Poker Super Championship

Last Updated on July 14, 2026 by Bala Kumar

A quick note before we dive in: “Poker Super Championship 2026” isn’t an official tournament brand, no live series currently runs under that exact name. It’s the title we use here at pokerclubgames.com for our in-depth coverage of whichever summer festival delivers the biggest single-event guarantee outside the WSOP itself. For 2026, that tournament is the Wynn Summer Classic, headlined by a $10 million-guaranteed Championship that now rivals mid-size WSOP bracelet events in both field size and payout.

The Wynn Summer Classic is Wynn Las Vegas’ answer to the WSOP crowds down the street,  a nearly two-month poker festival that runs on the Strip’s north end every summer. It runs concurrently with the World Series of Poker at Horseshoe and Paris, giving traveling players a second major series to work into the same trip without ever leaving Las Vegas Boulevard.

This guide covers the full 2026 series,  the completed schedule, the Championship result, what the numbers looked like across the summer, and how the Wynn’s format compares to the bigger, rowdier WSOP scene a few blocks away.

By the Numbers: 2026 Wynn Summer Classic

Stat	2026 Figure
Championship field size	1,170 entries
Championship prize pool	$11,466,000 (14.7% over the $10M guarantee)
Championship first prize	$1,824,370 (Johannes Straver)
Biggest overlay of the series	$2,200 NLH — field built $3,467,795 vs. $2,000,000 GTD (+73%)
Total series guarantees	$40M+ across 55 days
2025 series total payout (for comparison)	$77,000,000+

Numbers like that 73% overlay on the closing $2,200 event are exactly why sharp players circle Wynn dates on the calendar,  a guarantee that gets smashed that badly means the buy-in-to-payout math was tilted hard in the field’s favor before a single card was dealt.

Quick Facts

Detail	Information
Official Tournament Name	Wynn Summer Classic (covered here as pokerclubgames.com’s “Poker Super Championship” of the summer)
Venue	Wynn Las Vegas, 3131 Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89109
2026 Series Dates	May 20 – July 13, 2026
Total Guarantees	More than $40 million
Buy-In Range	$600 – $25,800
Headline Event	$10,400 NLH Wynn Summer Championship, $10,000,000 GTD
2026 Championship Result	Johannes Straver (Netherlands) won for $1,824,370 from a 1,170-entry field
Format	Deep starting stacks, 20–40 minute levels, four-flight Day 1 structure on marquee events
Poker Room Hours	Daily, tournament hours vary by event
Minimum Age	21 years, valid government-issued photo ID required

How the 2026 Series Wrapped Up

The Wynn opened its summer with a nod to poker royalty: Kathy Liebert, one of the most recognizable names in women’s poker, won the $600 Seniors event on day one, beating out a 179-entry field for $22,564. It set the tone for a series that mixed recreational-friendly buy-ins with genuinely enormous guarantees for a room this size.

The Championship itself, the $10,400 buy-in centerpiece that ran four Day 1 flights from June 21–24 before playing down to a winner on June 27,  pulled in 1,170 entries, building a prize pool of $11,466,000 against its $10 million guarantee. Johannes Straver, a Dutch pro with a career total now over $8 million, took it down for $1,824,370, the biggest score of his career and his second final table of the year after a deep run at Triton Jeju.

That wasn’t the only guarantee the series blew past. The $3,500 NHL Championship in June (Week 4 of the series) drew a stacked field and was won by Sebastian Toro Henao for $908,139. The $1,600 NLH Mystery Bounty smashed its $2 million guarantee, building a $2,988,480 prize pool that paid Ayman Qutami $331,622 for the win. And the closing $2,200 NLH event, one of the last big multi-day tournaments on the calendar, drew 1,747 entries and built a prize pool of $3,467,795 against its $2 million guarantee, nearly 75% overlay in the field’s favor.

For context, the Wynn’s tournament director Ray Pulford said the 2025 edition of this series paid out more than $77 million in total prizes, with over $15 million of that coming from the Championship alone. With the 2026 Championship’s prize pool landing at $11.4 million and guarantees running just as heavy across the rest of the schedule, this year’s series tracked toward similarly massive numbers by the July 13 close.

