The tables are gone, the lights taken down from the ceilings of the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. The 2026 World Series of Poker only has two things left to wrap up from its summertime bacchanalia. One, the 2026 WSOP Main Event final table, which will be contested on August 3-5. The other? Might take a bit longer…the 2026 WSOP Player of the Year race, which will be decided in December in the Bahamas and had a surprisingly exciting climax in Las Vegas that tightened the race.
Deeb Eschews Main Event Glory to Defend POY
Deep in the 2026 WSOP Main Event, Shaun Deeb was about as dismissive as you could be about winning the tournament without actually dumping your chips to an opponent. In interviews with ESPN’s Jeff Platt, he nearly came out and said that the pursuit of the Main Event championship was damaging the defense of his Player of the Year title. Thus, when Deeb was knocked out of the Main Event in fifteenth place rather unceremoniously after playing stellar poker for the first week, he received some catcalls for his treatment of poker’s greatest prize.
But did Deeb do the right thing?
Immediately following his dismissal from the Main Event, Deeb fired off a bullet at one of the late-stage events of the 2026 WSOP, the $25,000 H.O.R.S.E. High Roller. That would turn out to be a very fortuitous move, as two of the competitors he is facing in the POY race, Japan’s Naoya Kihara and the U.S.’s Alex Foxen, were also in the tournament. While the world was watching the final table be determined earlier this week, these three men were having their own fight elsewhere.
For now, it looks like Deeb has seized the upper hand. He earned 365 points for his efforts in the Main Event, and he would tack on another 234 points for finishing eighth in the H.O.R.S.E. tournament. Those two tournaments together were enough to push him into the pole position in the race for the 2026 WSOP POY with a total of 3,410 points.
Kihara and Foxen did not go quietly into the night, however. Kihara’s drive to win a third bracelet in 2026 came up short in third place in the $25K H.O.R.S.E. event, earning him 383 points. Foxen, who was the leader of the POY at the halfway mark of the WSOP and made a decent run in the Main Event, took home the tenth-place prize in the H.O.R.S.E. tournament, picking up 102 points in the process.
The leader going to the Bahamas will be Deeb, however, as this is the Top Ten in the race for the 2026 WSOP POY:
1. Shaun Deeb, 3,410 points
2. Naoya Kihara, 3,388
3. Alex Foxen, 3,381
4. Justin Liberto, 2,828
5. Josh Arieh, 2,750
6. Daniel Negreanu, 2,698
7. Jesse Lonis, 2,674
8. Eelis Paerssinen, 2,638
9. Michael Moncek, 2,592
10. Josh Reichard, 2,574
Scene Shifts, But Does the Advantage?
The scene now shifts to the Baha Mar Resort in Nassau, the Bahamas, where the 2026 WSOP Paradise’s third running is awaiting the world. Although the festival schedule has not been announced yet, if it is like the past two years at WSOP Paradise, it will be replete with No Limit Texas Hold’em tournaments. This could dictate that one of the three main contenders could have an edge in the race for the POY.
Foxen is arguably the best Hold’em player among the trio, and if there are several high-dollar buy-in events in that discipline, it would have to be said that he is the favorite. While Deeb and Kihara can hold their own in the game, they are more proficient in non-Texas Hold’em tournaments; those two men are probably hoping that WSOP officials are putting some big-money Omaha or other mixed-game tournaments in the mix.
There is also the potential for a runner to come from the pack and catch these men. If the numbers from 2025 hold (2,891 entries), the eventual champion of the 2026 WSOP Paradise Super Main Event will pick up 1,940 points. That would bring in pretty much anyone in the Top 75 who could overtake those ahead of them, especially if those players fall into a slump in December. Players in the Top 75 include Jeff Madsen (1,438 points), Martin Kabrhel (1,486), David ‘ODB’ Baker (1,689), and Foxen’s wife, Kristen (1,907), among others.
It is also a question of who will make the trek to the islands in December. It might sound like a wonderful way to spend the holidays, but the pressure will be intense on these players at the WSOP Paradise. They may decide to stay closer to home (perhaps the World Poker Tour World Championship at the Wynn?) and bypass the trip to the Bahamas. We have a few months to consider it, however, as the WSOP Player of the Year race heads to its final station.
The post Shaun Deeb’s Main Event Tactics Work in His Favor, Leads WSOP POY Heading to Paradise appeared first on Poker News Daily.
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