Reigning world champ Michael Mizrachi leads again at 2026 WSOP

Posted on: June 28, 2026 04:02 PDT

The last time Michael ‘The Grinder’ Mizrachi hit the home stretch of a WSOP tournament with a big chip lead, it was the 2025 Main Event.

Ahead of the final day’s play he was asked what it would take to win. He replied, "About an hour".

He wasn’t wrong.

Skip forward a year, and poker’s reigning world champion is getting busy with another huge stack.

This time it’s in the $10K Pot-Limit Omaha Championship, and after Saturday’s Day 2 it’s The Grinder who is once again in pole position to add to his reputation, his trophy cabinet and his bank balance.

Michael Mizrachi Wins 2025 WSOP Main Event

Let's just say the 2025 WSOP was a good series for Michael Mizrachi.

Hayley Hochstetler

Any potential victory is going to take days rather than hours, though. The last day of the 2025 Main Event started four-handed; Sunday’s Day 3 of the $10K PLO sees 37 players return from the 836 who entered, and they’ll play down to five.

And while Mizrachi was the standout name among 2025’s final four, this PLO field still features plenty of players with the talent, skills and experience to reel in The Grinder.

Let’s take a closer look at who’s still in the running for the 2026 PLO Championship.

37 left chasing $1.3M up top

At the top of the overnight chip counts is Mizrachi with 5.6 million chips — good for more than 220 big blinds when play resumes at 10K/25K.

Closest on his tail is India’s Zurvan Tumboli with 3.7M. With around $1.1M in career results to date, Tumboli would more than double his lifetime score if he took down this tourney’s first prize of $1,350,203.

But to do that he'll not only need to overtake Mizrachi, but outrun a chasing pack filled with established winners.

Just behind Tumboli with a shade under 3M chips is Jesse Lonis, a two-time bracelet winner and a regular high stakes crusher.

The ever-dangerous Jesse Lonis has a top 3 stack.

Omar Sader

Three more bracelet winners are sitting on around 1.5M chips, with Toby Joyce, Ian Matakis and Martin Zamani all equipped to go all the way.

Just behind them are former WSOP Main Event champion Ryan Riess, and former WPT World Champion Dan Sepiol.

The lower half of the field includes recent WSOP winners Joe Liberta (Millionaire Maker) and Kristen Foxen ($25K High Roller), as well as their fellow bracelet winners Aaron Kupin, Raj Vohra, Ari Engel, Ryutaro Suzuki, Loren Klein, Paul Volpe, Lautaro Guerra and James Chen.

Kristen Foxen is seeking her second bracelet of the summer.

Hayley Hochstetler

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Mizrachi holds lead from Day 1 to Day 3

With such a stacked field, it will be no cakewalk for anyone to take down the title, and in a game like Omaha the deck will surely have its say.

But Mizrachi knows how to close, as well as how to lead. The man from Florida started Day 2 at the top of the counts and ended it there too. And he’s playing with the relaxed confidence of a world champion — he even showed up late on Saturday.

Registration was open for a few levels, which saw even more elite players enter the fray, but the likes of Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, Martin Kabrhel and Nick Schulman were unable to end the day with chips in front of them.

No 18th WSOP bracelet for Phil Hellmuth this time.

Hayley Hochstetler

If the players remaining in this highly skilled field want to overtake Mizrachi at the top of the counts, they’ll need to play their A-game and stay on the right side of the poker gods. And if he shows up late again, well, that can’t hurt either.

As it stands, everyone has locked up $37K. The six-figure prizes kick in with 9 players left, while only the winner will bank over a million.

Action restarts at 1pm local time, and with so many big names in action we’re sure this one will feature on the WSOP livestream.

$10K Pot-Limit Omaha Championship: Top 10 stacks after Day 2