Lucas Jumalon is Our 2026 WSOP Main Event Champion

Last year’s Main Event champion, Michael Mizrachi, got to pass the torch to Lucas Jumalon on August 5th. The 22-year-old from Spokane, Washington, led the final table from the first hand to the last on his way. For everyone watching, it almost felt like the win was locked in from the early moments.

The Grinder delivered a somewhat flustered "shuffle up and deal" to start the heads-up match between Jumalon and Lauri Saaskilahti.

These two players were the only ones left standing after the field of 9,208 was slowly whittled away. It all started over a month ago, on July 2nd.

Jumalon carried a massive chip lead into the final table on Monday (35.1% of the chips) and never surrendered it across three days of play. On the third day of the final table, he closed out the win for the $10,000,000 top prize and the WSOP’s most coveted bracelet.

"It's a pure feeling of euphoria," Jumalon told a reporter. "I love this game so much, and it's given me so much and given me so many great people. I just can't be more thankful."

2026 WSOP Main Event Final Table Results

Each of the final 9 players secured a million dollars from the moment they earned a seat.

Evagoras Evagorou and Mario Boos were eliminated on the first day of the final table.

On the second day of the final table, everyone remaining except Lauri and Lucas were eliminated.

Interestingly, Jumalon and Saaskilahti tangled a little back on Day 5, while hundreds were still in the field. They even joked about running it back heads-up for the title, and that joke came true.

"We had a super fierce battle ... and then we kind of made jokes that it would be cool if we were heads up," Saaskilahti recalled. "I'm very, very happy for him. I know how much this means for him."

Saaskilahti, a 40-year-old father with just $138,000 in prior live cashes, arrived at the finale as the third shortest stack, but held on and rose up the ranks until he was heads up with Lucas.

The First Few Hands

The third and last final table days of the 2026 Main Event got underway, with dealt to Saaskilahti and a less beautiful sent to Jumalon. A 3x raise from Finland’s hopeful champion, and the first hand was finished.

Hand #4 was the first to make it past the flop.

Jumalon opened and Saaskilahti called with . The flop brought something for both players, and guaranteed both would continue.

Lucas bet 10M and we headed to a turn.

The turn didn’t worry Lucas remotely, and he fired a 22M bet into 35M. Lauri folded.

A little later, there was an interesting hand where Saaskilahti had Jumalon's ever so slightly dominated by .

These unlikely hands sparked a preflop raising war, with the 22 year old Lucas opening the pot, and his opponent 3-betting to 36M. This of course, brought a fold.

Then we saw our first big hand of the day.

Saaskilahti got on the button, and chose to limp. Jumalon checked his option, perhaps remembering how the Finnish player had trapped Greg Mueller with pocket Kings in the same fashion just a day before.

Lucas checked again on the flop, then called a 6M bet with his middle pair. Saaskilahti had only backdoor draws.

With 24M in the pot, Saaskilahti bet 22M on the turn.

Lucas called fairly quickly, apparently decided on being ahead of his opponent, or possibly up against a better or worse pair of tens.

On the river, Saaskilahti counted out a big bet of 37M into 68M.

Lucas called in about 10 seconds, as close to snap call as you’ll see at this stage of the Main Event. He looked set on his read of Saaskilahti, and trusted it up until the end of the end.

A 142M pot went Lucas’s way, and he now held on to a large majority of the chips.

One River Changes Everything

Then, in a single hand, the dynamic flipped.

Saaskilahti raised to 10M on the button with and immediately had to debate whether to risk the remaining 131M stack when Jumalon jammed with the inferior .

“Time to get a double up I think,” Saaskilahti proposed. “You have a good hand?”

But Lucas didn’t reply. At this stage of the event, giving information was not in his interest.

“I’m not super strong, but strong enough. Let’s go.”

The calling chip was thrown in.

Both players paired their on the flop, leaving Saaskilahti in front with the better kicker. The Finland rail looked disappointed and Saaskilahti explained the possibility of a chop.

