Earl Burton

Last week, we looked at the two major Player of the Year races, provided by CardPlayer Magazine and the Global Poker Index. There are a couple of other POY battles that people are interested in, however. On one, the leader has been dominant during the “high roller” tournaments, but the other shows that the steady pace is the way to go about things, as the current leader isn’t making big scores, but she is fending off the five-time champion in the Women’s 2026 Player of the Year race.

It is about ten days from the start of the 2026 World Series of Poker, but officials from the WSOP and GGPoker are already looking to get ahead of some potential issues from last year. By introducing new standards into the rulebook, the WSOP is trying to get ahead of issues like promotions and players who take advantage of late registration. Whether these changes actually affect any of the proceedings around the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas remains to be seen.

While they are on break for the 2026 World Series of Poker, the World Poker Tour is actively setting its schedule for the second half of 2026. The WPT has announced that, for one of its second-half tournaments, the carnival will return to Sydney, Australia, with the Star Sydney as host. The Star Sydney will host two major events: a $ 1,500 WPT Prime event and a $5,000 WPT Australia Main Event, which will take place during the WPT’s 20-day stay “down under,” along with a plethora of preliminary events.

When it comes to the PokerGO Tour, everyone knows the big events. The PokerGO Cup, the U.S. Poker Open, and the Poker Masters are the first tournaments that come to mind. But many do not realize that almost a quarter of the qualifying tournaments for the PGT come from one event – the World Series of Poker, which will provide 31 qualifying events towards the 2026 PGT Player of the Year race.

The worlds of celebrities and poker have often come together in the 21st-century entertainment scene. Many remember the “golden age” of these types of programming, such as Celebrity Poker Showdown, which featured actors, comedians, and other entertainers playing poker for charitable causes. This still exists today (witness the Creator Poker Championship ) and will be further exemplified by the appearance of one of the top comedians in the entertainment industry, Kevin Hart, squaring off on the felt against poker’s biggest sharks.

That time of the year is upon the poker world once again. The 2026 World Series of Poker kicks off bright and early (for poker players, anyway) at noon on Tuesday, and the throngs will descend on the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas like seventeen-year cicadas waiting to breed. Event #1, the $500 Mini-Mystery Millions, will kick off at noon, while the $5,000 Eight-Handed No Limit Hold’em tournament, Event #2 on the schedule, starts at 2 PM (the traditional starting event, the $500 Employees Event, is scheduled for May 27). But who will be the players to watch for at poker’s greatest event? Take a look at these players as they come to the tables this summer in Las Vegas.

The 2026 World Series of Poker has begun in Las Vegas, but no broadcast of the tournament action has hit the air yet. The first event to be broadcast will be on Friday, when the WSOP will air the play from the $10,000 No Limit Hold’em Heads-Up World Championship on YouTube. When that action kicks off on Friday, these are the people who will be commenting on it, and they are an all-star cast with years of experience broadcasting poker content.

The 2026 World Series of Poker is underway, but fans might have been left in the dark trying to find information about it. The WSOP, in its infinite wisdom (/off sarcasm), has decided that people don’t need to read about what is going on without downloading an app that is notoriously wonky and difficult to use. The broadcasting efforts for the WSOP, under the auspices of GGPoker, are a mixed bag, with both improvements and failures.

The first week of the 2026 World Series of Poker is in the books, and five men have been fortunate enough to walk away with one of the most prized trophies in poker. The early action has been dominated by non-Texas Hold’em events, with Seven Card Stud and Pot Limit Omaha taking center stage at the 2026 WSOP. That will change on Monday as the Final Four from the $25,000 Heads-Up World Championship square off to determine the biggest buy-in tournament of the Vegas ‘summer camp’ to date.

Monday was a busy day at the 2026 World Series of Poker as two World Championship events concluded their action. In one, the Final Four of the $25,000 Heads-Up No Limit Hold’em event became the “last man standing.” In the other, a noted high-stakes pro fended off two Poker Hall of Famers on his way to capturing the World Championship of Omaha Hi/Lo.