WSOP Main Event Finalist Braxton Dunaway Survives ‘Roller Coaster’ for Second Bracelet

While the $1,500 Monster Stack at the 2026 World Series of Poker (WSOP) was reaching its final stages inside Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas, its 2023 champion, Braxton Dunaway, was busy chasing a second WSOP bracelet in Event #26: $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em.

Dunaway entered Day 3 third in chips with just 12 players remaining from a field of 968 entries, which generated a prize pool of $1,723,040. After a day he later described as “a roller coaster,” the American navigated his way through the field and defeated Erwann Pecheux in a relatively short heads-up match to capture his second WSOP gold bracelet and the $288,064 top prize.

For Pecheux, the result marked another near miss. The Frenchman fell one spot short of his first bracelet, matching his runner-up finish from 2015, but still earned $191,997 for his deep run.

Event #26: $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em final table results

“I’m Gonna Play More Now”

If winning a WSOP bracelet can change a life, winning a second one clearly brings a player to another level. “It’s validation to your peers and to yourself that you can finish. Again,” Dunaway told PokerNews just a few minutes after his win.

The road to success, however, was far from easy, with a rather difficult final table according to most of the finalists. Still, Dunaway made his way to first place. “It was a roller coaster for a little bit, and you have to run good,” he said. And run good he did, even during heads-up play, which was only his way. “When you have some momentum, you try to build on that. It was just fun,” he added.

This second bracelet adds to an impressive resume, that includes finishing third in last year’s WSOP Main Event for $4,000,000. Which was a performance which changed a bit of people’s perception of him. “It’s a lot less money,” he joked at first. “Beyond that, the Main Event was ten days of play, this is three days. I definitely think having these earnings, people click on your name. It can help or hurt you, but it gives you a little more respect. They know that you can play,” he explained.

Now, the summer is still long to chase bracelet number three and run deep in the Main Event again. “Definitely! I need back-to-back final tables! I’m excited, I’m gonna play more now. We’re gonna go home now for a couple days, come back, and be ready to play this weekend.”

Final Day Action

With three players remaining, France had the second-largest contingent among the 12 contenders at the restart. “Almost thirteen years ago, I was down to the final 12 of a WSOP Europe €2,000 event with Erwann [Pecheux] as well,” noted Flavien Guenan. Back then, he finished in 11th place. Unfortunately, history repeated itself this week, as he lost a flip shortly after the start of the day and bowed out in 12th place. “No regrets,” he said on his way out.

Moments later, Craig Mason was next to hit the rail after running into pocket kings, reducing the field to ten players who gathered around the final table.

While some players expected the pace to slow at that point, the exact opposite happened as fireworks erupted from the very first hands. Brandon Mueller, holding pocket tens, and Ivan Poroliev, with pocket kings, both moved all in but ran into Pecheux’s pocket aces. Pecheux scored a double elimination and extended his chip lead even further.

Fellow Frenchman Sami Bechahed then lost a big pot to Albert Calderon’s aces before going all in with king-queen. Dunaway woke up with ace-nine, and the Frenchman was sent to the rail in eighth place for $29,600.

The pace eventually slowed following that elimination and remained relatively quiet until the first break of the day. It took another level before the next all-in and call situation arose. Briant Alavez with pocket kings and Ioannis Kapnopoulos with ace-ten got their stacks in the middle with nearly identical chip counts, and Alavez secured a double-up.

Kapnopoulos initially thought he had been eliminated, but a count revealed he still had 55,000 chips behind, forcing him to return to the table. Back to his seat, he managed to come back briefly, doubling up three times to climb back above the one-million-chip mark. But his improbable run finally came to an end when he moved all in for a fourth straight time and was eliminated in seventh place.

After another break, Calderon eventually jammed with king-seven and paired his seven on the flop against Dunaway’s ace-five. However, the 2025 WSOP Main Event finalist found runner-runner trips to score the elimination. Moments later, Kimon Fountoukidis ran his queen-ten into Dunaway’s ace-queen and was sent to the rail in fifth place. With back-to-back knockouts, Dunaway overtook Pecheux to claim a slight chip lead.

Dunaway extended his lead over the following hands but soon faced resistance when Alavez hit two pair on the river and made the call for his tournament life, doubling through him. It was then Peretz’s turn to double up after catching a fortunate river, bringing all four remaining players to relatively even stacks by the next break.

Play resumed after the break and Dunaway won a crucial coin flip, leaving Alavez on fumes. Down to just 15,000 chips, Alavez refused to go quietly and came back to 965,000 before ultimately being eliminated by Dunaway.

With three players remaining, Peretz looked set for a double-up after flopping two pair in a three-bet pot and jamming the turn. Unfortunately for him, Pecheux had flopped a set of aces and made the call. The cooler sent Peretz to the rail and handed Pecheux a 2:1 chip lead going into heads-up play.

Dunaway closed the gap in the very first hands of the last duel, and kept extending it thanks to lucky runouts until all the chips went into the middle. The first opportunity was the good one and he was crowned as a 2026 WSOP bracelet winner.