WSOP Player of the Year 2026: Live Leaderboard & Race

The WSOP Player of the Year race just changed for good. For 2026, the title is no longer decided by a single summer in Las Vegas. It now spans three festivals, a full calendar year, and a $1,000,000 prize pool.

This is the live WSOP Player of the Year leaderboard, with the current standings, the points formula, the prizes, and – crucially – everything still left to play for.

And make no mistake: it is early. As of now, only the opening stretch of the Las Vegas series is complete. The Main Event, the Poker Players Championship, and a stack of high rollers are all still to come, with WSOP Paradise closing the season in December. The names at the top today are not the names that will be there in July.

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WSOP Player of the Year 2026 – Current Leaderboard

Here is where the race stands right now. William Foxen has blown the race open, taking a 600-plus-point lead at the top with 2,720 points. Behind him, a tight pack is forming – Nicholas Schulman, Shaun Deeb, and former leader Naoya Kihara are separated by less than 90 points, with 2021 champion Joshua Arieh right there too. These standings combine results from WSOP Europe and the summer series in Las Vegas.

Standings reflect the official WSOP leaderboard at the time of writing. Points shift as new bracelet events finish – bookmark this page and check back through the series for the latest race.

Why It Is Still Wide Open – What Is Left to Play For

Do not read too much into the current top 10. The single most important rule of this format is that only a player’s top 15 scores count. Most leaders have posted just a handful of results so far. There are still a mountain of points on the table.

More importantly, the biggest point-bearing events have not happened yet. Winner points scale with field size and buy-in, so the marquee tournaments below can rewrite the leaderboard overnight.

The Events That Will Decide the Race

The Main Event alone can vault a player from outside the top 50 into contention. A deep run in a 10,000-strong field is worth more than almost anything else on the calendar.

Until that plays out in July – and until Paradise wraps in December – this race is anyone’s. You can see every event on our WSOP 2026 Las Vegas schedule .

How the New 2026 WSOP Player of the Year Race Works

This is the biggest shake-up to the POY format in years. For the first time, the race spans all three live WSOP festivals in a single calendar year. Online bracelet events no longer count. Here is what changed and why it matters.

Three Festivals, One Title

Points now count across three stops, not one:

• WSOP Europe – Prague, March 31 to April 12 (complete)
• WSOP Las Vegas – the 57th annual series, May 26 to July 15 (underway)
• WSOP Paradise – the Bahamas, December 1 to December 18 (still to come)

That makes the 2026 title a true global marathon. A player can build a lead in Prague, defend it through the Vegas grind, and have it challenged again in the Bahamas in December. The race does not end until Paradise does. For the full series picture, see our World Series of Poker hub .

Only Your Top 15 Scores Count

You do not get rewarded for sheer volume. Only a player’s best 15 results across the three festivals count toward the leaderboard.

Fire into 40 events, and the weakest finishes are dropped. This rewards deep runs over wide entry, and it is exactly why the current standings can shift so much – most leaders are nowhere near 15 counting scores yet.

What Does Not Count

Several event types are excluded from POY scoring:

• All online bracelet events
• Non-open events – Seniors, Super Seniors, Ladies, Tag Team, Industry Employees

The list is not exhaustive, and the WSOP can exclude additional events. The core principle is simple: open live bracelet events only.

The Points Formula

Points scale with the size of the field, the buy-in, and how deep you finish. The core multiplier rewards finishing position:

The buy-in and your rank ratio (final rank divided by total entries) contribute to the final total. In plain terms: win a big-field, high buy-in event and you bank a huge score. Naseem Salem’s 1,102 points from a single GGMillion$ High Roller win shows how one deep run can vault you into the top 10 – and why the high rollers still to come matter so much.

The $1 Million Prize Pool – What the Leaders Are Playing For

The 2026 POY race added real money for the first time. The top 100 players split a $1,000,000 prize pool in WSOP packages and tickets. Here is how it breaks down.