2026 Series Schedule: The Marquee Events

Below are the multi-day tournaments that anchored the 2026 calendar and carried the series’ largest guarantees:

Dates	Tournament	Buy-In	Guarantee
May 21–24	$600 NLH	$600	$500,000
May 24 – Jun 2	$1,100 NLH	$1,100	$1,000,000
May 29 – Jun 2	$1,100 NLH	$1,100	$1,000,000
Jun 1–5	$1,100 NLH	$1,100	$1,500,000
Jun 8–12	$1,600 NLH	$1,600	$2,000,000
Jun 8–11	$5,000 Seniors NLH High Roller (50+)	$5,000	$300,000
Jun 11–16	$3,500 NLH	$3,500	$5,000,000
Jun 15–18	$2,200 NLH Mystery Bounty	$2,200	$3,000,000
Jun 21–27	$10,400 NLH Wynn Summer Championship	$10,400	$10,000,000
Jun 27–30	$1,600 Pot-Limit Omaha	$1,600	$1,000,000
Jul 1–4	$3,000 PLO Mystery Bounty	$3,000	$2,000,000
Jul 4–7	$1,600 NLH Mystery Bounty	$1,600	$2,000,000
Jul 7–9	$2,200 NLH	$2,200	$2,000,000

Note: this table reflects the confirmed marquee events from Wynn’s official 2026 schedule. Around these anchor tournaments, the room ran a daily rhythm of $1,100 NLH events and NLH Turbos, plus mixed-game staples like H.O.R.S.E., T.O.R.S.E., T.O.E., Big O, 5-Card and 6-Card PLO, and Mixed Triple Draw Lowball,  a noticeably deeper mixed-game slate than most Strip summer series bother running.

Structure Notes

The Wynn’s structures lean toward deep, thoughtful poker rather than the turbo grind you’ll find in some of the smaller side events elsewhere on the Strip. Marquee multi-flight events use 20-to-30-minute levels on the earlier starting flights (odd-numbered flights typically run 30-minute levels, even-numbered ones run 20), then slow to 40-minute levels once the field consolidates into Day 2, and 30-minute levels for heads-up play. Starting stacks on the bigger buy-ins run around 40,000 chips, which is generous relative to the blinds and gives players real room to play post-flop poker instead of forcing early all-in decisions.

Unlimited re-entry is standard on starting flights up through around level 9 or 10, after which the field locks in for Day 2. Once a player bags a stack and advances, they’re locked out of entering a later flight,  a rule worth knowing if you’re planning to fire multiple bullets into Day 1.

Tournament Formats

Alongside the daily NLH grind, the 2026 schedule built in real format variety: Pot-Limit Omaha (including 5-Card and 6-Card variants), PLO Mystery Bounty, Limit Omaha 8-or-Better, Big O, and a full mixed-game slate,  H.O.R.S.E., T.O.R.S.E., T.O.E., and Mixed Triple Draw Lowball among them. Seniors (50+) events ran throughout the summer, including a $5,000 Seniors High Roller that drew enough action to chop for $167,209 apiece between Kenneth Fishman and Michel Abecassis. A dedicated Ladies event and a $2,500 Ladies High Roller rounded out the series’ recreational-friendly side.

Strategy: How to Actually Play These Events

Deep-stack, multi-flight festivals like this one reward a different game plan than a fast local $100 turbo, and a lot of players lose value simply by playing their normal game without adjusting. A few things worth knowing before you sit down.

Day 1 is not the time to gamble. With 40,000 starting stacks and 20-to-30-minute levels, you’re beginning with somewhere around 100-plus big blinds. That’s enough room to fold marginal spots, avoid coin-flips you don’t need, and let the field thin itself out. The players who bust early in these fields are almost always the ones treating a deep structure like a shove-fest. Play tight-aggressive through the first few levels, pick your spots with position and initiative, and let your stack breathe.

Multi-flight math changes your survival strategy. When an event runs four Day 1 flights (like the Championship’s 1A–1D structure), only your chip count relative to the combined Day 2 field matters, not how you stack up within your own flight. That means a min-cash chip stack from a weak flight can be worth more than a big stack from a flight that ran deep and bloated. Don’t panic if your table looks tough; focus on getting through with a stack that’s above the field average when the flights merge, not on winning your table outright.

Bounty structures reward different aggression. In events like the $1,600 NLH Mystery Bounty or the $2,200 6-Card PLO Bounty, part of your equity is locked into knocking players out, not just building chips. That justifies looser calls and shoves against short stacks late in a level, especially once the bounty pool has grown — but be careful not to let bounty-chasing bleed into standard chip-EV decisions earlier in the tournament, where a straightforward fold is still correct.

Milestone Satellites are underrated. A $1,100 satellite that awards multiple direct seats into a $10,400 event is one of the highest-leverage plays available to a mid-stakes grinder. You’re effectively buying a lottery ticket with real +EV attached, since satellite fields are usually softer than the big event itself and the payout structure (multiple identical seats rather than a top-heavy payout) rewards simply surviving rather than winning outright.

PLO and mixed-game fields are softer than they look. Buy-ins on PLO and mixed events (5-Card PLO, Big O, T.O.R.S.E.) often sit at similar levels to the NLH schedule, but the fields skew toward more experienced players who specifically seek these formats out — alongside plenty of NLH regulars dabbling outside their comfort zone. If you have real reps in PLO specifically, these are frequently better return-on-investment spots than the flagship NLH events, purely because the weak-side edges are bigger.

