Day 4 of the 2026 World Series of Poker Main Event began with players hoping to survive the money bubble, and it ended with just over 500 still with their dreams of achieving poker immortality alive.
Sam Sweilem leads the remaining 533 players after bagging up 3,800,000 at the event’s halfway point. The Florida native took a big chunk off Chris Brewer with a full house, and then rivered a flush to bust Eugene Teibloom in another big pot to climb the leaderboard. Sweilem has just one recorded WSOP cash from 2019 and just over $130,000 in live tournament earnings, according to The Hendon Mob, but is in pole position to change that with a deep run over the coming days.
Day 4 Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sam Sweilem | United States | 3,800,000 | 190 |
| 2 | Steven O’Nan | United States | 3,600,000 | 180 |
| 3 | Artur Martirosian | Russian Federation | 3,495,000 | 175 |
| 4 | Kyle Mart | United States | 3,480,000 | 174 |
| 5 | Chih Fan | Taiwan | 3,365,000 | 168 |
| 6 | Shreesh Hebbar | Canada | 3,340,000 | 167 |
| 7 | Felix Kuemayr | Austria | 3,125,000 | 156 |
| 8 | Arman Bezhanian | Russian Federation | 3,100,000 | 155 |
| 9 | Dan Stavila | Moldova | 3,060,000 | 153 |
| 10 | Farid Jattin | Colombia | 3,040,000 | 152 |
Sweilem is followed on the leaderboard by Steven O’Nan (3,600,000), Artur Martirosian (3,495,000), Kyle Mart (3,480,000), and Chih Fan (3,365,000). Other top stacks include Dan Stavila (3,060,000), Farid Jattin (3,040,000), WSOP Paradise third-place finisher Belarmino De Souza (2,725,000), Brock Wilson (2,415,000), last year’s 17th-place finisher Daniel Iachan (2,170,000), and Daniel Hachem (2,110,000).
Further down the leaderboard are Alex Foxen, whose day included hitting a royal flush on his way to 1,695,000, as well as Japanese vlogging superstar Masato Yokosawa (1,545,000), Sean Winter (1,525,000), Shaun Deeb (1,500,000), Dylan Smith (1,320,000), and Tony Dunst (1,245,000). The shorter stacks include Ryan Leng (990,000), 2005 finalist Scott Lazar (905,000), Aaron Barone (785,000), Stephen Chidwick (760,000), Chino Rheem (655,000), Josh Arieh (610,000), 2024 finalist Boris Angelov (580,000), Martin Zamani (545,000), David Peters (430,000), and Patrick Leonard (295,000).
Four past champions remain in contention for a second Main Event bracelet. Hossein Ensan leads the group with 2,580,000, while Greg Raymer (535,000), Ryan Riess (455,000), and defending champion Michael Mizrachi (440,000) will have some work to do if they want to make a run at another title.
Comeskey Leads a Women’s Boom in Main Event Attendance
Last year, Leo Margets broke poker’s glass ceiling by becoming the first woman in three decades to make the Main Event final table. Her influence was felt in this year’s field, which included a record-high 431 women. While women only accounted for 4.68 percent of the field, that still far exceeded last year’s 3.8 percent.
Caitlin Comeskey has made a career out of making poker a safer place for women to compete. The comedian, vlogger, and content creator is among a host of women moving on to Day 5, bagging up a stack of 1,740,000.
“I’m on cloud nine. I feel amazing. It’s a dream. It’s like I’m walking through a dream,” she said. “I visualized this so many times. I’ve been there in my dreams, and now it’s actually here, and I just got to wait for it to happen, you know?”
Comeskey’s Main Event got off to a rocky start when she not only had to overcome a host of coolers but also some troublesome opponents. “Day one was really fun. Except for the guy who told me that his friend warned him that I was insufferable. Didn’t love that. But he was rooting me on, and also he stone-bubbled today. Day 2 was shitty. I started the day with Maurice Hawkins, who started antagonizing me almost immediately. I shut it down, but it was still a lot of stress to deal with, and I encountered a lot of coolers on Day 2,” she said.
“My last two days have just been a dream. It’s just been fun. Cards have been cooperating. I’ve been in a good mood. It’s been awesome.”
Comeskey hopes that a deep run in the Main Event can serve as an example, not just to women, but to all players that poker should be fun. She recognizes her role as one of poker’s leading women ambassadors, and with history within her grasp, it’s a responsibility she’s ready to take on.
“I take representing women in poker very, very seriously. I take standing up for issues that affect women, and all people in poker. Like, on the PokerNews Podcast, I really talked about how people get mistreated at the table, and I was talking about women, but I was talking about everybody. We need to have more fun at the tables in general. We need less card-throwing, we need less tilting off, we need less cursing and name-calling. And I think that we can get there, and if we can create a more fun, universal environment, we’ll get more women into the game. But it’s not gonna happen if they feel like they have to jump into the lion’s den to play. So I’m just trying to be an advocate for change in that regard.”
Comeskey and hundreds of others have already made it through all the pitfalls and land mines that encapsulate the 9,208-player Main Event field, but there is still a long way to go. The real fun is still to come tomorrow.
“I’m very much looking forward to tomorrow. I feel like every cell in my body’s on fire. I’m gonna go home. I’m gonna eat some Taco Bell. I’m gonna hang out with my friends and just try to enjoy the rest of the ride. I’m in a position to make history, and I hope I’m able to,” she said.
Moneymaker One of Three to Fall on the Bubble
Day 4 began with the field seven spots away from the money bubble. Three eliminations occurred simultaneously on the bubble, including 2003 champion and Poker Hall of Famer Chris Moneymaker, who called off his last chips playing the board against Antonio Vargas, only for Vargas to show down two aces. Inaugural WSOP Online Main Event champion Stoyan Madanzhiev also lost a race with ace-king against Gregory Brown’s fives, while Zhaken Seitbekov ran into Stavila’s flopped set. The three players split a min-cash of $10,000, with Seitbekov winning a three-way flip for a WSOP Paradise Main Event package.
The bustouts started coming fast once the bubble burst, with Kristen Foxen (1,331st), 2012 runner-up Jesse Sylvia (1,167th), Stephen Song (1,049th), Chris Moorman (1,041st), and Olivier Busquet (1,030th) being among the first to bust. They were followed by Jesse Lonis (921st), Alex Livingston (897th), Ren Lin (746th), 2017 champion Scott Blumstein (666th), and 2018 champion John Cynn (617th). Joe Hachem had his bluff picked off by Christopher Storie’s pair of fours as the 2005 champ fell in 803rd, while Charles “Woody” Moore, fully dressed up as Santa Claus, ran into “The Grinch” Nathan Fair’s kings to bust in 678th.
The remaining 533 players return tomorrow at 11 a.m. local time for Day 5. The action picks up on Level 20 with blinds of 10,000/20,000 and a 20,000 big blind ante. Everyone who remains has each locked up $32,500, with the next pay jump to $35,000 coming at 476th place. The plan is to play five more 120-minute levels tomorrow.
Stay tuned as PokerNews returns tomorrow to follow all the action and provide live updates from Day 5 of the 2026 WSOP Main Event.
