The World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event is a test of endurance and mental toughness in addition to No-Limit Hold’em skills. Opening flights attracted hundreds, sometimes thousands of entrants. Each of those flights and their subsequent days sees players grind for 10 long hours, with only scheduled breaks punctuating those five 120-minute levels. Players can feel like Bill Murray trapped in Groundhog Day.
Gagliano Finally Happy
Michael “Gags30” Gagliano, a BetMGM Ambassador, knows all about the tournament grind. His first recorded live cash came in June 2008 in a $550 buy-in event at the Heartland Poker Tour Verona festival. Eighteen years later, Gagliano’s Hendon Mob profile shows 155 in-the-money finishes, $3.3 million in cashes, and four WSOP bracelets.
Actually, his profile shows a trio of bracelets, but one of Gagliano’s online victories seems to have disappeared into the ether.
Gagliano has previously cashed in the WSOP Main Event twice. In 2016, he finished 842nd out of 6,737 entrants for a score of $16,007. He then finished 148th from a 9,735-strong field in the 2025 WSOP. Something finally clicked this year, and he navigated to the Main Event’s final table.
Speaking to PokerNews shortly after bagging up 46,500,000 chips, enough for fifth place at the restart, Gagliano likened the WSOP Main Event grind to Groundhog Day but also said he was finally happy now he’d reached the final table.
“I’ve been saying for many days that it feels like Groundhog Day. Like, the more people that bust, it just feels like the number just doesn’t go down. And my friend asked me, I think there were like 100 or 80 people left. ‘When are you going to be happy?’ And I said, well, when there’s nine left. I feel like it’s finally done.”
Good Karma Helps Out Gagliano
While working out his summer schedule, Gagliano decided to help his fellow poker players by creating the Summer Poker Calendar, an Android and iOS app. Players can download the app for free and discover information, including structures, for every Las Vegas-based poker tournament happening throughout the series.
Gagliano decided earlier this summer to help the community by creating the Summer Poker Calendar, a free mobile app that provides information on every tournament happening throughout Las Vegas during the series.
Don’t worry if you missed the chance to use Gagliano’s app because it will make a return next summer.
Whether you believe in karma or not, going out of your way to help your fellow poker players for free can’t do you any harm. If anything, it shows just the kind of person that Gagliano is.
The popular grinder took to the social media platform X to thank everyone for his support. He revealed that although he is going all out to win the $10 million top prize, he’ll be happy for whoever is crowned world champion if it isn’t him.
Michael Gagliano’s 2026 WSOP Main Event
Day 1b was when Gagliano exchanged $10,000 for 60,000 chips and the chance to become poker’s world champion. The New Jersey native enjoyed a fruitful day at the felt, bagging 93,000 chips at the close of play, placing him 250th from 759 entrants.
Gagliano returned to the action with 1,259 others on Day 2abc. He added to his stack, bagging and tagging 135,000 chips, which placed him in the middle of the chip counts.
Day 3 went swimmingly for the eventual finalists, turning his 135,000 chips into 736,000 and placing in the top 15% of the chip counts. However, Day 4 saw Gagliano’s stack reduced to 300,000 chips, leaving him on the wrong side of the chip counts, with only 12 big blinds going into Day 5.
Good karma, good play, or a mixture of the two resulted in Gagliano soaring up the Day 5 leaderboard. He flew under the radar on his way to finishing with 5,215,000 chips, putting him 29th from the 174 survivors.
A chunk of his final table stack used to belong to Shaun Deeb. During Level 36 on Day 8, Deeb min-raised to 1,600,000 with A♣J♠ and called when Gagliano three-bet all-in with 10♠10♥ for 13,800,000. The tens held, Gagliano doubled to 29.2 million, and Deeb’s stack was cut in half.
Gagliano claimed the chip lead when his pocket kings held against Hossein Ensan‘s ace-queen to send the 2019 WSOP Main Event champion to the rail in 13th. He then broke through the 100 million chip mark by sending Antonio Galiana to the payout desk to collect 12th place prize money.
During Level 38, Gagliano clashed with Greg Mueller, with Mueller all-in with pocket queens against his ace-king. A ten-high board kept Mueller’s queens good, and Gagliano handed over 26.5 million of his chips.
When time was called after Malcolm Trayner bowed out in 10th, Gagliano had 46,500,000 chips.
| Day | Chip Count | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1b | 93,000 | 250/759 |
| 2abc | 135,000 | 683/1,260 |
| 3 | 736,000 | 189/1,389 |
| 4 | 300,000 | 489/533 |
| 5 | 5,215,000 | 29/174 |
| 6 | 11,675,000 | 19/62 |
| 7 | 19,300,000 | 14/21 |
| 8 | 46,500,000 | 5/9 |
2026 WSOP Main Event Final Table Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lucas Jumalon | United States | 194,000,000 | 129 |
| 2 | Rami Hammoud | Canada | 79,000,000 | 53 |
| 3 | Jamie Shaevel | United States | 56,000,000 | 37 |
| 4 | Greg Mueller | Canada | 48,500,000 | 32 |
| 5 | Michael Gagliano | United States | 46,500,000 | 31 |
| 6 | Mario Boos | France | 44,000,000 | 29 |
| 7 | Lauri Saaskilahti | Finland | 37,500,000 | 25 |
| 8 | Han Feng | United States | 25,000,000 | 17 |
| 9 | Evagoras Evagorou | Cyprus | 22,500,000 | 15 |
Remaining Payouts
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $10,000,000 | ||
| 2 | $6,000,000 | ||
| 3 | $3,750,000 | ||
| 4 | $2,750,000 | ||
| 5 | $2,250,000 | ||
| 6 | $1,750,000 | ||
| 7 | $1,500,000 | ||
| 8 | $1,250,000 | ||
| 9 | $1,000,000 |
Matthew Pitt
Senior Editor