Which Poker Power Couple Member Will Win the U.S. Poker Open Title?

Events #6 and #7 of the 2026 PGT U.S. Poker Open saw Brock Wilson and Alex Foxen respectively win the famous Golden Eagle trophies, while another big American poker star suffered the ignominy of losing three heads-up battles in seven events. The action was wild inside the PokerGO Studio at ARIA on the Las Vegas Strip.

Brock Wilson Wins Event #6 for $224,000

Event #6 on the 10-event schedule saw Brock Wilson win the top prize of $224,000 and his second trophy in six U.S. Poker Open events. The latest USPO event cost $10,000 to play and featured a total field of 80 entries to plough through, including some of the best No Limit Hold’em players in the world. It was the eventual winner Wilson who knocked out Kent Stephens on the money bubble when the at-risk player’s pocket nines couldn’t hold against the ace-king of Brock Wilson after a king on the turn put everyone else in profit.

Inside the money places, Cary Katz (12^th for $20,000), Nick Seward (9^th for $24,000) and Joao Simao (8^th for $32,000) all made profit while missing out on the final table. When the last seven players assembled at the final table, it was Brock Wilson who led them there. Quick exits for Darren Elias (7^th for $32,000) and Michael Berk (6^th for $40,000) were followed by a night’s sleep as the final five prepared for a showdown for the latest title in Las Vegas.

Returning to the action, Justin Vaysman departed in fifth for $56,000 when his pocket kings were cracked by Nick Schulman’s ace-eight of spades. A queen-high flop with two spades always looked worrying to Vaysman, and sure enough, another spade on the turn sent him home. After Clemen Deng busted in fourth for $76,000, Jeremy Becker was the next to go, despite previously cracking pocket aces with pocket eights. ‘JBex’ eventually bowed out with king-four, bluffing into Nick Schulman, who not only made an incredible hero-call with just third pair but also called Becker’s exact hand during the process.

Schulman had reached the heads-up stage but that call wasn’t enough to bag him that many chips and he went into the final duel with just 20% of the chips in play.  Brock Wilson had the nous to go with his superiority in chip terms and when a board of Q-Q-T-J-6 played out, Schulman’s shove with jack-eight was doomed, as Wilson called with king-queen for flopped trips, earning himself $224,000 and the title.

Alex Foxen Wins Event #7 for $210,000

“Wow, wouldn’t it be cool if I still win this tournament after losing all these all-ins?”

The next event had slightly fewer entries with a total field of 70 but once again, a lucrative top prize was on offer. This time, Alex Foxen claimed the $210,000 up top, with the PokerGO founder Cary Katz unfortunate to bust just outside the money when his set sevens on the turn was usurped by Foxen’s own king-ten when the eventual winner’s two pair turned into a full house on the river.

With the bubble bursting, everyone still in seats were in the money and that meant cashes for serial PGT winner Chino Rheem (10^th for $21,000) and the WSOP bracelet winner Shannon Shorr (8^th for $28,000). As the final seven were set, Alex Foxen led the other half-dozen players by a chunk, and when six returned for the final day’s action, Foxen had an awesome stack worth 55% of the chips in play.

Legends of the felt such as Aram Zobian (4^th for $70,000) and Qinghai Pan (3^rd for $94,500) both busted before Foxen took on the perennial PGT threat Jeremy Ausmus, the 2025 $1m Freeroll Championship winner. Foxen went into the heads-up battle with a 4:1 chip lead and never relinquished it, eventually calling off with two-pair after a gutsy but ill-timed bluff by Ausmus on the river.

After the win, Foxen revealed that, aside from the “normal routine of health and fitness stuff” his mindset was key after losing a series of all-ins earlier in the event.

“You could look at losing a bunch of all-ins in a row as ‘poor me’ or you could think of it like ‘Wow, wouldn’t it be cool if I still win this tournament after losing all these all-ins?’” he said. “I try to do that as much as I can with everything in life, but it translates really well to poker.”

It certainly did, as Foxen won his 13^th PokerGO Tour title in style.

Who is Most Likely to Win After Simao’s Victory in Event #8?

The chasing pack behind poker’s powerhouse couples were boiled down to a slim number on Monday night as Joao Simao, Aram Zobian and Shannon Shorr were among the finalists. For Zobian, it was the second straight night he made the final table, and while he busted in fifth place for $68,625, he remains one of the most credible threats to the current leaderboard crusher Brock Wilson. That’s because Zobian has also reached the final table of Event #9 for three in a row.

In Event #8, there were a whopping 61 entries, each paying $15,000 – an increased buy-in from the previous events – to play. That meant a prize pool of over $912,000 and a top prize of $292,800, the biggest of the 2026 U.S. Poker Open so far. At the final table, the presence of an outsider who had rarely played in PokerGO Tour events before, businessman Zach Bruch, foxed everybody, as the rookie finished ahead of the luckless Dylan Linde (4^th for $91,500) and Justin Zaki (3r for $128,100). Heads-up, Bruch had a huge task to overcome Simao, and starting as the underdog couldn’t manage it despite an early double-up.

In the final hand, Simao’s king-jack got the better of Bruch’s jack-ten, a king coming on the flop to eventually lead to the Brazilian banking the top prize. Bruch earned a very respectable $183,000 as runner-up and Simao said afterwards that it wasn’t as easy as people might have imagined.

“My journey was a very tough [on] Day 1. [I never had] more than three stacks, always a very short stack. Eventually, the night came and I tried to win a lot of pots. Preflop, postflop and [it was] a very smooth final table as well.”

Simao complimented his heads-up opponent who he nickname ‘Zach Attack’ on a tough battle not just in the final two but throughout the tournament.

“He’s a very tough guy to play against,” Simao told reporters. “He always put us in hard spots with very high variance, big pots.”

In the end, Simao’s win puts him in fifth place overall in the race to win the $25,000 PGT Passport and Golden Eagle reserved for the series winner. The Brazilian’s 266 PGT Points in this series are still some way short of the 495 that Brock Wilson has, with his partner Cherish Andrews on 282 points. Jeremy Ausmus (399) and Clemend Deng (284) sit between that pair, with Alex (245) and Kristen Foxen (219) still in with a shot.