Jamie Gold meets his match on Day 1C of the WSOP Main Event

Posted on: July 5, 2026 01:43 PDT

Las Vegas got even crazier than usual on Saturday, with many American players choosing to celebrate July 4 away from the tables.

Inside Paris Las Vegas, Day 1C might have been the busiest flight of the 2026 WSOP Main Event so far, but we’re expecting Day 1D to be bigger than the previous three combined.

Daniel Negreanu chose to take the day off to play golf and enjoy a party. He’s announced that he’s playing Day 1D on Sunday. Expect to see a lot of other big-name players enter Sunday too. It could be a monster.

It will need to be if the Main Event is going to break 10,000 players.

Expect to see Daniel Negreanu play the Main Event on Sunday.

Expect to see Daniel Negreanu start his Main Event on Sunday.

Omar Sader

2026 WSOP Main Event numbers

So far, the 2026 Main Event is tracking slightly behind last year, which ended with 9,735 players. Here are the numbers so far:

Day 1A: 772 (923 in 2025)
Day 1B: 1,038 (1,096 in 2025)
Day 1C: 1,573 (1,678 in 2025)

It means we need 6,352 players across Day 1D and Day 2 late registration to beat last year’s Main Event field, and 6,617 players to crack 10,000 runners.

The Kalshi market – ’Will the 2026 WSOP Main Event have over 10,000 entries?’ – has been trending down from a high of 62% on January 26. At 15% it’s now at its lowest point since the market began.

We’re going to make an educated guess that 2026 is going to end up with 9,635 players.

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Jamie Gold’s 20th anniversary

Not all Americans were out partying. Jamie Gold was attempting to roll back the years and find another epic Main Event run.

In 2006, Jamie Gold bamboozled his opponents with his table talk, with people handing him their chips as if they’d been hypnotized by him.

Twenty years on and he’s still talking, but not with the same level of confidence. In fact, this summer has left him feeling very vulnerable at the table – never a good way to play no-limit hold’em.

Jamie Gold, Johnny Chan and a poker table piled high with cash

Golden memories: Jamie won $12 million in the Main Event back in 2006.

Gold picked up aces and raised to 1.2K. Jourdan Baptiste, a player who’d been very active and just as talkative as Gold at the feature table, found queens and raised to 4.5K.

Gold 4-bet and started talking: “My gift to you, 20K,” Gold said. “If that doesn’t tell you what I have, I can’t help you.”

Baptiste called to see the flop.

“I have the best hand,” Gold said.

“Jacks?” asked Baptiste.

“No, I don’t raise 20K with jacks, not in this universe. I’m not bluffing. You’re definitely behind, I’m just trying to be nice.”

Baptiste folded.

“On Day 1 of the Main Event I’d rather you fold actually,” Gold said, with a level of honesty that perhaps isn’t the most profitable.

Gold’s been running pretty bad this WSOP and he was quick to tell the table how bad it had been. “I’m just happy to take it down right there.”

Unfortunately, this newfound caution didn’t help him find his way through to the end of Day 1C. Instead, he was eliminated by Baptiste late on in the day after moving all-in with on a flop, only to find that he’d run into the aces this time.

A passing of the torch to the 2026 table talker?

Gold tried everything he could think of to delay the inevitable. He stood up, took his mic off, wished everyone good luck and said, “It’s been a fun Main Event,” but to no avail.

He’s obviously still in debt to the 2006 poker gods, and the runout took Baptiste up to 270K and left Gold on the rail talking to Jeff Platt.

“It was really fun but I had a really rough run of cards and there’s only so much you can do,” a very downbeat Gold said. “I think I only made one mistake all day. Other than that I tried to do my best with the cards I was dealt, but sometimes it’s just not your day.”

Yulian Bogdanov ended the day with the biggest stack.

Tyler Abrams

1,166 players survived to make Day 2, including chip leader Yulian Bogdanov, with 315K. Justin Arnwine bagged big (280K), along with Freddy Deeb (268K), Dylan Smith (206K), Brian Hastings (178K) and Josh Arieh (158K).

Baptiste ended up with 281,600.

Talking afterward Baptiste said, “At first I was a little nervous… an hour or two in I caught my groove and I got some good cards.”

He’s definitely one to watch on Day 2ABC on Monday.