WSOP Main Event Day 4: Moneymaker Bubbles on Aces; Kristen Foxen Cashes for US$25,000; Omar Lakhdari Leads 533 Survivors

By Alex Drummond, Editor-in-Chief · July 10, 2026 · Fact-checked by Maya Chen

The 2026 World Series of Poker Main Event bubble burst at Horseshoe Las Vegas roughly fifteen minutes into Day 4 on Thursday. When it did, it took the game's most emblematic amateur out of the field. Chris Moneymaker, the 2003 world champion whose Main Event victory reset poker's audience economics for a generation, made a hero call for his tournament life against Antonio Vargas's pocket aces on a paired board and was eliminated in three-way company for the honour of being the 2026 tournament's bubble boy. He collected nothing.

Play resumed on Day 4 at 11 a.m. Pacific on Thursday, July 9, at the four ballrooms shared by Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. Hand-for-hand pace kicked in immediately, with 1,389 players returning and 1,382 payout positions on the line. Sasha Liu, the golf-course grass consultant whose Cinderella run had captured the tournament's editorial oxygen through Day 3, resumed play with the outright chip lead at 2,364,000 chips, or nearly 300 big blinds at the opening level. Evan Lindeman started with 5,000 chips, was forced all in on the first hand and did not survive. Nicholas Hellmuth, Phil Hellmuth's son and the tournament's most-anticipated legacy story, returned with roughly six big blinds.

The Moneymaker Bubble Hand

PokerNews's Jon Sofen documented the bubble hand in full. Moneymaker opened to 17,000 from the hijack with J-9 offsuit. Antonio Vargas three-bet to 42,000 from a later position with A-A. Moneymaker called. The flop came 8-7-7 rainbow. Vargas bet 20,000 and Moneymaker called. The turn was another seven, giving Vargas a full house and Moneymaker a runner-runner straight draw. Vargas bet 45,000. Moneymaker called. The river was an eight, pairing the board and giving Moneymaker no help. Vargas put Moneymaker all in for approximately 100,000. Moneymaker snap-called with jack-high, was shown pocket aces boated up on the river, and was eliminated on the stone bubble.

At different tables, Stoyan Madanzhiev, the 2020 WSOP Online Main Event champion, and Zhaken Seitbekov also busted on the same simultaneous hand. Under WSOP hand-for-hand rules, all three were officially the 1,383rd-place finisher and none of them cashed. The trio then flipped, per WSOP tradition, for a free seat into the WSOP Paradise event at Atlantis in December. Seitbekov won.

Moneymaker's 2003 Main Event victory, produced through a US$40 satellite on PokerStars, is widely credited with catalysing the online-poker boom that has shaped affiliate, media and broadcast economics for the past two decades. His last Main Event cash before Thursday was in 2023, when he finished 1,198th. Ontario audiences familiar with the site's history know his story well; ours is one of the sites that exists as a downstream consequence of his run.

Foxen Cashes at Last

For readers in Ontario, the day's most significant story ran through Kristen Foxen, the Ottawa-born four-time bracelet winner and current top of the women's all-time money list. Ms. Foxen returned to Day 4 with 86,000 chips, one of the shortest stacks in the field. She survived the bubble and cashed for the first time in her WSOP Main Event career, exiting in 734th place for US$25,000. Her 2026 series to date now includes the US$25,000 High Roller bracelet win from June 8 (US$1,773,083, career-best cash), the US$1,000 Super Turbo Bounty in mid-June and her first Main Event money finish.

Ms. Foxen's Main Event history has been the sport's slow-burn narrative of near-misses. In 2024, she made a deep run and finished 13th for US$600,000, an outcome she described at the time as the most painful of her career. In 2025, she exited on Day 2D after running pocket queens into A-K in a preflop flip. In 2026, she battled from a below-average Day 2D bag, held a bottom-quartile stack through Day 3, and finally converted survival into a Main Event cash on Day 4. The payout is modest by her standards. The completion is not. Her lifetime tournament earnings now sit above US$14.5 million, or roughly C$19.9 million at prevailing exchange rates.

Alex Foxen, Kristen's husband and the current WSOP Player of the Year front-runner, also exited on Day 4. His Day 4 bustout hand and exact finishing place had not been fully documented in publicly available reports by press time, but the WSOP.com live database confirms his elimination. His summer POY campaign to date includes a US$10,000 No-Limit Hold'em Super Turbo Bounty bracelet for US$594,246 in June and multiple deep runs across high-roller events. His Main Event cash, which will fall somewhere between US$25,000 and roughly US$40,000 depending on his precise finishing position, does not deliver Player-of-the-Year points at the scale a final-table run would have.

Naoya Kihara, the Japanese pro whose two 2026 bracelets (including the US$10,000 Seven Card Stud Championship) leave him at the top of the current POY leaderboard, remains alive in the Main Event. Shaun Deeb, the reigning POY who bagged 938,000 chips at the end of Day 3, is also still in.