There are random-draw upgrades too: one player in the 16th to 50th band gets a $30K bump, and six players in the 51st to 100th band move up to a $5K package. On top of the package, the champion also gets a Main Event seat for the following year, a trophy, and a personalized banner hung in the Las Vegas halls all season.

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The Contenders – Who Can Win 2026 Player of the Year

Rather than a frozen ranking, here is how the field shapes up by tier. Expect this to move as the big events play out.

The Frontrunners

Alex Foxen (listed as William Foxen on the official board) has turned the race into a runaway. The high-roller specialist won two bracelets at the 2026 series, including the $10,000 Super Turbo Bounty for $594,246 – his fourth career bracelet – and has built a lead of more than 600 points over the field. He is playing the best poker of anyone in Las Vegas right now, and unless someone goes on a major heater, the title is his to lose.

There is a great subplot here too: this is a family affair. Alex’s wife, five-time bracelet winner Kristen Foxen , also won at the 2026 series and sits inside the top 30 herself. The most accomplished couple in poker history are both chasing POY points at the same time.

Nicholas Schulman is the closest pursuer in second. The 2025 Poker Hall of Fame inductee justified that honor by winning his eighth career bracelet this series, and he has the mixed-game range to stack points fast. Shaun Deeb sits third, still very much in it – the reigning back-to-back champion is an eight-time bracelet winner openly chasing Phil Hellmuth’s all-time record, and he is age-eligible for the Poker Hall of Fame for the first time this year. Former leader Naoya Kihara (two championship wins in three days) and 2021 champion Joshua Arieh complete a dangerous chasing pack, all within about 100 points of each other.

The One-Hit Climbers

Some players rocketed up the board on a single big score, then slid as the field caught up. Marius Kudzmanas is the clearest case – he banked 1,392 points from winning the €5,300 WSOP Europe Main Event for €2,000,000 and led the race for weeks, but with almost his entire total from one tournament, he has drifted to eighth without playing a bad hand. Philip Chun hit the top five off the $550 Mini Mystery Millions, and Naseem Salem cracked the top 10 on the GGMillion$ High Roller alone. All have been overtaken by players posting multiple counting scores. It is the clearest proof of how this format works: one win gets you on the board, but it does not keep you there.

The Breakouts

Stephen Hubbard won his first WSOP bracelet in the $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Draw and backed it with a fifth-place finish in the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha. Two deep runs, 1,134 points, and a real platform to build on. The PLO specialist called it his redemption.

The Dark Horses

Watch the mixed-game grinders and the high roller regulars. Yuri Dzivielevski showed how fast they can strike, winning the $100,000 High Roller for $2.8 million to rocket into the top 10 – a six-time bracelet winner who can final-table almost any format. Keep an eye on bracelet winners like Calvin Anderson and Stephen Hubbard too, both already inside the top 10. With the $250K Super High Roller, another $100K event, and the Poker Players Championship still to come, any of these specialists can surge in a single week. The leaderboard you see today is a starting grid, not a finish line.

The Bracelet Chase Inside the POY Race

The Player of the Year race overlaps with another storyline: the hunt for career bracelets.

Shaun Deeb sits on eight, tied for seventh on the all-time list, and has openly said he wants Phil Hellmuth ‘s record of 17. A monster 2026 across three festivals would not just win him a third POY title – it would push him up the all-time bracelet table, closer to Hellmuth.

For the full picture of who leads poker’s most prestigious count, see our guide to the players with the most WSOP bracelets.

Previous WSOP Player of the Year Winners

The POY title has crowned some of the most consistent grinders in the game. Here is the recent roll of honor.

The pattern is clear: you rarely need a pile of bracelets to win POY.

Consistency – final tables and cashes stacked across a series – usually beats a single hot streak. Notice how every recent winner posted high cash and final-table counts, not just one big score. That is the warning sign for today’s one-hit leaders, and the reason a grinder like Deeb is so dangerous over a full season.

How to Qualify for the WSOP Online

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Somuchpoker covers the WSOP independently. We may earn a commission from partner links, but this never influences our coverage or the standings reported here. 18+ only. Play responsibly.