Why This 22-Year-Old Will Likely Win the WSOP Main Event

Lucas Jumalon, just 22 years old, had minimal tournament results before bagging a massive chip lead heading into next month’s WSOP Main Event final table.

Despite the inexperience, modern history says his odds of winning the bracelet and the $10,000,000 first-place prize are high. The young poker player from Spokane, Washington, a mid-sized town a few hours east of Seattle, dominated play last week on Day 8 to build a comfortable lead with nine players remaining.

Those final players, all guaranteed at least $1 million, will return to Paris Las Vegas on Aug. 3 for the first of three days of play before a World Champion is crowned on Aug. 5. If history is any indication, that player will be Jumalon, who would become the second-youngest Main Event champion ever, behind 2009 winner Joe Cada (age 21).

WSOP Main Event and the Massive Final Table Chip Lead

The chip leader heading into the WSOP Main Event final table hasn’t won since Espen Jorstad in 2022, and Jorstad was tied in chips with Matthew Su, who busted in ninth place. Koray Aldemir, in 2021, is the last outright chip leader to win the bracelet. But Jumalon is sitting in a different position than most chip leaders from recent years.

Jumalon, who had just $180,000 in prior live tournament cashes, will return to action with 129 big blinds. Rami Hammoud, a Canadian opponent, will start as his closest competitor with 53 big blinds. No other player at the table has more than 37 big blinds.

Comebacks happen all the time at final tables. Chip leaders blow leads, short stacks spin it up. Anyone who has followed tournament poker for more than a week knows chip leads, in most tournaments, change hands frequently. But that hasn’t been the case for massive chip leaders at the WSOP Main Event final table.

Only three players over the past 20 years have held a lead of 50 or more big blinds over all opponents entering the WSOP Main Event final table — Aldemir (2021), Hossein Ensan (2019), and Joe McKeehen (2015). All three won the tournament, and none of them relinquished the lead for any significant amount of time. They all faced some turbulance along the way. But the huge advantage to begin the final table gave them a margin for error.

Aldemir, Ensan, and McKeehen all, for the most part, ran over the final table en route to convincing victories. This doesn’t mean Jumalon is a lock to win the bracelet. He could run into some sick coolers and bad beats, or get outplayed. But modern history shows he’s in an even stronger position than you may have realized.

Even better for Jumalon, no player this century has entered the final table with a higher percentage of all chips in play, according to WSOP historian Robert Jen. He’ll take a seat with 35.11% of the chips at the table.

As for the shortest stack entering the final table, none have finished higher than sixth place in the past decade. Evagoras Evagorou from Cyprus will attempt to buck that trend in a couple weeks.

2026 WSOP Main Event Final Table Chip Counts