A poker player didn’t mean to jam into pocket aces on the last day of the 2026 World Series of Poker (WSOP), but he sure is glad he did.
Ole Askeland, a Norwegian player with just $91,000 in prior live tournament cashes recorded by The Hendon Mob, had a bit of a misclick fairly deep in the $5,000 8-Handed No-Limit Hold’em tournament, the 99th bracelet event of the summer. That misclick could end up paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars. The winner in this event, which started on Tuesday with 884 runners, will pay its champion $695,296.
At the time of publishing, the tournament was down to under 30 players, and Askeland was among the chip leaders, thanks mostly to an accident.
Askeland’s Misclick Pays Off
As written by PokerNews live reporter Frank Visser, Victor Li had open-raised in middle position, after which the action folded to Askeland in the small blind. Not having seen Li’s raise, Askeland then announced an all-in bet, intending to pressure the big blind.
The big blind did fold, but Li snap-called, covering Askeland’s stack of 1,575,000, approximately 40 big blinds. Askeland had the trusty old Q♣6♥ and was in horrendous shape against his opponent’s A♠A♣.
At the time, the hand was for the chip lead deep in the tournament, and Askeland needed a miracle, which he would get when the flop came Q♥K♣6♣, and then left Li drawing to two outs after the Q♠ gave him a full house on the turn. The river 10♦ finished off the bad beat, and left Li down to just nine big blinds.
To make matters worse for Li, this tournament was looking like the perfect summer saver. Per his tweet, he was in for 50 bullets and recorded just three cashes this summer. But not every bad beat story ends in defeat. Li battled back quickly and, at the time of publishing, had rebuilt his stack to nearly 50 big blinds. As for Askeland, he was still on a heater and in the chip lead with around 100 big blinds.
Phil Hellmuth, David Peters, and Nicholas Palma were among those still standing. A champion will be crowned before the day comes to an end.
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