Don’t ignore late-stage ICM. Once you’re inside the money in one of these bigger multi-day events, pay real attention to pay jumps. A min-cash player shoving into your big stack isn’t bluffing as often as they would earlier,  but a mid-stack player squeezed between two bigger stacks is often folding more than the raw numbers suggest. Adjust your calling ranges down and your stealing ranges up whenever the money bubble or a big pay jump is close.

How to Qualify: Milestone Satellites

Rather than running satellites as a separate, easy-to-miss track, the Wynn builds them straight into the daily schedule. Milestone Satellites, typically priced around $1,100,  award multiple direct seats per flight into that stretch’s bigger buy-in event, most notably the Championship itself. It’s a standard piece of how modern summer series widen access: instead of needing $10,400 to sit down in the marquee event, a player can buy into a satellite for roughly a tenth of that and win their way in.

The Venue: Wynn Las Vegas

The Wynn’s poker room has built a reputation as one of the more polished tournament environments on the Strip, less chaotic than the WSOP’s Horseshoe/Paris complex a few blocks south, with a level of service and room comfort that draws players who want a quieter, more controlled grind. That reputation is part of why the series has grown the way it has: it doesn’t try to out-volume the WSOP, it competes on structure quality and atmosphere, then backs it up with guarantees that are genuinely enormous for a single-property series.

For players building a Vegas trip around the series, Wynn and Encore’s broader resort amenities, restaurants, the Wynn Golf Club, and the Strip’s north-end nightlife — sit steps from the poker room, making it easy to combine a tournament run with a full Vegas stay.

Entry Requirements

Players must be at least 21 years old and provide valid government-issued photo identification to register for any event. Registration and buy-ins are handled directly at the Wynn poker room; full structure sheets, terms, and registration windows are published on Wynn’s official poker tournament page ahead of each series.

What’s Happening in the Next 3 Months (July–October 2026)

The Wynn Summer Classic wrapped on July 13, but the Strip doesn’t slow down — here’s what’s next for players tracking the broader summer-into-fall circuit:

Tournament	Dates	Location
WSOP Circuit – Horseshoe Las Vegas	Jul 14–25, 2026	Las Vegas
Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open	Jul 28 – Aug 11, 2026	Hollywood, Florida
Wynn Signature Series (August)	Aug 17 – Sep 7, 2026	Wynn Las Vegas
European Poker Tour (EPT) stop	From Aug 16, 2026	Location varies
WSOP Super Circuit Montreal ($10M CAD GTD Main Event)	Aug 26 – Sep 12, 2026	Playground Poker Club, Montreal
Triton Poker Super High Roller Series	From Sep 4, 2026	Location varies
Wynn Fall Classic	September–October 2026 (exact dates TBA)	Wynn Las Vegas

Wynn traditionally runs three or four “Classic” series a year, Spring (March), Summer (May–July), and Fall (September–October), with a Winter Classic occasionally added in December. The Wynn Signature Series in August acts as a bridge between the Summer and Fall Classics, keeping the room’s tournament clock running almost year-round. For players who caught the tail end of the Summer Classic and want to stay in Vegas, that August series is the most immediate next stop; for those planning further out, the Fall Classic is worth watching for an official schedule announcement, which Wynn typically releases four to six weeks ahead of the start date.

Why Players Choose the Wynn Over (or Alongside) the WSOP

The appeal here is pretty specific: value and comfort at a scale most rooms outside the WSOP simply can’t match. A $10,400 buy-in that builds an $11.4 million prize pool, or a $2,200 event that nearly doubles its guarantee, tells you the room is drawing serious volume without needing WSOP-level marketing muscle. For players who find the Horseshoe/Paris crowds and lines exhausting, the Wynn offers essentially the same caliber of prize money in a noticeably calmer room, which is exactly why so many players now split their summer between the two.

A Brief History of the Series

The Wynn Summer Classic has grown from a modest supporting series into one of the true heavyweight festivals of the Las Vegas summer. The 2025 edition paid out more than $77 million in total prizes, with the Championship alone responsible for over $15 million of that figure. The 2026 edition kept the same basic shape, a $10,400 Championship with a $10 million guarantee as the centerpiece, while spreading more than $40 million in guarantees across the full 55-day calendar, running almost exactly in parallel with the WSOP’s own summer schedule.

Final Thoughts

The 2026 Wynn Summer Classic wrapped on July 13 having delivered exactly what it promised: a $10 million-guaranteed Championship that paid out over $11.4 million, a stacked slate of seven-figure guarantees in between, and a room that consistently drew fields large enough to blow past its own numbers. For players mapping out next summer’s Vegas trip, it’s a series worth building a stop around, whether that means firing the Championship itself, working a Milestone Satellite into it, or simply parking at one of the daily $1,100 NLH events for a lower-variance session away from the WSOP crowds.

For the most current schedule, structure sheets, and posted results, check Wynn’s official poker tournament page and PokerNews’ ongoing Wynn Summer Classic coverage.

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