button in SafariSelahaddin Bedir Goes the Distance to Win Merit Poker NOIR Series Main Event for $525,000
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After a marathon 12-hour final day, the 2026 NOIR Poker Series has reached its conclusion with Selahaddin Bedir crowned champion of the $5,500 Merit Poker Main Event.
The tournament began with 769 players taking their seats inside the Merit Royal Diamond Hotel Casino & Spa, building a $3,608,148 prize pool and setting up a $525,000 payday for the eventual winner. By the time the final day started, just 13 players remained, all with their eyes on the title.
Twelve hours later, there was only one player left standing.
After outlasting a final table of nine that lasted roughly ten hours, including a heads-up battle that stretched for nearly two hours, Bedir summed up the marathon nature of the tournament simply.
"It's hard to play every day from the beginning. Same patience, but feeling very good, very much."
NOIR Poker Series Main Event Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Selahaddin Bedir | Turkey | $525,000 |
| 2 | Konstantin Voronin | Russian Federation | $375,000 |
| 3 | Fabian Gumz | Germany | $257,000 |
| 4 | Aleksei Gortikov | Russian Federation | $181,000 |
| 5 | Kenar | Turkey | $129,000 |
| 6 | Leonid Orman | Russian Federation | $100,000 |
| 7 | Anton Danilov | Russian Federation | $81,000 |
| 8 | Manuel Fritz | Austria | $66,700 |
| 9 | Viktor Siegle | Germany | $57,048 |
Here for a Good Time
For Bedir, poker is as much about enjoying the game as it is about the results.
Despite already enjoying a highly successful career, it is the simple pleasure of playing that keeps bringing him back to the table. Poker, he says, is both “my business and my hobby”, but the money is not what drives him. “I like to play poker,” he explained. “I don’t think about money. I just feel good when I go.”
Having finished runner-up in the High Roller here in April, Bedir returned to go one better this time, lifting the trophy and savoring the moment.
“This time it’s feeling very nice,” he said.
There may also be a little crossover between Bedir’s success in poker and another card game. He is an accomplished Bridge player, and believes the skills involved have helped him at the poker table. “It’s also a card game,” he said, describing Bridge as a kind of “brain sport”. The experience, he feels, has given him skills that can carry over to poker.
Despite putting in the work to secure the win, no elaborate celebration is planned. Bedir intended to keep things simple, spending time with the people closest to him.
“I think with my kids, my friends,” he said. “The usual.”
Road to the Final Table
The tournament resumed with the remaining 13 players just four eliminations away from the final table, and it didn’t take long to get there.
Xiaosheng Zheng fell in 13th place, followed by the mysterious ‘Tarzan’, who had started the day second in chips. A seismic early collision with Manuel Fritz didn't go his way, and he never recovered.
Fahredin Mustafov suffered a similar fate, running into pocket aces, before Miroslav Rizov’s elimination in 10th place brought the field down to the final table before the second level of the day had even been completed.
Final Table Action
It took just under half an hour for the first casualty of the final table, with Viktor Siegle getting his money in with the best of it but unable to hold.
Another hour passed before the next elimination. Fritz found aces on the button, but when the money went in on the flop, he was behind to Fabian Gumz in the big blind and couldn’t recover.
Anton Danilov followed another hour later, with Leonid Orman eliminated around 20 minutes after that. Two more players fell before the dinner break, leaving five players remaining.
After the break, the average stack was just 26 big blinds, and the short stacks began to feel the pressure. 'Kenar' and Aleksei Gortikov both fell within the first hour back, leaving three players to battle for the title.
Three-handed play then lasted roughly two hours, with all three players taking turns at the top of the counts. None could build enough of a lead to pull away, though, and in the end it took a cooler to send Gumz to the rail and set up the heads-up battle between Bedir and Konstantin Voronin.
Although the heads-up contest lasted around two hours, Bedir always seemed in control, continuously claiming the smaller pots. Crucially, though, he was unable to shake Voronin off, as the two big all-ins both saw Voronin prosper. Each time Voronin doubled up, though, given the size of the blinds, Bedir ground him back down.
When the two players got all the chips for a third time, Bedir had the best of it and managed to hold on, finally putting an end to Voronin's persistence.
That brought the 2026 NOIR Poker Series to a close, with Bedir walking away as the final champion and $525,000 richer
That brings an end to our live coverage of the NOIR Poker Series, but check out the PokerNews home page to follow other events from around the world.
