Stage set for 2026 World Series of Poker main even...

The 2026 World Series of Poker Main Event begins July 2 from the Paris Las Vegas and Horseshoe Las Vegas and will stream live on ESPN+. Check daily for updates as the field grows and then shrinks to the final table, which will air live on ESPN on Aug. 3-5. Professional poker's most prestigious tournament gets underway from Las Vegas with potentially the most attention on it since the poker boom of the 2000s. Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi will look to defend his $10,000 World Series of Poker main event title when the 2026 competition begins Thursday. Mizrachi's triumph last summer gave him the eighth WSOP bracelet of his illustrious career and he added a ninth already this year when he won the $10,000 pot-limit Omaha championship just days before the main event. Mizrachi isn't the only player coming in with momentum: professionals Benny Glaser and Shaun Deeb both won their respective ninth bracelets at WSOP events earlier this summer. The main event is poker's de facto world championship, bringing the superstars and amateur players alike out of the woodwork looking to claim the crown. "It's the one no-miss tournament of the year. If you're available and you have the 10K [buy-in], you're going to show up and play," Jack Effel, SVP of poker operations at Caesars Entertainment, which runs the event, told ESPN. "Winning the main event is the absolute greatest title that any poker player can achieve and it's not even close." Players can enter the tournament anytime from Thursday (Day 1A) through the end of the first two levels on either Day 2ABC or Day 2D, which take place on July 7, so the field -- and, thus, the prize pool -- won't be completely set until that time. Effel says that more players enter near the end of the flights than the beginning. The WSOP main event peaked at 10,112 entrants in 2024 and a first prize of $12.1 million in 2023. Mizrachi earmed $10 million for his victory in 2025. While Effel won't put a number on the projected field and pot size, he expects this year's tournament to be at least in line with the last few years, especially given many of the structural changes surrounding the festivities in 2026. For one, the WSOP constructed a new 25,000-square foot main stage inside Paris Las Vegas, complete with nearly 700 LED lighting fixtures and five state-of-the-art, custom feature tables. The tournament will also be shown on ESPN for the first time in over a decade, potentially opening up the game to a new audience as it did during the 2000s poker boom. "We made a lot of organic changes and material things here to make the playing environment better and better and better," said Effel. "To be sitting there at one of those feature tables or be playing in that arena for $10 million, life-changing money, with the best players in the world, as a poker player, I don't think it gets any cooler than that." Beginning Thursday, July 2, the World Series of Poker (@WSOP) is back on ESPN platforms for the summer ♦️♠️♥️♣️ — ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) June 24, 2026 Full Main Event & Final Table broadcast schedules are now available, with 100+ hours of comprehensive, network coverage Details: https://t.co/OUk4ZQYCvZ pic.twitter.com/hFlNNzsv3h