On July 13 at the 2026 World Series of Poker Main Event, Australian poker pro Malcolm Trayner was eliminated in 10th place, leaving nine remaining players. The action paused, the nine posed for photos and handled media interviews before taking a 20-day break, with the final table set to resume Monday.
In the grand scheme of things, 20 days isn't a long time. It takes longer to film a full season of "Survivor." The Drake-Kendrick Lamar beef lasted longer. It's nearly enough time to watch Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey." For the nine players who made the final table of the 2026 World Series of Poker main event, it probably feels like a lifetime.
The 20-day break is in place, at least in part, to give poker fans an opportunity to get to know the players who made the final table before watching them play live on ESPN and ESPN2. It also presents each player the opportunity to rest, review and recover before returning to Las Vegas for a chance to win $10 million and the title of poker world champion.
Lucas Jumalon, a 22-year-old poker pro from Spokane, Washington, holds the lead with 194,000,000 chips. No player in the past 20 years has started the final table with a higher percentage of the chips in play. Jumalon's 35.08% edges out Koray Aldemir's 2021 lead (35.06%) and Hossein Ensan's 2019 stack (34.38%). Both Aldemir and Ensan went on to win those main events.
Jumalon returned home as quickly as possible with an eye to getting some rest, but things didn't exactly start out that way. "The first four or five days was just pure chaos and trying to catch up on sleep and messages and whatever," Jumalon said. "But the last week or so has been pretty tame and chill, and I've gotten to do some me stuff and feeling reenergized and ready to go get it done."
Greg Mueller, 55, the oldest of the final nine, spent his first week back in Canada golfing and catching up with his buddies from his hockey team. While some of his competition were focused on doing hand reviews and making potential strategic adjustments for the final table, Mueller instead was focused on getting his body right.
"It's such a grind that showing up without a sugar brain and having some rest and lifting weights and feeling stronger could be the difference of one decision," Mueller said. "I always say, when you're physically fitter, you're mentally fitter and you're just stronger as a person. I've just been eating pretty clean, drinking lots of water, getting lots of rest and exercising every day, at least once, sometimes twice."
Mueller isn't the only one hitting the gym or getting in some quality time with his friends and family. Han Feng, who has the second-shortest stack, is also combining study sessions with workouts.
Rather than head back to Finland, Lauri Saaskilahti spent the first week on a previously planned Disneyland vacation with his family. Once he wrapped up things with Mickey & Co., the 39-year-old started working on review and a plan of attack depending on how things could go.
From 2008 through 2016, the final nine players were given a nearly four-month break. It was common for the "November Nine," most of whom were in the biggest spot of their poker career, to hire coaches. Some went as far as creating live simulations where friends took on the personas of the other eight players and played through potential situations. In 2012, Jesse Sylvia was the chip leader and famously hired Vanessa Selbst, one of the most dominant and respected tournament players at the time.
"I'm of the mindset that you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't hire a coach, but I also think that you can be overcoached or you can do too much with that. So you have to be really careful," Sylvia said, acknowledging that the 20-day break is significantly different from the 102-day break he had. "It's possible that there are people who should not hire a coach because they get too gung-ho and they try to change up how they play. Obviously, improvements are really good. Trying to apply new concepts that you're not super comfortable with [is] really bad."
Michael Gagliano, who sits fifth in chips, brings a unique perspective to how he is approaching the break because he is a highly respected poker coach himself. A regular in the New Jersey online poker scene, Gagliano was asked by some of the younger Garden State grinders earlier this summer what he would do if he made the main event final table.
"'What would you study? Who would you work with?' And in the moment, I said I wouldn't do anything," Gagliano recalled. "I would just do my usual thing and just maybe brush up on some spots and go from there. So I guess I have to put my words to practice here. I probably am going to do slightly more than nothing."
Jumalon, who graduated from Grand Canyon University with a degree in business administration and minored in data analytics, has a different plan and isn't quite sure he's ready to believe Gagliano.
"I don't know if he was trying to throw people off the scent or whatever, but saying 'How much information can you really take in two weeks?'" Jumalon said. "I've done quite a bit of stuff and feel very prepared and very ready. I feel like I'm going to be able to stay mentally in it too."
"It's like the Mike Tyson quote, 'Everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth.' It's the same thing. You get there and someone starts playing differently than you expected or using different sizings [betting unexpected amounts on a hand] or whatever it is, and you just got to figure it out," Gagliano said.
With three bracelets already on his résumé, Mueller is going to be relying on the old school approach that got him here and subscribes to the "if it ain't broke" philosophy.
"I've always been a freelance poker player. I know the numbers, obviously, but I play off of feel, I play off of instincts. Why study my brains off now when it could arguably hurt me?" Mueller asked. "If you're revamping a golf swing, they always say you have to go down before you can go up. And right now I'm not looking to go down. Am I going to look at some things? Of course. I mean, I'm looking to win this thing."
Like an NFL offensive or defensive coordinator, each of the nine is doing film study, watching back the livestream to look for things in their own game to improve and potentially find some weaknesses in their opponents on which to pounce. Some will turn to GTO solvers, computer programs that can run through any hand or scenario and show the most optimal course of action. One thing the film review and the solver work can't replace, however, is experience, and Mueller believes that once the bright lights of the final table come on, he'll be more comfortable than the others.
"The fact that I've won a few bracelets and I've been doing this a while ... I think pressure's a big thing, and I'd like to think that the pressure's not going to get to me," Mueller said.
Sylvia, who finished second to Greg Merson in the 2012 WSOP main event and walked away with $5.3 million, was given all kinds of advice when he made his final table, but there was one morsel that he hopes each of this year's group will also consider.
"I got this advice and it was the best advice that I got: just enjoy it, man. You're going to be focused on the poker, and it's going to be a little scary, and you're going to have a lot of adrenaline pumping and stuff," Sylvia said. "Somebody made sure that I took a few minutes every now and then and just looked around and realized what was going on and just took it in and enjoyed it. It's a once in a lifetime experience."
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