Last Updated on September 22, 2026 by Bala Kumar
There’s a certain kind of poker story that resonates beyond the felt — the one where an athlete trades one arena for another and somehow finds the same competitive fire. Greg Mueller’s journey is exactly that kind of story, and this summer, it reached its biggest chapter yet.
A Hockey Player Who Found Poker on the Road
Long before he was a three-time WSOP bracelet winner, Mueller began his professional career in ice hockey back in 1992, discovering poker during long road trips with his team. He spent years grinding it out on the ice, eventually playing professionally in Germany before hanging up his skates.
Once he retired from hockey in 2000, Mueller turned his full attention to poker, taking tournaments more seriously. It didn’t take long for the sport to reward him — he landed his first significant six-figure score in March 2006, finishing fourth in the $5,000 WPT World Poker Challenge in Reno for $142,285.
Building a Poker Résumé Worth Bragging About
From there, Mueller’s tournament résumé only grew. He picked up a runner-up finish in the $5,000 mixed hold’em event at the 2007 WSOP for $328,554, followed by another second-place finish in a $5,000 shootout event the next year for $298,638.
The breakthroughs kept coming. Mueller won his first WSOP bracelet in 2009 in the $10,000 limit hold’em championship, and remarkably, captured a second bracelet just 11 days later in a $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout event, worth $194,909. A decade later, he added a third bracelet at the 2019 WSOP, winning the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. championship.
From Doubt to a Deep Main Event Run
Despite the hardware, Mueller’s path wasn’t without its rough patches. Around 2019, by his own admission, he wondered whether the game had passed him by — only to answer those doubts with another bracelet that same year.
That resilience showed up again in a big way this summer. Heading into the 2026 WSOP Main Event, the 55-year-old Canadian arrived at the final table with three WSOP bracelets already to his name, making him the most experienced player left in the field, according to PokerNews. He’d nearly skipped the whole thing — it reportedly took some encouragement from a friend to convince him to commit to the grind of the Main Event at all.
Once he got going, though, Mueller caught fire. He entered Day 1d with 60,000 starting chips and bagged 100,000. Day 2d was more of a grind, adding roughly 75,000 more chips. Then came the surge: Day 3 saw him jump from 175,000 chips to over 1.1 million, and his penultimate day was even more explosive, ballooning a 13.2 million stack into 48.5 million. One of the key hands along the way saw Mueller flop the nuts with queen-jack and get paid off handsomely by an opponent holding a pair of fives.
A Third-Place Finish for the Ages
Mueller’s deep run ultimately ended at the final table, bowing out after making what he called a hero call against Finland’s Lauri Saaskilahti. Mueller’s third-place run made him the highest-finishing Canadian in the 2026 Main Event, outlasting a field of 9,208 entrants in what was the fourth-largest Main Event in the tournament’s history. He came within two spots of becoming Canada’s first WSOP Main Event champion since Jonathan Duhamel won the title in 2010.
The payday was massive: Mueller banked $3.75 million for his third-place finish, pushing his career live tournament earnings beyond $7.2 million.
More Than the Money
What stood out most, by Mueller’s own account, wasn’t the prize money — it was the support. He described his rail as possibly the biggest and loudest in WSOP history, made up of family, hockey buddies, fellow poker players, and friends who flew in on short notice, many wearing matching hats and shirts printed with his photo. He even arranged a block of hotel rooms through his poker host so his crew of over 100 supporters had somewhere to stay.
For a guy who once wondered if his best poker days were behind him, reaching center stage on national television was, in his own words, still hard to fully process.
Why This Story Matters
His 2026 Main Event run added another major chapter to a career that already included three WSOP bracelets, multiple deep tournament finishes, and a remarkable transition from professional hockey to elite poker.
FAQs
1. Who is Greg Mueller?
Greg Mueller is a Canadian professional poker player and former professional hockey player who has won three WSOP bracelets and built a career spanning more than two decades.
2. Did Greg Mueller play professional hockey before poker?
Yes. Mueller began his professional hockey career in 1992 and played professionally in Germany before retiring from hockey in 2000 and focusing on poker.
3. How did Greg Mueller perform in the 2026 WSOP Main Event?
Greg Mueller finished third in the 2026 WSOP Main Event, earning $3.75 million after navigating a field of 9,208 entries.
4. How many WSOP bracelets has Greg Mueller won?
Greg Mueller has won three WSOP bracelets. His victories came in 2009, 2009 and 2019, including the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship in 2019.
5. How much has Greg Mueller earned in live poker tournaments?
Following his $3.75 million third-place finish in the 2026 WSOP Main Event, Mueller’s career live tournament earnings surpassed $7.2 million.
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