By Alex Drummond, Editor-in-Chief · July 7, 2026 · Fact-checked by Maya Chen
Day 2ABC of the 2026 World Series of Poker Main Event closed Monday night at the Horseshoe and Paris in Las Vegas after ten one-hour levels of play. 2,468 combined Day 1A, Day 1B and Day 1C survivors had returned for the day, and 312 late-registration entrants took seats before Level 2 registration close, bringing the Day 2 opening field to 2,780 players. By the end of the night, only 1,260 players remained. Argentine online-to-live convert Gaspar Fernandez bagged the largest stack at 754,000 chips.
The cumulative Main Event field size, following the Day 2ABC late-registration close, now stands at 8,389 total entries with a US$78,017,700 prize pool. Additional Day 2D late-registration entries on Tuesday will push the pool further before the registration book closes at the start of Level 8, approximately 3:15 p.m. local time. Final prize pool projections have been revised to approximately US$80-million after the Tuesday late-registration close, with first prize projected between US$11 million and US$12 million.
Day 2ABC top ten chip counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gaspar Fernandez | Argentina | 754,000 | 302 |
| 2 | Mason Vieth | United States | 730,000 | 292 |
| 3 | Arturas Astrauskas | Lithuania | 646,500 | 259 |
| 4 | Michael Banducci | United States | 630,000 | 252 |
| 5 | Daan Mulders | Netherlands | 629,500 | 252 |
| 6 | Miguel Riera | Spain | 592,000 | 237 |
| 7 | Chiori Gannon | United States | 589,500 | 236 |
| 8 | Kevin Ordet | United States | 584,000 | 234 |
| 9 | Haruna Fujita | Japan | 551,500 | 221 |
| 10 | Peter Patricio | Brazil | 543,500 | 217 |
Event #82 2026 WSOP Main Event Day 2ABC top 10 chip counts. Source: PokerNews's "2026 WSOP Day 42: Mizrachi Spins Up Stack on Main Event Day 2ABC".
Mizrachi's title defence spins up
Michael 'The Grinder' Mizrachi, the reigning WSOP Main Event champion and newly-elected Hall of Famer, entered Day 2ABC on the shortest of the notable-name Day 1B stacks at 73,000 chips. Across ten hours of play on Monday, Mizrachi spun that stack up to 202,500, a 177 per cent increase that took him from below-average into the mid-tier of the surviving 1,260-player field. Mizrachi's Tuesday morning quote to PokerNews live coverage: 'I started the day with 72 or 73 and ended with 202, so it's looking like a repeat!' The four-time Poker Players Championship winner and ninth-bracelet-holder is now in the running to become the first back-to-back Main Event champion since Johnny Chan in 1987 and 1988. Doyle Brunson (1976, 1977) and Stu Ungar (1980, 1981) preceded Chan; no player has repeated in the 38 editions of the Main Event since 1988.
Greg Raymer, the 2004 Main Event champion, produced the best result of the notable former champions who returned for Day 2ABC. After a last-minute double-up in the final level, Raymer's 291,000-chip bag places him inside the top 40 per cent of the Day 2ABC survivor field. Other former champions with less-fortunate Day 2ABC results were reported eliminated but not named specifically in the PokerNews Tuesday morning recap.
Canadian direct-entry status
The mainstream coverage of Day 2ABC did not publish end-of-day chip counts for the core Canadian direct-entry contingent (Kristen Foxen, Daniel Negreanu, Daniel Dvoress, Sam Greenwood, Mike Watson, Alex Livingston, Kevin Martin), most of whom fired Day 1D on Sunday and are expected to play Day 2D on Tuesday. Toronto-born Canadian bracelet winner Matt Salsberg, whose 205,500 Day 1C bag remained the largest confirmed Canadian-flag Main Event stack through Day 1, was not confirmed in the published Day 2ABC top or bottom by mainstream coverage. Individual Canadian stacks for Day 2ABC will publish overnight into Wednesday morning.
Toronto's Vincenzo Abate, a low-buy-in tournament regular, bagged 1,800,000 chips (45 big blinds) as the ninth-place chip stack of Event #86, the $600 Ultra Stack Day 1B on Monday. Abate's Day 1B bag places him in a strong position for the July 8 Day 2 consolidation. Brazil's Breno Drumond, the 2026 Tag Team bracelet winner, sits 11th in Event #86 chips at 1,760,000. The Ultra Stack is the ancillary large-field event running alongside the Main Event, with a projected 24,000-entry field and a US$12,960,000 prize pool.
Day 2D fires Tuesday, Day 3 combines Wednesday
Day 2D of the Main Event fires at 11:00 a.m. local Tuesday, July 7 at the Horseshoe and Paris. The 3,638 Day 1D survivors return at Level 6 (400 / 800 blinds, 800 big-blind ante), with late registration remaining open through the start of Level 8 at approximately 3:15 p.m. Additional Day 2 registrants are already registering at time of writing, with mainstream coverage estimating nearly 200 more entries above the 8,389 running total. Day 3 combines all remaining survivors of both Day 2 flights at 11:00 a.m. local time Wednesday, July 8. The Day 3 money bubble is expected to burst in the mid-afternoon Wednesday at approximately 1,050 to 1,100 remaining players, with a min-cash payout of approximately US$15,000 to US$16,000.
Historical field-size and back-to-back context
The 2026 Main Event's 8,389 running total through the Day 2ABC late-registration close puts the field on track to finish above the 2019 Main Event's 8,569 entries and comfortably in the fourth-largest all-time slot behind 2024 (10,112), 2023 (10,043) and 2025 (9,735). Mizrachi's back-to-back Main Event bid, if successful, would extend the tournament's back-to-back champions list to four players. Johnny Chan won the 1987 and 1988 Main Events at a time when the tournament drew only 152 and 167 entries respectively, and no player has repeated in any of the 38 editions since. The three back-to-back champions (Doyle Brunson, Stu Ungar, Johnny Chan) all won the Main Event when the tournament drew fewer than 300 entries.
PokerNews's Tuesday morning analysis noted that Mizrachi's US$1,350,203 win in the $10,000 PLO Championship on Monday, June 29 came 24 hours before the Day 1B opening, meaning Mizrachi has been in Vegas competing for 43 consecutive days without a full break through Tuesday, July 7. His resilience on short stacks throughout the summer has been a defining pattern.
Ontario watching guide
Ontario players following the 2026 Main Event from home can watch the ESPN+ live broadcast beginning at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time Tuesday for Day 2D feature-table coverage, with PokerGO providing streaming coverage across all Main Event days. The regulated Ontario online satellite path for the 2026 WSOP Super Circuit Montreal at Playground Poker Club in Kahnawake, Quebec remains active through August 19 on GGPoker Ontario, with the CA$5,000 Super Circuit Main Event and its CA$10,000,000 guarantee running September 3 to 11. The regulated Ontario market overview is on the best poker sites in Ontario page.