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Izzy Einsidler survived a three-way all-in cooler at the Potomac Summer Poker Open in Maryland when his pocket aces held against Henry Black’s kings and George Karmires’ queens in the $400 40/40 event.

PokerNews said the hand started with Black opening to 2,000 from the hijack at blinds of 500/1,000/1,000. Einsidler, identified as a Virginia grinder with $25,491, three-bet to 6,500 on the button, Karmires shoved from the small blind, and Black re-jammed. Once the action was capped, Einsidler was not going anywhere with pocket rockets.

The board ran A♦ 3♣ J♣, which immediately gave Einsidler a set. The 7♣ turn gave Black a flush draw, but the 2♥ river was safe and locked up a triple up for Einsidler. Karmires stood up and put on his backpack before the runout, then was eliminated shortly after the hand. Einsidler later said, “If a club would’ve come on the river, it would’ve ruined my day.”

The cooler came in a two-day $400 no-limit hold’em event with a $40,000 guarantee. At dinner break, the field had reached 197 players and the prize pool had climbed to $65,010, well past the guarantee. As covered in our earlier Potomac report on the Super Seniors event, the series had already produced a nine-way chop before this hand.

The broader Potomac Summer Poker Open runs August 5-17 at MGM National Harbor and is listed there as a 13-day series with more than $1.5 million in guaranteed prizes across 23 trophy events. Elsewhere in the room, the $3,000 Main Event had reached its final two tables.

The Arizona State Poker Championship added 1,114 entries in Day 1c at Talking Stick Resort, bringing the 2026 event to 2,881 total entries and 346 Day 2 bags. The penultimate starting flight sent 134 more players through, leaving just the final flight before Monday’s Day 2 restart.

As reported on Aug. 15, the event had sat at 1,767 entries through the first two flights, with 212 players already bagged and Gregory Brown leading the way. According to PokerNews, all 69 tables in the Arena Poker Room were dedicated to the tournament for about five hours, and the field was playing for a prize pool described as nearly $3 million with one flight still to come.

Day 1c ended with 11:18 remaining in Level 17 at blinds of 5,000/10,000. Day 2 was set to reset to 5:40 remaining in Level 16 at 4,000/8,000 unless the final flight finished faster.

Jacob McDonald finished with 1,150,000 chips, Hunter Campbell bagged 1,116,000, and Pedro Salomao and Deepa Shah each advanced with 1,041,000. Jeremy Becker also cracked the top ten with 681,000.

The bubble burst when 136 players remained and 134 were set to advance, after Eric Bunch ran his pair of nines into aces. Bunch had already bagged 50,000 in the previous flight, while Shah crossed seven figures during the stone-bubble stretch.

John Ciccarelli also picked up a big pot when his rivered set of queens beat Danny Noam. Matthew Blagg later took out Andrew Ostapchenko with aces, leaving the field at 150 players and 16 spots from the money at that point.

SCCG’s recap of the 2026 Main Event ratings said the heads-up finale between Lucas Jumalon and Lauri Saaskilahti drew 593,000 viewers for the $10 million first prize and bracelet. The seven-handed ESPN session pulled 451,000, while the first final-table block on ESPN2 did not rank among the cable night’s top 100, so Nielsen did not post a figure.

As covered in July, early reporting from PokerStrategy put the first ESPN2 episodes at 173,000 and 186,000 viewers. The return to ESPN was the first since COVID, and the three-week gap between Day 8 and the live final table was meant to build player storylines before the finish.

Those numbers have to be read against a much smaller legacy TV market. It cited Pew Research Center in saying cable subscriptions are down 40% since the 2010s, and that only 32% to 36% of U.S. households still have traditional cable or satellite service. It also pointed to the shift toward streaming platforms such as YouTube TV, Netflix and Hulu.

That shift shows up in how the WSOP is being watched. Daily final-table highlight videos on YouTube picked up nearly 1 million views, and clips of hands and interviews circulated widely on social media. Younger viewers in particular favor short clips over full broadcasts, and operators should put more weight on short-form digital content and live event execution than on legacy broadcast metrics. The 2026 Main Event field topped 9,200 players, the fourth-largest turnout on record.

Fred X. Hoban picked up a second Potomac Summer Poker Open score, winning the $300 Double Board Bomb Pot PLO for $4,908 after beating Boyi Cui heads-up. The event drew 90 runners and built a $21,600 prize pool, more than doubling its $10,000 guarantee. Cui took second for $4,111.

PokerNews described the latest result as Hoban’s second event of the series, and this one came in a bomb pot format. In bomb pots, every player puts chips in before the hand starts, and betting does not begin until after the flop.

Patrick Martorella finished third for $3,294, while Brandon Frazier was fourth for $2,162. Robert Kalteux and Lorenzo Cuison also cashed.

The format fits Pot-Limit Omaha well, since bomb pots are particularly popular in PLO.

Nicholas Persian won the $500 Freezeout at the Potomac Summer Poker Open for $8,445. He got through a 55-runner field and beat Robert Crawford heads-up in an event that produced a $22,825 prize pool.

The tournament used an early 9 a.m. start. According to PokerNews, Crawford finished second for $5,022, Aldo Frascoia took third for $3,081, Matthew Portnoy placed fourth for $2,168, and Tucker Battle finished fifth for $1,712.

Battle’s cash was notable because he was identified on the final table as the winner of the $400 Double Stack NLH event.

The Potomac Summer Poker Open runs for 13 days, from August 5-17, with a 23-event schedule and more than $1.5 million in guaranteed prize pools, powered by BetMGM Poker. The lineup includes a $600 NLH Opener with a $500,000 guarantee, a $500 Monumental Stacks event with a $100,000 guarantee, and a $3,000 Main Event with a $750,000 guarantee.