2026 WSOP: Darren Rabinowitz Wins $5,000 8-Handed NLH Event, Stymies Phil Hellmuth’s Shot at 18th Bracelet| P4Poker

Poker News July 16, 2026

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All eyes on me

Perhaps it is a little unfortunate that in writing about someone who won a cherished World Series of Poker bracelet, much or most of the focus is on the runner-up. But when the runner-up is Phil Hellmuth, that’s a big part of the story, like it or not.

On Wednesday night, Darren Rabinowitz won Event #99: $5,000 8-Handed No-Limit Hold’em at the 2026 World Series of Poker for his second career WSOP bracelet and nearly $700,000. He defeated Phil Hellmuth heads-up, denying the Poker Hall of Famer what would have been his 18^th career WSOP title.

With 17 bracelets, Hellmuth is far and away the all-time leader; Phil Ivey is second with 11, followed by Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan with ten. Shaun Deeb and Benny Glaser won their ninth bracelets this summer, pulling them into a tie with Erik Seidel (who himself just had a runner-up finish) and Johnny Moss.

Dusting himself off

It was an impressive bounce-back for Rabinowitz. Just a few days earlier, he ran deep in the 2026 WSOP Main Event, finishing in 145^th place. Were it not for a devastating two-outer, who knows, he might have found himself in the “August Nine.”

“When you go deep in something, there’s a huge emotional dump afterwards,” he told PokerNews after his victory. “But I didn’t feel that after the Main. I played well. Yeah, it was unlucky, but it never affected me. All I wanted to do was keep playing poker.”

He added that a common feeling in poker is needing a few days to just decompress after a deep run and a bad beat, but he just wanted to take advantage of every opportunity before the WSOP ended. He felt that getting back on the horse was the right move. And it certainly was.

Hellmuth goes from penthouse to outhouse

Hellmuth went into the nine-handed final table as the chip leader and there likely wasn’t a single person in the room who was indifferent as to their rooting interest. Plenty of people, turned off by his history of antics and attention-seeking, likely wanted to see him lose, but more wanted to witness history, to watch one of the greatest tournament players of all time extend his bracelet record.

Rabinowitz said he felt the crowd against him, but didn’t take it personally.

“I’m a poker fan, so I understand it, but I really didn’t want to lose to this guy. I wanted to beat him. I wanted to win.”

After Rabinowitz eliminated Nicholas “Nicky P” Palma in third place, he went into heads-up against Hellmuth with a 27.525 million chip to 16.675 million chip lead. He extended that further, getting up by nearly 4-to-1, but Hellmuth came storming back to flip the table and take more than a 2-to-1 chip lead himself.

The most important hand was arguably one in which not much happened. Hellmuth flopped top pair with Kh-5s, while Rabinowitz flopped bottom two (J-6) on a Kc-Jh-6h flop. Small betting led to a 5h on the turn, giving Hellmuth a better two pair and a flush draw, but both men checked. The 2h on the river completed Hellmuth’s flush, but again, neither player bet, so Rabinowitz got away on the cheap.

“Wow, the tournament should have been over,” Hellmuth said, even though he never initiated any betting.

That was the break Rabinowitz needed and he started winning pots to take over the match. Eventually with a massive lead, he raised to 2 million pre-flop with 9s-7d and Hellmuth called with Ah-2s. On the flop of 2c-8d-9c, Hellmuth check-called a 3.5 million-chip bet. He called dark before the 4d on the turn and Rabinowitz moved all-in. Believing his opponent was on a draw, Hellmuth pondered his move for quite some time before calling all-in for about 10 million.

Hellmuth got neither a Deuce nor an Ace on the river and Rabinowitz had his second career bracelet and $695,256.