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Pablo Costorda took the lead in the San Diego Poker Classic $600 Main Event after Day 1b at Jamul Casino Resort, finishing with 699,000 chips. That is also the biggest stack in the tournament through the first two starting flights.

According to PokerNews, the fifth annual San Diego Poker Classic Main Event is playing out at Jamul Casino Resort with a $100,000 guarantee and the SDPC trophy on the line. Day 1b drew 105 entries and sent 13 players through, while Day 1a brought in 91 entries and advanced 11. Across the opening two flights, 24 players have already moved on.

The event has four starting flights. Day 1c is set for 11 a.m. local time, and Day 1d follows at 6 p.m. later on Aug. 8.

The format gives players a 30,000-chip starting stack. Day 1 blind levels run 30 minutes, then increase to 40 minutes on Day 2, with 15-minute breaks every four levels on Day 1, a 10-minute break after Level 14, and breaks after every three levels on Day 2. Registration closes at the start of Level 9, and players may re-enter without limit and play all Day 1 flights.

Matthew Gawel finished second on Day 1b with 219,000, and Ricky Barraza was third with 151,000. Gawel has already won three titles at Jamul Casino Resort, but he has not yet captured a San Diego Poker Classic trophy, while Barraza is still looking for his first Jamul title and has nearly $85,000 in live earnings from cashes dating back to 2016.

Last year, Sebastian Acevedo won the Main Event from a field of 375 entries and took $33,216 after an ICM chop with James Kozono and David Fernandez Sanchez. The report says the race is still open to become the first two-time Main Event champion in SDPC history. Through two flights, Costorda is the player everyone else has to catch.

APT Incheon 2026 opened with the Korea National Cup, which drew a record 709 entries from 28 nations and generated KRW 409,459,411. Tomoya Tsubouchi won the title over the record-breaking field at Paradise City Casino Resort in Incheon, more than doubling the KRW 200,000,000 guarantee and surpassing the event’s 2025 edition in both entries and prize pool.

The field included 451 unique players, and 101 returned for Final Day after the three opening flights. The Korea National Cup carried a KRW 700,000 buy-in and paid the top 14 percent of each flight through to Final Day and paying positions.

The broader festival is part of the Asian Poker Tour’s 20-Year Anniversary season and is the tour’s third series of the year. APT Incheon 2026 is the tour’s 18th visit to South Korea, its 7th stop in Incheon, and the 127th festival in APT history. The schedule includes 106 tournaments with buy-ins from KRW 200,000 to KRW 35 million and more than KRW 4 billion in total guarantees.

Flight A drew 236 entries and sent 34 players through, with Jeerasak Khumchanthuek bagging 626,000 chips, Mongolia’s Tuguldur Gantumur taking 552,000, and Haruna Matsumoto finishing with 438,000, which left her as the top-ranked woman and 8th overall heading into Final Day.

Flight B was the largest starting flight at 307 entries and produced 43 survivors. Ivan Govorov finished with 827,000 to take the overall chip lead, while Frank Zhang’s 600,000 put him fourth in the final-day counts. Flight C added 166 entries and 24 more survivors, with Yutao Zheng’s 610,000 good for third overall.

Tsubouchi came into the final table with a stack more than three times bigger than anyone else’s and never gave up the lead. He eliminated four of his eight final-table opponents, then closed the tournament in a three-way all-in that left Phuong Ngoc Nguyen second for KRW 47,710,000 and Ian Rudolph third for KRW 34,090,000.

The last hand saw Nguyen open from the button, Tsubouchi shove from the small blind, and Rudolph call from the big blind before Nguyen came along. Nguyen’s pocket sixes were ahead on the flop, but the turn and river gave Tsubouchi a runner-runner straight, ending the event without a single heads-up hand.

In APT’s live reports, Tsubouchi said the trophy mattered most to him. Poker.org also quoted him saying he had come for something closer to a Korean vacation with poker, and that the win left him wanting to travel overseas specifically to keep playing and improving. He said the final hand brought relief rather than excitement, and that finishing without having to play heads-up was just as he had hoped. The APT Main Event begins on Sunday, Aug. 9, with a KRW 1.5 billion guarantee.

Scott Aulds jumped out to the Day 1a lead in the 2026 San Diego Poker Classic $600 Main Event at Jamul Casino Resort, bagging 592,000 chips after a flight that drew 91 entries and sent 11 players on to Day 2.

Kyler Somer finished second with 500,000, and Robert Fortuno was third with 426,000. In the Day 1a recap, Somer was also the one who sent Robin Brown out on the bubble, while Fortuno used a late run to climb the counts.

PokerNews noted that Jamul Casino Resort has been kind to Aulds, whose The Hendon Mob page is loaded with first-place finishes. The report said he has won five RunGood Poker Series rings and four San Diego Poker Classic trophies at the venue, and Aulds said he is still trying to keep his success rolling on home turf.

“Last year I was chasing the trophies to prove a point to myself,” he said. “This year I’m chasing the money.”

