The World Series of Poker Europe festival has started in Prague and the opening events have seen thousands of players descend on the Prague Hilton in the Czech Republic in an attempt to win gold. In the €1,100 Opener in No Limit hold’em, 2,195 players have taken to the felt on Days 1a,b,c, and d, while the €3,300 PLO Mixed Event saw 181 entries. Frank Koopman ended up the winner but there were big moves in the WSOP Player of the Year race, with Shaun Deeb and our own Benny Glaser both cashing.

Bumper Field in Opening Event

Across four starting flights, The Opener, a €1,100 NLHE event, has seen a huge number of entries. A total of 2,195 entries are in the field so far, with Day 1c and Day 1d winding down to a close. With just 15 bracelet events, there is no time for anything other than a massive, full and open event to kick off proceedings, so no Casino Employees Event is on the schedule. It’s straight into open poker warfare and the battling has been hard so far.

Day 1ab of The Opener saw 58 players survive the field, including such luminaries as the overnight chip leader Pedro Cassar (1.66m), the former WSOP bracelet winner Jinho Hong (701,000) and Yulian Kolev (578,000) in the top ten. Crowd favorites such as Manig Loeser (533,000) and Tracy Nguyen (424,000) both bagged above average stacks too.

Day 1c and Day 1d were even busier and across those two flights, more than double the survivors of Day 1ab were present and correct. Julien Stropoli led those flights at the close of play, but a little further back, true heavyweights of the international poker circuit sat waiting to overtake. The five-time WSOP champion Martin Kabrhel (974,000) will have been delighted at how he performed on home soil, while the reigning WSOP Main Event and Poker Players Championship winner Michael Mizrachi (881,000) are both well poised for success on Day 2 inside the top 10 chipcounts. British WSOP crusher and eight-time bracelet winner – and PokerStake player – Benny Glaser (651,000) ended the night in the top 20 and could make a very deep run given his vast experience as he bids to become WSOP Player of the Year.

Koopman the King as Deeb Denied Late

In Event #2, Benny Glaser made it to 21^st place for his first WSOP cash of the year but last year’s runner-up in the WSOP Player of the Year race will be hoping for victory in Event #1 because his conqueror in 2025, Shaun Deeb, already has a runner-up spot to his name. Plenty of big names cashed in Event #2, the €3,300 PLO Mixed event, including PokerStake player Vladas Tamasauskas, who finished 22^nd for the same score as Benny, that being €6,545. Michael Mizrachi came 24^th for the same amount, while the Chinese player Yueqi Zhu started like a train but eventually came off the rails in 15^th place for €7,560.

The former WSOP Main Event – and Squid Game! – runner-up Steven Jones came 12^th for the same amount before exits for the WSOP Online Main Event winner of 2020, Stoyan Madanzhiev (9^th for €10,208), another Main Event runner-up Dario Sammartino (6^th for €20,682) and Blaz Zerjav, who came third for €55,518.

Heads-up, it was a battle between the German player Frank Koopman and the eight-time WSOP bracelet winner Shaun Deeb. The reigning WSOP Player of the Year, who pipped Benny Glaser to the post just nine months ago, was the favorite in terms of experience but the chips didn’t care and Koopman got the job done to claim his first-ever WSOP bracelet and the first one of 2026, taking home the top prize of €123,879, with Deeb claiming €81,784 as runner-up.

Colossal Prize Pool in Next Events?

With Event #3 being the €565-entry Colossus NLHE event, the biggest field of the WSOP Europe series this Spring may well turn up to play at the Prague Hilton on April 2. Over the course of the next dozen days, the Hilton Atrium will be packed and perhaps never more so than in this value-entry event. Every years in Las Vegas, The Colossus is one of the best attended events and we’d expect it to be no different in the Czech Republic this week.

Over the next fortnight, players such as Shaun Deeb, Benny Glaser and Michael Mizrachi will continue to do battle at the felt for glory and gold, but who else is attending? Well, popular vlogger and PokerStake seller Lexy Gavin-Mather is already at the felt. Online and live poker legend Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom is taking to the tables and we await the first appearance of Phil Hellmuth. The record 17-time WSOP bracelet winner would love to get one bracelet closer to his vision of 24 victories ahead of the Las Vegas series and is making the trip to Europe for the first time in years.

Don’t forget, you can back some of the world’s best poker players during this year’s WSOP Europe festival. Simply head to our official tournament staking page where you’ll find every player who is selling action. You can head to our dedicated WSOP Europe 2026 page right here.

With a potentially record-setting WSOP Europe No-Limit Hold’em Main Event as Event #5 on the schedule and a €10,000,000 guaranteed prize pool, the WSOP Europe Main Event has smashed the record for the largest prize pool guarantee in European poker history.