A slow-starting $100K PLO High Roller may have one of the most explosive endings of the summer after seven-time WSOP champion Daniel Negreanu ran hot to the final table on Day 2.
A sluggish start delayed the proceedings after the tournament began with fewer than the required seven players on Day 1, meaning no one played any poker for almost the entire first level.
They would eventually pick up 50 players on the first day and send 19 of them to Day 2, where 21 more jumped into the mix to bring the grand total to 83 entries.
Day 2 was equally strange. Registration closed after the first two levels, and 13 players were scheduled to make the money. Just two hours later, only 15 remained, marking an extra short trip from the end of registration to the money bubble.
"We are at a dangerous and bad time with tournament structures," David 'ODB' Baker said on X.
It sounds like something you might find in a daily tournament, not a $100K High Roller, but we pressed on.
Negreanu is in the second slot behind chip leader Chris Frank after two solid days of PLO. He might even have something to say about the structure situation on his vlog tomorrow, so stay tuned. For now, Negreanu will return with a very good shot at his eighth WSOP bracelet.
The leaders are followed by Yosuke Miki, Philip Sternheimer, and Day 1 chip leader Artur Martirosian. Let's learn about the group, with unofficial overnight chip counts from the WSOP LIVE App:
Frank and Negreanu jockey for lead
Chris Frank - 13,700,000 (56bb)
- Career earnings: $6,722,640
The German jumped into the lead at the very end of the night after Sean Winter left the tournament in sixth place. At the time, Negreanu was sitting pretty with the biggest stack, while the rest of the group was clumped up behind him. Frank jumped that group, and then Negreanu, to bag the chip lead in the last level.
This will be Frank's third cash of the 2026 WSOP, and by far his biggest. All five returning players are guaranteed at least $393,129, with an upside of $2.25 million. The latter would be a new high score for Frank, but not by much. He won $2 million in the $100K PLO at Triton Montenegro in 2024.
It would also be Frank's second bracelet, nine years after his first in 2017.
Daniel Negreanu - 12,300,000 (51bb)
- Career earnings: $58,179,436
We know by now that Negreanu is chasing #8. He's managed to make a couple of serious runs at this summer, so far, with two final tables to his name. He has already finished eighth in the $600 PLO/NLH and seventh in the $25K version of the same event, so his four-card game is sharp right now.
This could be his best chance yet, and with some big money up for grabs. If you throw out Negreanu's runner-up finish in the 2014 $1M One Drop, a win on Thursday would be his highest WSOP cash ever, clearing the 2019 $100K High Roller by around $500K.
Negreanu traded the lead with Frank at the end of Day 2. Expect a much bigger confrontation at the finale.
Yosuke Miki - 9,700,000 (40bb)
- Career earnings: $1,261,534
Japan's Yosuke Miki was one of the 21 players who jumped into the $100K at the end of late registration, and he's the only one left. Miki will try to improve on a fourth-place finish in the $25K High Roller at the beginning of the series, where he started off hot with a $421K score.
Miki has the most modest of the final five resumes, but it only dates back to 2022. One could predict that Miki will do a lot of catching up over the next few years, and it could all start on Thursday with the $2.2 million win. That would very much be a new high score for Miki, who previously grabbed $628K for finishing sixth in a $125K buy-in at Triton Jeju in March.
Philip Sternheimer - 9,500,000 (39bb)
- Career earnings: $9,318,570
Sternheimer is having a decent WSOP, with six cashes so far, but he has yet to make any big noise in his usual rotation of high rollers. That will change on Thursday, when he will show up guaranteed his first six-figure score of the 2026 WSOP, but he's going for much more.
A win would be Sternheimer's second seven-figure score, with his first coming with a runner-up run at Triton Jeju in the $100K Main Event. That was worth $2.5 million, so he won't break that with a win, but he would cross the $10 million mark in all-time earnings. If Sternheimer can spin it up for a win, it would be his second WSOP title.
Artur Martirosian - 4,700,000 (19bb)
- Career earnings: $33,621,767
The Russian crusher already has a WSOP bracelet in 2026, but the $25K High Roller Six-Max feels like ages ago (the beginning of June.) Martirosian has cashed two other times this summer, but nothing anywhere close to that $1.2 million prize. The Day 1 chip leader will have a lot of work to do after fading to the back of the pack in the last level of Day 2.
A win on Thursday would be Martirosian's fourth WSOP title, and it would add another $2.2 million to his lead on the all-time Russian money list, where the nearest player (Igor Kurganov) is currently $14 million behind. It would also be his sixth PLO tournament win across all tours and circuits.
All five players return on Thursday at 1pm to play down to a winner in the shadow of Day 1A of the WSOP Main Event.
Images courtesy of WSOP.