On Jumalon’s rail, Patrick Leonard looked like he’d seen an alien sitting in the rafters.

A on the turn put Jumalon one card from the title, but his opponent still had plenty of outs.

Any , any , or a diamond could put him back in the lead.

A on the river completed a backdoor flush for Saaskilahti, and his rail went nuts.

The hand doubled him up and, for the first time on this final table, genuinely threatened Jumalon's lead.

Stacks were not almost even, with Jumalon at 287M and Saaskilahti at 266M.

The Hand That Crowned the 2026 Main Event Winner (Almost)

After celebrating in the last hand, it only took a few minutes for Jumalon to take control again.

With , he limped in. Saaskilahti completed with .

For such a pivotal hand, the flop really had nothing for either player. Backdoor straight draws for both, except that Lucas also held the backdoor nut flush draw.

Lucas bet 4M into 12M. For whatever reason, his opponent called with Jack-high, possibly planning to float and steal the pot later.

The turn was magic for Jumalon, giving him the royal flush draw and a gutshot straight draw, but still no pair. It was pretty great for Saaskilahti as well, pairing his jack giving him a real hand to continue with.

Still, the board was getting scarier, and some draws would have already been completed on this turn.

Jumalon sized up big here, sending 40M into 20M. This appeared to surprise Saaskilahti, and he did think for a while before making the call.

There was an audible gasp from the crown when the appeared on the river.

Lucas thought for a long time before acting. When he did, the bet was 180M, into a pot of 100M.

The Jumalon rail ignited in chants, in quite a disrespectful way. Here we have a player making one of the biggest decisions in a 10-day tournament, and he has to think while a dozen people yell from behind him. Luckily, the tournament organizers were quick to enforce silence, but it only lasted for a minute.

“I don’t have a strong hand,” Saaskilahti admitted openly. “To hero, or not to hero."

"What do you think, Lucas? Do you have it?”

“You’re a little bit changing your story,” The Finnish player mused.

Then, he leaned in, “Look at me buddy.”

But Lucas kept a very solid poker face. There was no information to see, at least from our vantage point on the stream.

“This could be one of the worst calls in the history of poker, if he calls,” a Winamax Poker commentator pointed out, sounding hopeful that Saaskilahti wouldn’t make the mistake. “It could be a disaster class for the finish.”

Then, out of nowhere, Lucas said, “Put it in.” Up until this time, he’d been completely still and silent. He may have thought he was losing his customer.

“No, I’m not going to put it in,” Saaskilahti replied. “I would just call if I do something.”

‘I only have a Jack. I think the Jack might be good.”

But, it was definitely not good. Far from it.

Saaskilahti called, Lucas tabled “only the nuts” as the Winamax commentators called it, and Finland’s player was on his last legs with 34M chips.

Lucas would go into the next hand with 519M, over 15 times more chips than his opponent.

Winamax commenters wondered if that call could be “the worst call in the history of the Main Event Final Table.” Of course, they noted he is and has been a great player, but the misstep was not downplayed.

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Closing Out the Main Event

In the hand after the catastrophic defeat, Saaskilahti picked up , but was unable to get much value out of it. Preflop was limped, and Lucas folded on the Ace-high flop.

One hand later, we had our final moment of the 2026 Main Event.

Lucas Jumalon shoved his from the button, and Lauri Saaskilahti happily called with .

Once the flop was out, Lucas looked frozen, so close to the moment everything had been leading up to.

It was not in the bag yet, but this was a start.

And then, the win was secured.

The on the turn crowned Lucas Jumalon as our Main Event champion.

The river was irrelevant, and nobody was looking at the table anymore anyway.

“I’m just so happy, so blessed, and hopefully I can bring some young people to the game that never thought that this was possible. If you put the work in and the time in and take your licks, you can go get it.

At 22, Lucas is the second-youngest World Champion ever.

"I'm incredibly proud of him," said his mother, Robin Jumalon, fighting back tears. "It was a lot of hard work to get here. And he's represented himself and his city and his friends so phenomenally."