25 players became 9 on Thursday in Prague.
After five days of play, the final table of the 2026 WSOPE Main Event is set, with €2 million up top for the winner, along with one of the year's most prestigious bracelets.
Finland’s Hengtao Zhu started the day as chip leader, and he got off to a fast start in the first level, growing his stack to 20 million.
Steven Jones came in with a top-10 stack but was eliminated in 24th, just after the three-table redraw.
He flopped two pair, but Rokas Asipauskas got there on the river with a completed flush and shoved. Jones tanked for three minutes before making the call.
That took the Lithuanian player into second place, but he was eliminated just before the final table.
Tom Hall was the player who hit the rail on the final table bubble.
He jammed 
UTG for his last 9.7 million and Thomas Eychenne called with 
.
The 
runout spelled the end for the UK pro who took home €100,000.
"It's just tilting finishing 10th," Hall told Jeff Platt afterward. "How am I feeling? Devastated. There's not a lot else to say about that."
WSOPE Main Event final table
- Hengtao Zhu – 36.3M (90bb)
- Thomas Eychenne – 25.8M (64bb)
- Brandon Sheils – 20.9M (52bb)
- Chris Hunichen – 19.3M (48bb)
- Marius Kudzmanas – 18.1M (45bb)
- Akihiro Konishi – 14.4M (36bb)
- Nikolay Bibov – 13.2M (33bb)
- Antonio Guimaraens – 5.7M (14bb)
- Joona Nyholm – 3.3M (8bb)
Meet the nine players who will return on Friday at 12pm local time to play for the bracelet and €2 million top prize.
Blinds will be 200K/400K/400K and the average stack size is 17.5 million.
1. Hengtao Zhu
- Finland
- Chips: 36,300,000
- Career earnings: $39,361
Zhu qualified for the WSOPE Main Event on GGPoker and hit a hot streak to take the chip lead on Day 3, when Chris ‘Big Huni’ Hunichen told him he was “too f***ing good.”
Ahead of this tournament, he only had $39,361 in live winnings, and the biggest buy-in tournament he'd cashed in was also his first, when he came second in a €560 NLH event in Helsinki for $24,915.
It's going to be hard not to root for him.
2. Thomas Eychenne
- France
- Chips: 25,825,000
- Career earnings: $5,125,179
Eychenne won the EPT Barcelona Main Event in 2025. Incredibly, that’s his only live tournament win in an impressive career stretching back to 2013. He finished third in the $10K Super Plossus at the 2025 WSOP Paradise and fifth in a $100K buy-in Onyx event in January for $375,000.
He’s a dangerous player, and the rest of the table would have been groaning inwardly when he doubled up late today with 
against the 
of Rokas Asipauskas. Both players paired on the 
flop but Eychenne hit a king on the turn and faded a flush draw on the river.
3. Brandon Sheils
- UK
- Chips: 20,850,000
- Career earnings: $2,704,794
UK pro Sheils has the dubious honor of being featured in the Daily Mail, in an article about his entire family turning pro. The headline was fantastic, though: “Four of a kind! Family all quit their jobs to become poker professionals – and claim key to their success is mathematical formula.”
That was from 2015, when Brandon’s brother Richard (YouTuber GingePoker) said, “At the moment, I'm a better player than Brandon, but he's improving all the time.”
A quick look at Brandon's Hendon Mob shows that Richard taught him well. Did he teach him to pick up kings and get it in vs. queens and sevens in a 26-million-chip pot with 15 left in the WSOPE Main Event? Sheils held, eliminated two players, and moved up to second with a stack of 29 million.
4. Chris ‘Big Huni’ Hunichen
- US
- Chips: 19,300,000
- Career earnings: $17,633,642
The biggest name left by far with the most career earnings. Big Huni also has a bracelet to his name, which came with his biggest cash of $2,838,389 in the 2024 $100K Super High Roller.
His stack got a boost early on when Vasileios Panagiotidis picked the wrong moment to shove 
in the big blind. At least he’d be live, right? Wrong. Huni had 
and flopped him dead when the dealer put out 
.
He took out Panagiotidis later in the same level after flopping two pair with . Panagiotidis turned two pair with 
.
5. Marius Kudzmanas
- Lithuania
- Chips: 18,050,000
- Career earnings: n/a
Despite being listed as “Unknown Player” on The Hendon Mob, Kudzmanas is well known in high-stakes circles. He’s a regular on the Triton Poker series (where he has $1.2 million in earnings) and has won two bracelets online.
He’s got history in Prague. He finished second in the €10K High Roller at the 2022 EPT for €339,830.
6. Akihiro Konishi
- Japan
- Chips: 14,440,000
- Career earnings: $278,450
Konishi has 10 cashes at the WSOP but has only broken the top 100 once, in his first attempt in the Little One for One Drop in 2018, where he finished 75th.
His biggest cash came last summer when he placed fifth in a $1,100 event at The Wynn Summer Classic for $34,096. He also finished fifth in a $2K Triton One event last month for $22K.
7. Nikolay Bibov
- Bulgaria
- Chips: 13,200,000
- Career earnings: $123,368
Bibov knows how to get through a big NLH field. He made a super-deep run in the 2019 WSOP Millionaire Maker, finishing 26th from a field of 8,809 for his biggest live cash of $47,820.
He's only had one live cash since, when he won an €800 buy-in PLO event in January 2020. After a six-year break, he's already guaranteed €140,000 on Friday.
8. Antonio Guimaraens
- Spain
- Chips: 5,700,000
- Career earnings: $35,109
Guimaraens has a short Hendon Mob profile despite his first results being recorded a decade ago. There’s a nine-year gap before his live cashes reactivated, with his biggest score coming in the PokerStars Open High Roller in Prague last December for $14,952 (26th place).
He got lucky towards the end of Day 5 in a four-way pot, created when Brandon Sheils just flatted a UTG raise from Tom Hall with his jacks.
Guimaraens jammed the 
flop with top pair, Sheils made the call, and a 
dropped on the turn. Guimaraens dragged the 9.3 million pot and rode the chips to the final table.
9. Joona Nyholm
- Finland
- Chips: 3,275,000
- Career earnings: $9,322
Finland's second representative on the Main Event final table has the smallest Hendon Mob profile, with his biggest live cash coming in a €600 PLO event at the Finnish Open Championships in 2023.
He has eight live cashes lifetime and, incredibly, this will be his first in a straight NLH event. What a time to pull out a deep run.
Watch the highlights from an action-packed Day 5 of the WSOPE Main Event below.
Images courtesy of WSOP – Miguel Cortes, Lennart Hennig.
