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Images courtesy of WSOP, PokerGO
The 2026 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event Day 3 starts today, and that means the registration is officially closed and the official numbers are in.
This year’s Main Event attracted a total of 9,208 unique runners, as the freezeout tournament remains by far the most popular $10k played anywhere in the world.
The registration closed after the second break in Day 2d yesterday, with a number of high-profile players, including Phil Ivey, taking their seats at the last moment.
With 9,208 players in the running, those who reach the ITM stage of the tournament will be playing for a prize pool of $85,625,100, and a first-place prize of $10,000,000, while the minimum final table payout will be a hefty $1,000,000.
Yet, despite the event being a great success so far, it has failed to break any records, and fallen short in comparison to the last few years.
Main Event Prize Pool Tops $85 Million
The numbers are in!
The 2026 Main Event attracted 9,208 entrants, creating a total prize pool worth $85,634,400.
The final 1,382 players will be in the money and guaranteed at least $15,000, with the eventual champion taking home the… pic.twitter.com/w9P2acqUWH
— WSOP – World Series of Poker (@WSOP) July 8, 2026
The Main Event Field Shrinks Compared to 2025
The 2026 WSOP Main Event has not failed by any stretch of imagination, but it has not managed to break the attendance record, or even come reasonably close to last year’s numbers.
In 2025, we saw a total of 9,735 players enter the Main, some 500 more than this year, and the tournament runners at GGPoker and WSOP won’t be too happy about that decline.
Each Day 1 flight this year saw fewer entries than the last. Day 1a had 771 entries compared to the 923 in 2025, Day 1b had 1,038 compared to 1,096, Day 1c had 1,573 compared to 1,676, and Day 1d, the largest of them all, had 4,694 compared to 4,997 in 2025.
The remaining players, just over 1,000 of them, signed up to play on the two Day 2 flights, but that was still not enough to compare to the field that Michael Mizrachi cut through last year.
With the registration now closed, it’s safe to say that this will be the fourth-largest Main Event in its history, following the 2024 (10,112), 2023 (10,043), and 2025 (9,735) editions closely.
The trend of large Main Event fields continues this year, but it seems like we will need something special to happen again for the attendance record to be broken.
Poker Legends and Main Event Champs in the Running
Like every year, the WSOP Main Event attracted a wide array of poker players, from casual poker enthusiasts from all over the world, to hardcore poker professionals with extensive resumes and plenty of poker silverware.
The likes of Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, Chris Moneymaker, Benny Glaser, and many other poker legends entered the lists, and many of them survive even now, after two full days of play.
The Main Event is known as one of the best structured tournaments with the deepest stacks, so it comes as no surprise that so many well-known players were able to survive the early stages.
Among the notable players still in the field and with significant stacks are Alex Foxen (493,500), Brian Hastings (490,000), Tony Dunst (479,000), Martin Zamani (459,000), Eshaan “Brown Balla” Bhalla (454,000), Shaun Deeb (369,000), Erick Lindgren (311,500), Chris Hunichen (302,500), Chris Moorman (265,000), and many others.
Former Main Event champions are also still in the field and looking to repeat their previous success, with the likes of John Cynn (403,000), Greg Raymer (291,000), Hossein Ensan (235,000), Chris Moneymaker (221,000), and Greg Merson (79,000) all still in the running.
The reigning champion Michael Mizrachi will also enter Day 3 with a healthy stack of 202,500 after surviving Day 2abc. What’s perhaps even more interesting is that the Mizrachi family will have five players representing it in Day 3 of the Main Event.
Mizrachi’s son Paul bagged a stack of 150,000 on Day 2d, while his brothers Eric, Robert, and Daniel each bagged as well, and will be bringing stacks of 93,000, 76,500, and 40,500 into Day 3.
The action continues today with blinds starting at 1,000/2,500 and a big blind ante of 2,500, which means even those with smaller stacks will still have time to wait for hands and the right spots to look for double ups.
The Main Event Remains the Biggest Show in Poker
A massive field, celebrity appearances, tableside feuds, controversy and drama, and a huge $10,000,000 first-place prize are all parts of what makes the WSOP Main Event the biggest show in all of poker.
Even though the 2026 edition has failed to break any records or even overshadow last year’s attendance, it is still the biggest poker tournament of the years in more ways than one.
With the ESPN coverage already running, and the final table set to be shown for free to tens of thousands of viewers, this year’s Main Event should be one for the history books.
All that remains to be seen is what drama will unfold as the days pass by, which big name players will make their deep runs, and whether another poker legend follows in the footsteps of Michael Mizrachi to capture a historic Main Event title this year.
In either case, the days ahead of us are certain to bring lots of excitement for poker fans around the world, as we follow some of the biggest names in poker, and enthusiastic amateurs, on their journey through one of the biggest tournament poker fields around.