Erik Seidel came within one hand of poker history, and a recreational player named Joshua Wang stood directly in the way. Wang defeated the ten-time bracelet winner heads up to capture the 2026 WSOP $3,000 6-Handed Pot-Limit Omaha, Event #96, for $407,137, denying Seidel a chance to tie Phil Ivey for the second-most bracelets ever won.
A Bracelet That Would Have Made History
Seidel already sits among the most decorated players in WSOP history with ten career bracelets, trailing only Phil Hellmuth’s record haul. An eleventh win in Event #96 would have pulled him level with Phil Ivey for outright second place on the all-time list, a milestone that would have generated headlines well beyond the usual tournament-reporting circuit. Instead, Wang closed the door on that storyline, keeping Seidel at ten bracelets and setting up a final outcome that surprised plenty of railbirds who had shown up specifically to watch a piece of poker history unfold.
A Recreational Player Who Ran the Table
What made Wang’s win especially notable was how thoroughly he controlled the final table before he ever got to Seidel. A recreational player originally from China who now lives in the United States, Wang accounted for four of the five eliminations at the official final table, meaning he was directly responsible for nearly every player who fell before heads-up play began. That kind of final table domination is unusual for a self-described recreational player going up against a lineup that included one of the game’s most respected names, and it left Wang with a significant chip advantage heading into the last confrontation of the tournament.
The Final Hand
The title came down to a single decisive hand between Wang and Seidel. Seidel got the last of his chips in with a flopped straight, a hand that would be strong enough to win the vast majority of pots in Pot-Limit Omaha. Wang, however, had flopped a set to go with a flush draw, giving him extra outs to improve even if the straight held through the turn. It did not. Wang’s board improved to a full house, sealing the pot and the bracelet in one final swing of the community cards. In a game built around big draws and multi-way equity swings, the hand was a fitting way to close out a tournament that had already produced one of the more dramatic near-misses of the summer.
Why Pot-Limit Omaha Rewards This Kind of Result
Six-handed Pot-Limit Omaha events tend to produce exactly this sort of variance-heavy final table. With four cards instead of two, players routinely arrive at the river with strong made hands and legitimate draws in the same pot, which is part of why a flopped straight can lose to a set-plus-flush-draw combination even when both hands look monstrous on the flop. The format rewards players who are comfortable getting value in from big holdings and applying pressure with live equity, both skills that translate well regardless of whether a player identifies as a grinder or, like Wang, a recreational entrant. For newer players trying to understand why hand strength in PLO plays so differently from hold’em, Poker Pro Academy’s poker hand rankings guide is a good starting point before jumping into a four-card format.
Seidel’s Chase for the Record Continues
Seidel’s ten bracelets already span more than three decades of WSOP history, dating back to his first win in 1992, which means the pursuit of an eleventh has been a running storyline through generations of poker fans. That kind of longevity is part of why his deep runs still draw a crowd even in an era when the WSOP schedule features dozens of bracelet events every summer, most of them contested by fields with little name recognition outside the hardcore tournament community. A near-miss like Event #96 tends to generate more discussion than a quiet min-cash precisely because of how close the milestone was, decided by a single river card rather than a lopsided elimination.
What It Means for the Rest of the Summer
For Seidel, the runner-up finish adds another deep result to an already historic résumé, even if the bracelet count stays parked at ten for now. He remains one of the most active and respected players on the tournament circuit, and few would bet against him getting another crack at that milestone in a future series. For Wang, the win instantly becomes the signature result of his poker career, a $407,137 score built on a final table where he eliminated the majority of the field himself before closing out one of the more talked-about heads-up battles of the 2026 WSOP. The result is a reminder that in Pot-Limit Omaha, even a legend chasing a milestone can run into a hot hand at exactly the wrong moment.
