokerStars Open Barcelona Main Event victory on a similar level to getting his hands on a bracelet.

"It's really high up there because of what I wanted to accomplish when I came back. You know, my kids are getting a bit older, and I have more time to go after it again, to put some hours in studying, and put some hours in playing. It's right up there next to the bracelet, pretty much."

A Star-Studded Final Table

Wheeler contended with some talented individuals at the PokerStars Open Barcelona Main Event final table. Brazilian Felipe Boianovsky was the first finalist to exit the tournament area, his eighth-place finish earning him €87,910 and edging his lifetime live poker earnings past the $7.6 million mark.

Gregorie Jarry, whose largest score weighed in at €3,880, fell in seventh for a new career-best €114,290 before Han Feng, the 2026 WSOP Main Event fifth-place finisher, saw his latest deep run end in a seventh-place finish worth €148,610.

The eliminations of Mahersh Selvakumaran and Bodgan Petrascu came with prizes of €193,190 and €251,120, and left only three players in the hunt for the title, the Spaide trophy, and the €731,000 top prize.

Serbia's Darko Svesko relinquished his stack and finished in third for €326,200. This was Svesko's second-largest score, beaten only by the $567,000 he banked for his victory in the $3,300 No-Limit Hold'em Merit Poker Retro Series Main Event in 2023.

Heads-up pitted Wheeler against the dangerous Swede Alexander Ivarsson, himself an EPT regular. Either man would have made a worthy champion, but it was Wheeler who came out on top and helped himself to a career-best €731,000, leaving Ivarsson to collect a €457,000 consolation prize.

"I love PokerStars. I've been playing with them for over 20 years," Wheeler said. To win on PokerStars, on the biggest stages, against the toughest competition validates everything I've been doing."

Tom Fuchs Takes Down the €100,000 EPT Super High Roller for €1,126,540

Wheeler wasn't the only EPT Barcelona attendee to win big over the weekend. Germany's Tom Fuchs received the second seven-figure prize of his glistening career when he got his hands on the €1,126,540 top prize of the €100,000 EPT Super High Roller.

Check out the table below for a round-up of the weekend's biggest EPT Barcelona winners, including a €2,700 PokerStars Open High Roller victory for Thomas Eychenne, the reigning EPT Barcelona Main Event champion.

Follow the 2026 EPT Barcelona Main Event Action on PokerNews

Both flights of the 2026 EPT Barcelona Main Event are done and dusted. A total of 1,684 entries have been processed, a number that is set to increase as late registration remains open until the start of Day 2 at 12:00 p.m. local time on August 24.

Ireland's Michael Dwyer leads the way, having finished Day 1a with 363,500 chips. Others to look out for in PokerNews' live updates include Mark Teltscher (324,000), Romain Lewis (204,000), Dario Sammartino (201,500), Mathew Frankland (200,500), Michel Molenaar (135,700), David Coleman (134,500), Anton Wigg (131,000), Sebastian Malec (129,500), Barny Boatman (125,500), Maria Konnikova (109,000), and Erik Seidel (59,500).

Matthew Pitt hails from Leeds, West Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom, and has worked in the poker industry since 2008, and worked for PokerNews since 2010. In September 2010, he became the editor of PokerNews. Matthew stepped away from live reporting duties in 2015, and now concentrates on his role of Senior Editor for the PokerNews.

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• Tags Alexander Ivarsson Anton Wigg Barny Boatman Dario Sammartino Darko Svesko David Coleman Jason Wheeler Han Feng Felipe Boianovsky Erik Seidel Maria Konnikova Michel Molenaar Ottomar Ladva Sebastian Malec Thomas Eychenne Tom Fuchs EPT EPTBarcelona26
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