Frank Koopman Wins First WSOP Bracelet of 2026 as Shaun Deeb Falls Short

The first winner of the 15 bracelet events in the 2026 WSOP Europe series is the German player Frank Koopman, who beat the reigning 2025 WSOP Player of the Year Shaun Deeb heads-up to claim a top prize of $142,750. Others such as Benny Glaser cashed in Event #2 but went even harder in Event #1, which had over 2,000 entries as the new Spring version of the WSOP Europe got going with bumper fields.

Frank Koopman Claims First Bracelet of 2026

The German player Frank Koopman won the first bracelet of the WSOP Europe series, winning Event #2 for $142,750 after he beat the eight-time WSOP bracelet winner Shaun Deeb heads-up. The American Deeb, who pipped Britain’s Benny Glaser to the WSOP Player of the Year title at the end of WSOP in Las Vegas in the summer of 2025, won $94,250 as runner-up.

Many well-known players made it into the money places in the event #2, with the current world champion, Michael Mizrachi, finishing 24^th for $7,535. Lithuanian Vladas Tamasauskas (22^nd) and Benny Glaser (21^st) both cashed for the same amount, while Chinese player Yueqi Zhu started like a train but eventually came off the rails in 15^th place for $8,700, the same amount won by WSOP Main Event and Squid Game: The Challenge runner-up Steven Jones in 12^th place.

At the final table, the 2020 WSOP Online Main Event winner, Bulgarian Stoyan Madanzhiev finished ninth for $11,750 before the 2019 Main Event runner-up Dario Sammartino came sixth for $23,800. Heads-up, Deeb was hoping to win his ninth WSOP bracelet, which would have put him just one title behind legends like the late, great Doyle Brunson and the 1987 and 1988 world champion Johnny Chan. Sadly for Deeb and his ‘Team Lucky’ co-members such as fellow attendee Josh Arieh, he was unable to do so as the German player Frank Koopman bagged his first-ever WSOP bracelet and the top prize of $142,750.

Glaser Going for Glory in The Opener

Event #1 of the 2026 WSOP Europe series was The Opener, a €1,100 ($1,266) No Limit Hold’em event which saw over 2,000 entries across four starting flights. With a total of 2,195 entries in the books as Day 1cd wound to a close, some big players were in the remaining 118 players that advanced to Day 2.

The prize pool currently stands at a massive $1,263,600 with survivors from Day 1ab of The Opener including the overall chip leader Pedro Cassar (1.66m), former WSOP bracelet winners Jinho Hong (701,000) and Yulian Kolev (578,000), along with German poker pro Manig Loeser (533,000) and to-ranked female player so far Tracy Nguyen on 424,000 chips.

In Day 1cd, Julien Stropoli (1.60m) led the surviving field but the reigning WSOP Main Event and Poker Players Championship winner of 2025, Michael Mizrachi (881,000), will be hopeful of winning his first bracelet as a Poker Hall of Famer. Czech blabbermouth and five-time WSOP champion Martin Kabrhel (974,000) was followed in the counts by the eight-time bracelet winner Benny Glaser on 651,000 chips as he bids to overcome Shaun Deeb, the only man to finish above him in last year’s WSOP Player of the Year race.

Phil Hellmuth in Prague for Main Event

The 17-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth is heading to Prague to take part in the €5,300 ($6,100) WSOP Europe Main Event. Sitting as Event #5 on the 15-tournament schedule, the event has a massive $10,000,000 guarantee and will create headlines around the world.

The Hilton Atrium will be the venue in Prague as the big one kicks off on April 3, with stars such as Lexy Gavin-Mather, Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom confirming their attendance along with The Poker Brat. Hellmuth is the only player ever to win the WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas and Europe, but there are enough winners of the Las Vegas world championship in attendance to seriously threaten that unique record if Hellmuth can’t claim victory.

Also taking place this weekend is the €565 ($650) buy-in Colossus NLHE event. With thousands of players taking on the same tournament in Las Vegas every summer, we think this could be the biggest field of the WSOP Europe schedule in 2026. Also taking place from April 3 is the $650-entry ‘PLOSSUS’ Event #4, which aims to give Pot Limit Omaha players the same level of excitement that their No Limit counterparts will enjoy in Event #3.

With a packed schedule of events on the horizon, the next few days in Prague will determine just how wise the decision was from the World Series of Poker to move the previously Autumnal series to the Spring and clash it with the Irish Open, which is currently taking place in Dublin.