Joe McKeehen Wins PGT Sprint Event #7 for $174,900 as the 2026 Series Closes in Las Vegas

Not many WSOP Main Event champions keep winning at the top level ten years later. Joe McKeehen, the 2015 world champion, is one of the few. On November 4, he won the seventh and final event of the 2026 PGT Sprint at PokerGO Studio inside ARIA in Las Vegas. He beat Daniyal Gheba heads-up and took home $174,900 plus a PokerGO Tour trophy.

It was a fitting finish for a fast series. Seven one-day tournaments produced seven different winners, and McKeehen was the last of them.

Quick Facts: PGT Sprint Event #7

• Event: 10,500No-LimitHold’em(10,000 + $500)
• Venue: PokerGO Studio at ARIA, Las Vegas
• Entries: 53 (36 unique players + 17 re-entries)
• Prize pool: $530,000
• Places paid: 9 (after a double elimination on the money bubble)
• Winner: Joe McKeehen (United States), $174,900
• Runner-up: Daniyal Gheba (United States), $111,300

How the Final Event Played Out

Thirty-six players registered for the last tournament of the series. They fired 17 re-entries between them, bringing the field to 53 entries and creating a $530,000 prize pool. That’s a typical high-roller turnout: small, but nearly everyone in the room is a regular on the PokerGO Tour circuit.

The original structure paid eight places. Then the bubble produced a rare result. During hand-for-hand play, two players busted on the same hand at different tables:

• Patrick Leonard got his chips in with J♣4♦ against Darren Elias’s J♠5♦. The kicker held up for Elias, and Leonard was out.
• At the same time, Martin Zamani put his stack in with A♣K♥ against McKeehen’s 4♠4♣. It was a classic coinflip, and McKeehen’s pair held.

Since both players went out on the same hand, they split the 8th-place prize of $21,200. Each took $10,600, and the payout list grew to nine names.

For newer players, this is worth understanding. In hand-for-hand play, every table plays one hand at a time, so it’s clear who busted first. When two players bust on the same hand, most tournaments split the prize money for those places between them. Short stacks often fold almost everything at that stage. The players who gained here were the ones with chips to put pressure on everyone else, and McKeehen was one of them.

The Final Table

From there, McKeehen worked steadily toward heads-up, while Gheba made the biggest run of the late stages. Gheba’s K-J did a lot of the damage. It beat Darren Elias’s ace-five when two kings came on the flop, and later beat Nicholas Schulte’s A-J when a king arrived on the river.

That set up McKeehen against Gheba for the title. Reports suggest McKeehen started heads-up with fewer chips but closed the gap quickly. On the final hand, Gheba four-bet all-in with A♥8♥, and McKeehen called right away with K♥K♣. The board ran out 9♣5♥2♣9♥3♣. Gheba never improved, and the kings held.

The final hand shows how heads-up poker works. With two players left, A-8 suited is a strong hand and a reasonable four-bet shove most of the time. McKeehen just happened to have one of the few hands that was well ahead of it.

PGT Sprint Event #7 Final Table Results

Place	Player	Country	Prize
1st	Joe McKeehen	United States	$174,900
2nd	Daniyal Gheba	United States	$111,300
3rd	Darren Elias	United States	$74,200
4th	Nicholas Schulte	United States	$53,000
5th	Jamie Dwan	United Kingdom	$42,400
6th	Neil Warren	United States	$31,800
7th	Brandon Wilson	United States	$21,200
8th	Martin Zamani	United States	$10,600
9th	Patrick Leonard	United Kingdom	$10,600

The winner took about 33% of the prize pool. That’s standard for small high-roller fields, where payouts are steep at the top.

McKeehen’s Strong 2026 Season

This wasn’t a one-off result. McKeehen has been one of the most consistent live tournament winners of 2026:

• SHRPO Championship (August): He won the $5,300 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship against 673 entries for $462,600, the biggest score of his year.
• Wynn Millions: He won a $2,200 NLH 6-Max event for $126,957.
• WSOP Circuit Atlantic City: He won a $1,100 NLH event for $37,439.
• PokerGO Cup: He finished 4th in the $15,000 Event #10 for $78,000.

He now has three WSOP bracelets and more than $21 million in career live earnings, according to Hendon Mob data. People often call him one of the most underrated former champions. McKeehen has never relied on TV appearances or sponsorship deals. He keeps entering tournaments of every size, from $1,100 Circuit events to $10,000 high rollers, and he keeps winning them.

2026 PGT Sprint: All Seven Winners

The Sprint ran from October 27 to November 4. It had seven single-day events with buy-ins of $5,300 and $10,500, which earn more PGT points than most series of the same size.

Event	Winner	Buy-in	Entries	Top Prize
#1	Chino Rheem	$5,300	92	$119,600
#2	Brock Wilson	$5,300	79	$110,600
#3	Jesse Lonis	$5,300	78	$101,000
#4	Sergei Kislinskii	$5,300	57	$91,200
#5	Sam Soverel	$10,500	61	$195,200
#6	Andrew Lichtenberger	$10,500	60	$192,000
#7	Joe McKeehen	$10,500	53	$174,900

The other headline results:

• Sam Soverel won Event #5. It was his record-extending 18th PGT title and his fifth of 2026.
• Andrew Lichtenberger won Event #6 after coming back from nearly 10-to-1 down against Alex Foxen in heads-up play. It was his 10th career PGT title.

Field sizes dropped across the series, from 92 entries in the opener to 53 in the finale. Late-season fatigue is part of the reason. The other part is that the $10,500 events are a different level of tournament, played mainly by regulars chasing points for the PGT Championship.

PGT Leaderboard: Who’s Chasing the Championship?

The Sprint was the second-to-last stop of the PokerGO Tour season. Only PGT Last Chance remains before the season-ending PGT Championship, which runs January 11–12, 2027 and includes a $500,000 freeroll. The top 40 on the leaderboard qualify.

Position	Player	Wins	PGT Points
1	Sean Winter	2	2,223
2	Brock Wilson	5	1,942
3	Alex Foxen	2	1,897
4	Jeremy Ausmus	2	1,836
5	Eelis Parssinen	2	1,783
6	Adrian Mateos	4	1,700
7	Brandon Wilson	1	1,616
8	Yuri Dzivielevski	3	1,602
9	Sam Soverel	5	1,590
10	Lucas Jumalon	1	1,550

Sean Winter leads Brock Wilson by 281 points, which is a solid lead. A single deep run at Last Chance could still change the order, though. Further down the list, McKeehen’s 174 points help his chances of reaching the top 40 for a seat in the Championship.

Why This Win Matters

Every few years, critics say the poker world has passed the old champions by. McKeehen’s 2026 results show they’re wrong. He won a 673-entry Florida championship in August and a 53-entry Las Vegas high roller in November, so his game clearly works against both big mixed fields and small elite ones.

For anyone learning tournament poker, his approach is a useful lesson. He puts pressure on players near the bubble, makes clean decisions when stacks are short, and doesn’t over-complicate heads-up play. When he picked up kings and his opponent shoved, he simply called.

FAQs