Follow Nick Palma’s bracelet hunt at the 2026 WSOP as he shares what the summer grind in Las Vegas is really like.
One week into the 2026 WSOP and I’m sitting on five live cashes and three online bracelet cashes. I had a really good chance in the $10K GGMillion$ but, you know, you get short and it got shallow.
I 3-bet bluffed Chris Brewer with A-4o, and he had jacks and jammed on me. That sucked. And then I lost a couple of other hands and there was nothing I could do.
As long as I’m happy with my play and I didn't make any key mistakes, I’m okay with the results. But first in that was $1.1 million, and I cashed for $20K – it’s a big difference.
Now I’ve got a big stack in the $1,500 Monster Stack. I'm on one bullet right now. It's a 50K starting stack, and I’ve got 150K coming back from dinner, which is 100 big blinds. And, as everyone knows, I like to live 100 big blinds at a time.
Hopefully, I'm going to win this tournament the old-fashioned way. One bullet – that’s how I want to do it.
Elton John and miso salmon
I’m playing online bracelet events as well. I’m used to playing three or four tables, and early on in these tournaments it’s kind of slow. The dealers are bad, the play is slow, so I can play online as well – I’m used to it. It’s like a fish swimming in the ocean.
Keeping the focus is important. I can play online and still focus, but I don’t listen to music much. I'm not in my true flow state when I have music on. I'll do it sometimes if I want to change the mood or I'm not feeling the table so much.
I’m turning to Elton John and Billy Joel at the moment. These guys are amazing. Now I know why they're as famous as they are. Legends.
And in the morning, I've been going to Grand Lux for a walk and having miso salmon almost every single day. I've got a regimen – miso salmon and some Elton John.
Run-in with Hellmuth
You might have seen I had a run-in with Phil Hellmuth. The guy’s a walking infomercial. He's really annoying.
I guess some people would say I'm full of myself as well sometimes, which I am. But it's completely different to him and Martin Kabrhel.
These guys just go 24/7, they need to give it a rest sometimes. I like to talk and be brash as well, but only 40 or 50% of the time. You gotta tone it down a little bit. These guys are just too annoying.
Kabrhel’s good for the game, even though I don’t like him that much, but Hellmuth is so annoying. It's next level.
The only people that really like him, in my eyes, are people that are not in the game and are on the outside looking in – because he's just unbearable at the table.
I don't want to be mean, so I shook his hand after. Whatever. But I'm not a big fan and I never will be.
Nick Palma's 2026 WSOP live cashes
- Event #1: $550 Mini Mystery Millions NLH – 2,330th: $622
- Event #2: $5,000 8-Handed NLH – 80th: $9,947
- Event #5: $5,000 8-Handed PLO – 75th: $9,944
- Event #10: $600 Deepstack NLH – 405th: $1,260
- Event #11: $10,000 GGMillion$ High Roller NLH – 76th: $19,999
