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. Alex Foxen is running away with it, leading on 3,004 points as the Las Vegas series reaches its final days. Naoya Kihara and Shaun Deeb are locked in a tight fight for second, and poker’s biggest name, Daniel Negreanu, has muscled into the top 10 after a huge high-roller win. The Main Event is the last major swing before the race pauses until WSOP Paradise in December.

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.

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.

What Is Left to Decide the 2026 Player of the Year Race

The Las Vegas series is into its final days, and nearly every big point-bearing event has now been played. The high rollers delivered the swings you would expect, reshuffling the top 10 more than once. Here is what already landed – and the two things still left to settle it.

The Big Events That Just Landed

What Is Still Left

Foxen has built a real cushion, but the Main Event is the great equalizer. A 10,000-strong field means a single deep run is worth more than almost anything else on the calendar – and then Paradise reopens the race entirely in December. You can follow every result on our WSOP 2026 Las Vegas schedule and results page.

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, and backed them with a string of deep high-roller runs – a 7th in the $25K PLO, a 6th in the $100K, a 4th in the $25K Heads-Up. That is the definition of what this format rewards, and it has opened him a clear lead at the top. He is playing the best poker of anyone in Las Vegas right now, and only a big Main Event run from a rival looks likely to catch him.

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.

Naoya Kihara and Shaun Deeb  are locked together in the fight for second, just points apart. Kihara set the pace early with two $10,000 championship wins in three days and has kept scoring since. Deeb answered by winning his ninth career bracelet in the $1,500 8-Game Mixed – the reigning back-to-back champion is now one of the closest active players to Phil Hellmuth’s all-time record, and he is age-eligible for the Poker Hall of Fame for the first time this year. Joshua Arieh, the 2021 champion, sits right behind them after a brutal run of near-misses, including a runner-up in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship. Nicholas Schulman , an eighth-time bracelet winner and Hall of Famer, completes a dangerous group of chasers. Any of them can close the gap with one Main Event run.

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 Big Names Making a Move

Two poker legends have surged into the top 10 in the last stretch. Daniel Negreanu , a two-time Player of the Year himself, won the $100,000 Pot-Limit Omaha High Roller for $2,257,718 to rocket to eighth – proof that the game’s most famous face is still a threat in the biggest events. And breakout Eelis Pärssinen has been the high-roller story of the series, winning both the $25,000 PLO ($2.16M) and the $25,000 PLO/NLH Mixed ($1.17M) to storm into the top 10. When a specialist runs hot in the big buy-ins, the leaderboard moves fast.

The Dark Horses

Beyond the top names, watch the mixed-game grinders who can bank a big score in a single event. Benny Glaser is the perfect example – the nine-time bracelet winner took down the $50,000 Poker Players Championship for $1.34 million to jump into the top six. Martin Zamani and Joshua Reichard have both climbed on the back of deep runs, too. With the Main Event still to play and an entire WSOP Paradise festival in December, any of these players can surge again. The leaderboard you see today is not the 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 won his ninth bracelet this series in the $1,500 8-Game Mixed, moving up 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.

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