The Day 1a report also showed Day 1b already underway with 76 entries. A later update put the second flight at 105 entries and 13 more players advancing, with Pablo Costorda taking over the overall lead through two flights at 699,000.

Matthew Gawel was next in that flight with 219,000, and Ricky Barraza bagged 151,000. Gawel has three titles at Jamul Casino Resort but has not yet won a San Diego Poker Classic trophy, while Barraza is still looking for his first Jamul title and has nearly $85,000 in live earnings, according to his The Hendon Mob page.

The tournament is being played with a $100,000 guarantee, a 30,000-chip starting stack, and unlimited re-entries, and players can enter all Day 1 flights. The top 12.5% of each field, rounded down, advance to Day 2, which starts at the lowest blind level used on Day 1.

The structure calls for 30-minute levels on Day 1, 40-minute levels on Day 2, and breaks every four levels on Day 1, plus a 10-minute break after Level 14. The schedule also called for Day 1c at 11 a.m. and Day 1d at 6 p.m. on Aug. 8.

Last year’s SDPC Main Event drew 375 entries and ended with Sebastian Acevedo winning $33,216 after an ICM chop with James Kozono and David Fernandez Sanchez, and the report noted that he could become the first two-time main event champion in SDPC history. Through two flights this year, Costorda’s 699,000 stood as the biggest stack in the room.

Lucas Jumalon has joined Poker Royalty as an ambassador after winning the 2026 World Series of Poker Main Event. The 22-year-old took home $10 million for topping a field of 9,208 entrants at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas.

WSOP said Jumalon beat Finland’s Lauri Saaskilahti heads-up to win the title and the World Champion of Poker crown. He entered the final table with 194 million chips as the overwhelming leader, and the last nine also included Rami Hammoud, Jamie Shaevel, Greg Mueller, Michael Gagliano, Mario Boos, Han Feng and Evagoras Evagorou.

Poker Royalty says it will represent Jumalon across sponsorships, endorsements, appearances, licensing and strategic brand partnerships. The agency’s roster already includes Daniel Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth, along with Jeremy Becker, Alex Foxen, Kristen Foxen, Josh Arieh and David Williams.

Brian Balsbaugh said Jumalon put on a wire-to-wire performance, pointing to the 9,208-player field and the $10 million score at 22 years old. Jumalon said his goal is to be “a real ambassador for this game,” bringing new people to the table and making poker look as good as it felt to win.

The timing of the signing is reported two ways. PokerNews described the move as coming after the win, while Poker.org said Jumalon signed with Poker Royalty on July 15, weeks before the final table began, and that the agency announced it the next day.

Before that, his largest tournament win was a Daily Deepstack in Las Vegas for $22,495.

The victory also made him the second-youngest world champion in poker history, behind only Joe Cada, who won the Main Event at 21 in 2009. YourValley said Jumalon graduated from Grand Canyon University’s Phoenix campus in April with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a minor in business analytics, and that he described himself as being “built to be an ambassador to the sport.”

PokerNews reported that 888poker has released Episode 1, “The Pilgrimage,” of its 2026 WSOP docuseries onto YouTube. The opening chapter follows Aaron Barone, Ian Simpson, Lucia Navarro, Nick Eastwood and Vivian Saliba as they make their way to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker Main Event.

There is one small wrinkle on the series length. PokerNews described “888 at the WSOP” as a six-part docuseries, while 888poker’s own magazine page called it a five-part documentary. Both versions frame the project as a road-to-the-WSOP series built around the five ambassadors.

Episode 1 is mostly about the trip itself. The chapter begins long before anyone sits down at a table, with the team facing long itineraries, including one flight from Newcastle to London Heathrow before crossing the Atlantic. Vivian Saliba was already in Las Vegas for a week before her teammates arrived.

The backdrop is the 2026 WSOP Main Event, described as a $10,000 buy-in tournament with a $10 million top prize and the title of poker’s world champion. The camera crew follows the group from travel mode into the Main Event.

The ambassadors bring different angles to the story. Barone said he never imagined the Main Event would matter much to him, but now it is his fourth year playing and he cannot imagine skipping it. He also recalled his first hand in the event, when he was coolered and dropped from a 60,000-chip starting stack to 45,000.

Navarro said this was her 10th year heading to Las Vegas each summer. She said she first came to the WSOP 10 years ago, made a goal of jumping into the Main Event if she did well in cash games, and followed through on that plan.

Simpson and Saliba focus more on the personal grind that comes with the trip. Simpson said leaving his wife and daughter is always hard, but that he knows he is doing it for them. Saliba said she is taking things day by day this year and feels more prepared than in past WSOP runs.

Eastwood uses the Main Event as a reset after a rough run in 2026. On the magazine page, he said the tournament gives him a chance to put his “horrendous results” behind him and remind himself that he is still a “half-decent player.”

New episodes will arrive every Saturday at 6:00 p.m. GMT, and Episode 2 will move into the “real business end” of the pilgrimage.