2026 POY race moves to the Bahamas

The World Series of Poker will settle the 2026 Player of the Year race at WSOP Paradise, turning the Bahamas stop into the official close of the poker year and putting $1 million in leaderboard prizes on the line for the top 100.

Defending champion Shaun Deeb sits first with 3,410 points. Naoya Kihara is 22 back at 3,388, and William Alex Foxen is 29 back at 3,381. That is the tightest relevant gap in a race that, for the first time, carries a seven-figure prize pool and a newly introduced Binion Cup for the winner.

Deeb already has the history the rest of the board is chasing. He won Player of the Year in 2018 and again in 2025, joining Daniel Negreanu as the only two-time winners. A third title would put him alone. Negreanu, an eight-time bracelet winner and the original 2004 POY, is sixth at 2,698 and says a third of his own is still in range.

“I’m sitting a few hundred points back, but with big points available in the Bahamas, capturing a third Player of the Year title is absolutely within striking distance,” Negreanu said. “It all comes down to how I perform in the season finale.”

The points board is now unified across the Las Vegas summer series, WSOP Europe, and Paradise. Last summer in Las Vegas the series drew a record 251,899 entrants and paid more than $469 million, the kind of volume Rounder covered when the 2025 festival closed on 246,960 entries and $481.8 million. Paradise is where the remaining bracelet points will be awarded.

Rounder has tracked the winter stop since it launched. Stanislav Zegal won the first Paradise Main Event in December 2023. The series returned in 2024 with a $50 million-guaranteed Super Main Event, then expanded again for 2025 at Atlantis Paradise Island, Dec. 4–18, with 15 bracelet events and a Super Main Event guarantee raised to $60 million. Alex Foxen, now third in the 2026 race, won the Triton Main Event there in December 2024 for $3.85 million and a bracelet. The 2026 Super Main Event is again listed at a $50 million guarantee, with GGPoker satellites already running.

The money attached to the leaderboard is new. First, second, and third each receive a $100,000 Paradise package. Fourth through 15th receive a $30,000 Super Main Event package, with further packages and championship tickets down to 100th. Joshua Arieh is fifth at 2,750. Nick Schulman is 12th at 2,552. Lucas Jumalon, the 2026 Main Event champion, is 15th at 2,271 and still inside the package window.

“I’ve been on an incredible journey this year, and it isn’t over yet,” Jumalon said. “Knowing that the Player of the Year race will be decided in the Bahamas just adds to the anticipation.”

A separate $1 million WSOP Parlay is open to anyone who reached a bracelet-event final table in 2026, live or online, and then plays Paradise. Registration for the festival is open in the WSOP LIVE app. Full schedule and hotel details are at wsop.com.

2026 WSOP Player of the Year, top 15