The Set-Over-Set-Over-Aces Hand

The day's marquee hand happened at the featured stream table late in the evening. Under a Level 18 blind structure of 6,000/12,000/12,000, Jeremy Moore was all in for 315,000 with J-J. Farah Galfond, married to poker pro Phil Galfond, was also all in for 461,000 with 9-9. Jordan Griff, the 2024 Main Event runner-up who had a US$6.5 million cash from that year, had A-A and had both players covered. The flop came J-9-3 with two hearts, delivering top set to Moore, middle set to Galfond and no help to Griff. "This is insane," a commentator said on stream. Both the six on the turn and the three on the river changed nothing. Moore tripled to over a million and celebrated by dropping to the floor for a set of push-ups while the dealer counted his chips.

Galfond finished in 722nd place for US$25,000. Griff finished in 734th place for US$25,000. Kristen Foxen's 734th-place finish shares that same payout tier. In tournaments this large, the payout curve compresses several hundred positions into a single dollar amount, so an exit anywhere from roughly 700th to roughly 750th collects the same US$25,000. From here down, each successive pay jump increases the number materially.

Mizrachi and Liu Both Fall

Michael Mizrachi's back-to-back Main Event bid ended on Day 4. The defending champion, whose Cinderella climb from a 73,200-chip Day 1B closing stack through Days 2 and 3 had anchored the tournament's most sustained narrative, was among the notable Day 4 eliminations. His exact bust hand and finishing position have not been widely published, but tournament staff confirmed his exit before dinner. His Main Event cash, projected between US$25,000 and US$35,000, is his second consecutive year in the money and adds to the roughly US$25 million in career tournament earnings he entered the summer with. Only three players in Main Event history have ever won consecutive titles: Doyle Brunson (1976-77), Stu Ungar (1980-81) and Johnny Chan (1987-88). The fourth remains uncrowned.

Sasha Liu, the tournament's editorial darling and outright Day 3 chip leader, also exited on Day 4. Ms. Liu's run, which took a US$60,000 late-registration bag through 597,600 chips on Day 2, then more than doubled to 2,364,000 on Day 3, is the type of story the Main Event has been designed around since its inception. Her 2026 series will be logged as a US$394,000-lifetime-earner-turns-Main-Event-Day-4-leader arc, and any cash from her finish (also projected in the US$25,000 to US$40,000 range) is a career-changing return on the buy-in for a recreational player. Her Twitch subscriber count reportedly quadrupled during Day 3.

The Overnight Top Ten

Day 5 Structure and What to Watch

Day 5 fires Friday, July 10 at 11 a.m. Pacific with 533 players remaining and blinds set to 12,000/24,000/24,000. Five 90-minute levels are on the docket, with a 75-minute dinner break at level completion. Tournament staff expect the field to be reduced to between 100 and 130 players by end of night. From that group, Day 6 on Saturday will play down to somewhere between 20 and 30 players, and Day 7 on Sunday will play down to the official nine-handed final table. ESPN's over-the-air broadcast picks up Sunday's coverage from 6 p.m. Eastern.

Three story arcs matter through the weekend. First, whether any of the remaining past Main Event champions can convert survival into a deep run. Hossein Ensan (2019), John Cynn (2018), Ryan Riess (2013), Scott Blumstein (2017) and Joe Hachem (2005) all entered Day 4 with above-average stacks; the fate of that group by end of Day 4 was not fully documented at press time. Second, whether the Player-of-the-Year race between Naoya Kihara and Shaun Deeb collapses onto a deep Main Event run by one of them, which would decisively settle the summer's POY conversation. Third, whether any of the remaining Canadians (currently unconfirmed in the top counts) climb into the top 100 finishers, which is the point at which Main Event money materially changes life.

Canadian Coverage Notes

Ontario's coverage of Day 5 and beyond will centre on confirmed Canadian survivors as tournament staff publishes the Day 5 seat draw. Toronto pro Matt Salsberg, whose 205,999-chip Day 1C bag remained the largest confirmed Canadian Day 1 total, has not appeared in Day 4 chip counts. Freddy Deeb, the two-time bracelet winner and long-time former Toronto resident, has not been confirmed in overnight counts. Dhiraj Sharma, the Toronto-area business analyst who bagged the seventh-largest Day 2D stack, has not appeared in the overnight leaderboard.

Ontario coverage of the qualifier path into future Main Events continues at our WSOP satellite hub. GGPoker Ontario, PokerStars Ontario and BetMGM Poker all continue running qualifier ladders into the WSOP Super Circuit Canada event at Playground Poker in Kahnawake in August. iGaming Ontario, the province's stand-alone Crown agency, permits live-event qualifier promotions under its Registrar's Standards for Internet Gaming provided eligibility terms are disclosed. Players must be 19 and physically located in Ontario to register.

Coverage of Day 5 continues on this site through the weekend as new stacks and eliminations are published by tournament staff.

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