WSOP Main Event Day 5: Mizrachi Fights to Defend His Title as Field Narrows to 533

Last Updated on July 11, 2026 by Bala Kumar

Every WSOP Main Event has a moment where the tournament stops feeling like a massive open field and starts feeling like an actual race. This year, that moment arrived on Day 4, when the money bubble burst early and the herd thinned from 1,389 players down to just 533 by the end of the night. From here on out, every hand matters, every elimination reshapes the leaderboard, and one storyline is towering over everything else: can Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi become the first player since Johnny Chan in 1987 and 1988 to win back-to-back WSOP Main Events?

How We Got Here

The 2026 Main Event opened on July 2 with four separate starting flights, a structure the WSOP has used for years now to accommodate the sheer size of modern fields. When registration finally closed, the tournament had drawn 9,208 entries, the fourth-largest field in Main Event history, just behind the 9,735 entries from 2025 and well short of the record 10,112 set in 2024. That turnout built an $85.6 million prize pool, with $10,000,000 waiting for whoever’s left standing at the end.

Day 3 saw the separate flights fully merge for the first time, and it was Sasha Liu who set the pace, bagging a commanding 2,364,000 in chips to top the leaderboard. Martin Zamani wasn’t far behind with just under 2 million, and the field had been trimmed to 1,389 players — a mere seven eliminations away from the money bubble.

That bubble didn’t last long into Day 4. In a moment that’s almost become a Main Event tradition at this point, 2003 champion Chris Moneymaker,  the man whose $86 satellite win kicked off the entire poker boom two decades ago,  busted right on the bubble itself, one of three players eliminated within the tournament’s opening hands. Moneymaker, Stoyan Madanzhiev, and Zhaken Seitbekov ended up splitting the payouts for 1,382nd and 1,383rd place, each guaranteed at least $10,000 for their trouble. It’s a rough way to go out, but also proof of just how brutal these bubble stretches can be, even for players with nothing left to prove.

By the close of Day 4, the field had been cut nearly in half again, down to 533 players from the 1,389 who started the day. That’s the number heading into today’s Day 5 action.

The Chip Counts Right Now

Leaderboards in a tournament this size shift constantly, so treat any specific figure as a snapshot rather than gospel,  but as Day 5 gets underway, a handful of names stand out. Sam Sweilem has emerged as one of the leaders with a stack pushing close to 200 big blinds, giving him serious room to maneuver in the coming levels. Artur Martirosyan, fresh off a strong summer that’s already included multiple deep runs in high roller events, sits near the top of the counts as well. Sasha Liu, last seen leading after Day 3, has held onto a healthy stack north of 150 big blinds.

Other notable stacks heading into Day 5 include Brock Wilson, Daniel Iachan, and Daniel Hachem, all sitting on more than 2 million in chips after a strong Day 4,  Hachem’s run, in particular, has become one of the more compelling storylines of the tournament given his father Joe Hachem’s Main Event title back in 2005. Alex Foxen made headlines with a royal flush on his way to building a solid stack, while Caitlin Comeskey, Shaun Deeb, and WPT broadcaster Tony Dunst are all still alive and in reasonable shape heading into the day.

The Mizrachi Storyline

No name in the field carries more weight right now than Michael Mizrachi’s. “The Grinder” won the 2025 WSOP Main Event for a staggering $10 million, capturing his eighth career WSOP bracelet in the process. He didn’t stop there,  earlier this summer, he added a ninth bracelet by winning the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship, cementing an already legendary tournament résumé.

Now he’s trying to do something that hasn’t happened at the Main Event in nearly four decades. The last player to win back-to-back Main Events was Johnny Chan, who did it in 1987 and 1988 — long before modern fields swelled into the thousands. Doubling up as champion in a field of a few hundred players, like Chan faced, is a completely different challenge than doing it against more than 9,000 entrants competing for a $10 million prize.

It hasn’t been a smooth ride for Mizrachi so far. He entered Day 5 with a shorter stack relative to the average, sitting around 30 big blinds after finishing Day 4 in must-play mode rather than cruising with a commanding lead. For a player of his experience, that’s a workable position rather than a crisis — but it does mean today’s levels matter enormously for his title defense.

Mizrachi isn’t the only past champion still alive, either. Hossein Ensan, who won the Main Event in 2019, carried one of the bigger stacks into Day 5. Greg “Fossilman” Raymer, champion back in 2004, and Ryan Riess, the 2013 winner, are also both still in contention, giving this year’s field a rare cluster of former world champions all chasing the same title at the same time.

What’s Actually at Stake

The payout structure at the top of this year’s Main Event is worth appreciating on its own. First place takes home $10,000,000. Second place still walks away with $6,000,000, and the payouts step down from there: $3,750,000 for third, $2,750,000 for fourth, and so on, with seven-figure paydays guaranteed all the way down to ninth place at $1,000,000. Even outside the very top spots, this remains one of the most lucrative tournaments in the world,  a stark contrast to the players who busted right on the money bubble for a comparatively modest $10,000.

The tournament is scheduled to play down to its unofficial final table by July 13, at which point the remaining players will take a break before returning for the official ESPN-televised final table, set for August 3-5. That gap gives the eventual final nine weeks to prepare, and gives the poker world weeks to build anticipation around whichever storylines survive the coming days — whether that’s Mizrachi’s bid for history, a deep run from one of the other past champions, or a completely new face breaking through for a first title.

Why This Stretch of the Tournament Is So Different

There’s a specific kind of pressure that sets in once a Main Event clears the money bubble. Every player left is already guaranteed a profit, which shifts the psychology of the table in a way that’s noticeably different from the desperate, tight play that often defines the bubble itself. Once the guaranteed money is locked in, players tend to loosen up and start taking calculated risks aimed at climbing the payout ladder rather than simply surviving, which is part of why chip leads can change so dramatically hand to hand during this stretch.

For anyone following along, this is also the point in the tournament where individual hands start making headlines on their own, separate from the broader leaderboard story. Big coolers, unexpected bustouts, and hero calls tend to define the daily narrative just as much as who’s sitting atop the counts.

Following the Rest of the Run

With the tournament playing down toward its final table over the coming days, expect the picture to change substantially with each passing level. Whether Mizrachi manages to defend his title against a field of this size, or one of the game’s other stars, past champion or first-timer,  ends up walking away with the bracelet and the $10 million prize, this stretch of the 2026 WSOP Main Event is shaping up to be one of the more memorable in recent tournament history.

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Bala Kumar

Founder of PokerClubGames.com and a Poker Researcher with 10+ years of experience in SEO, WordPress development, and gaming content strategy. Specializes in researching online poker sites, poker apps, tournaments, bonuses, and poker strategies. Experienced in poker platform reviews, affiliate marketing, and creating SEO-focused poker content for global audiences.

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