The big news in poker this week? We’ll give you a $5K poker trip to Aruba if you can pick the three most successful players in the WSOP Main Event, which is now up and running.
(Okay, it’s the other big news in poker this week.)
You don’t need to actually pick the players who will end up in the final three — just three players who perform better than everyone else’s picks.
You’ve got until July 6 to finalize your team of three. Get started here.
And with the first starting flight of the Main Event now done and dusted, it’s worth checking out who ended the day with a big stack.
Why? So you can add them to your team, of course!
So who’s managed to turn their starting stack of 60,000 chips into a war chest for an assault on the title?
Let’s take a quick look at 5 players already through to Day 2 with big stacks.
Note that all chip counts are based on overnight counts available in the WSOP Live app.
Ryuta Nakai (323K chips)
With more than five starting stacks in his end-of-day bag, Japan’s Nakai is up at the top of the chip counts. It may be early days in the Main Event, but you can’t do better than that.
Nakai is seeking his eighth cash of the series in the biggest tournament of them all. Five of his seven cashes this summer have come in no-limit hold’em, with the others in the mixed big bet event and the mixed O8/Stud8 tourney.
He has almost $3 million in career cashes, and a deep run would eclipse his best-ever cash of $415K, collected at last year’s WSOP when he final-tabled the $10K Super Turbo Bounty.
Scott Seiver (177K chips)
The 7-time WSOP bracelet winner — and former WSOP Player of the Year — got off to a flying start in the Main Event.
Seiver has proven time and time again that he has the talent and drive to succeed at the WSOP.
But his only result in the live Las Vegas Main Event to date came in 2017 when he cracked the top 1,000 for a minimal cash of $16K. Can he put together a deeper run in 2026?
Dimitar Danchev (173K chips)
Bulgaria’s all-time #2 already has a WSOP bracelet from this summer, after his win in the $25K Heads-up Championship. That included victory over Main Event chip leader Ryuta Nakai, and gave him a $800K payday.
He’s reinvested a portion of that in the Main Event and spun up his starting stack by almost 3x.
Danchev has two bracelets, the other picked up in an online heads-up event in 2022.
Can he convert his heads-up success to victory in a field of thousands?
Bin Weng (168K chips)
The man from Pennsylvania, by way of China, has a ton of great live results contributing to his $10M in career earnings, but is so far without a WSOP bracelet.
As a former WPT Player of the Year, Weng will not be fazed by the unique challenges of the WSOP Main Event, and with a healthy stack heading into Day 2 is well positioned to do some damage and add some weight to your Pick 3 team.
Leonard Maue (149K chips)
The German high roller has not recorded a cash so far at this summer’s WSOP, but with a string of wins to his name — collected everywhere from the EPT to the WPT and far beyond — is no stranger to the winner’s circle.
The last European Main Event winner was Espen Jorstad in 2022. Are we due for another?
For more Day 1 stacks and survivors, see the story below.
Starting flights for the WSOP Main Event continue through to Day 2 on July 6.
That's also the deadline for selecting your Pick 3 team, and you can edit your choices right up to the 11am PT cutoff.
Be sure to keep checking back with PokerOrg for updates on the Main Event and tips on who can add value to your team. You can find more Pick 3 tips here.
