Drunken Player Ejected from WSOP Europe Event in Prague Meltdown

Drinking during a poker game is ill-advised at your local casino. But down to the last four tables of a WSOP Europe bracelet event, you want to have a clear head. Not the Norwegian player Birger Larsen. He made the fatal mistake in poker terms of allegedly getting himself just a little too loose to make the right play, losing his composure at a key moment of the 2026 PLO European Championship in Prague.

Which Event was Birger Larsen Playing In?

The World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) is hosting 15 bracelet events this Spring in the Czech capital city of Prague. With the series already deep underway, the latest event was the ninth to take place. Costing €5,300 to play, the PLO European Championship had a prize pool of over a million dollars and a top prize the equivalent of $461,700.

Just 57 players reached the money, and among them was Nick ‘Nicky P’ Palma. He scraped into profit for a min-cash of €10,000 in controversial fashion after he got a walk in the blinds when super short-stacked. Not that it was Nicky’s fault, as he commented to the table when he let them know that he’d just survived “A whole orbit”.

Once the money bubble burst, Palma’s elimination was one of many, with bracelet winners Manig Loeser (55^th for €10,000), Yueqi Zhu (52^nd for €10,000), Davidi Kitai (48^th for €10,000), Patrick Leonard (39^th for €11,500), Dennis Weiss (35^th for €11,500) and Matthew Wantman (31^st for €13,000) all busting. That left 30 players still in the hunt for glory, but one of them as about to lost his stack without putting his chips over the line.

What Did Larsen Do to Get Disqualified from the Event?

With 30 players left, the Norwegian player Birger Larsen, who has over $800,000 in live tournament earnings via The Hendon Mob, got himself into a situation. Short-stacked, he doubled up in one hand moments after being accused of drunken behavior by one of his tablemates. Given a one orbit penalty, Larsen was not happy, and continued to berate one opponent in particular, accusing him of causing the situation.

As the tournament staff attempted to reconcile the players and calm Larsen down, he continued, leading to the threat of elimination. At one point, he was seen slapping an arm of an official away from him, which led to his immediate disqualification.

Gone was the chance at that lucrative top prize of over $460,000 and a gold WSOP bracelet. Instead, it was just €13,000 that Larsen could cash at the cage, as he was escorted from the property.  With Larsen’s chips were removed from the tournament, his disqualification meant there were just 29 players in contention rather than 30.

Here’s Larsen’s tempestuous tirade in full:

Who is Birger Larsen?

The Norwegian player at the center of the disqualification, Birger Larsen, is not a household name in poker, but has certainly met with success. Winning $808,736 before his 30^th place finish, Larsen’s biggest cash by far happened almost two years ago in Kyrenia, Northern Cyprus, where he won $225,000 by coming fifth in a Mediterranean Poker Party event.

A well-travelled player, Larsen’s adventures have taken him to Brazil and Uruguay in 2026 alone, where he has cashed more than a dozen times. This latest result was his second cash of the 2026 WSOP Europe after he came 111^th in the Turbo Bounty event won earlier this week the Bulgarian player Fahredin Mustafov.

Despite his success already in 2026, Larsen’s ‘self-elimination’ from the PLO European Championship represents a big opportunity lost. Short he may have been in the tournament, but all four of his previous ranking titles came in PLO (Pot Limit Omaha) events, one of them being in the 2024 WSOP Circuit event in Paris.

Birger Larsen just ruled himself out of the chance to add a bracelet to that ring in the prestigious PLO European Championship but thus far, the WSOP haven’t commented on his possible readmittance to the remaining tournaments this series in Prague. Hopefully this is just a bump in the road rather than a stop sign for the talented four-card game player.