Belgian player Koen De Visscher won the 2026 PokerStars Open Namur Main Event, taking home a career-high €220,800. After a final table battle lasting over 11 hours, he defeated Henrik Veldhoen to claim the title.
The 2026 PokerStars Open Namur Main Event concluded at the Circus Casino Resort. The nine finalists engaged in an epic battle of willpower and top-tier poker strategy, culminating in a fierce contest lasting over 11 hours. Belgian player Koen De Visscher defeated Austrian player Henrik Veldhoen to claim the championship.
In fact, the real battle wasn't in the heads-up stage—because De Visscher already had a 10:1 chip lead after eliminating British powerhouse Andrew Hulme to finish third—but rather in the intense clashes between De Visscher, Hulme, Veldhoen, and David Docherty during the four-man showdown.
Docherty lost a bluff against Hulme and was soon eliminated by the same opponent. De Visscher, Hulme, and Veldhoen then battled it out in pot after pot, a contest that lasted over four hours before a winner was finally decided.
De Visscher maintained a lead for most of the time, but the opportunity to have both players simultaneously push large amounts of chips into the pot never materialized. However, he ultimately succeeded, emerging victorious from a field of 1,572 players to lift the prestigious Crystal Trophy and take home the €220,800 first-place prize.
2026 PokerStars Open Namur Main Event Final Table Results
| Ranking | player | country | bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Koen De Visscher | Belgium | €220,800 |
| 2 | Henrik Veldhoen | Austria | €138,500 |
| 3 | Andrew Hulme | United Kingdom | €100,300 |
| 4 | David Docherty | United Kingdom | €78,000 |
| 5 | Dario Quattrucci | Italy | €60,000 |
| 6 | Stan van Dijk | Netherlands | €46,000 |
| 7 | Nicolas Burtin | France | €36,000 |
| 8 | Sebastien Guinand | France | €28,000 |
| 9 | Lulei Hu | Italy | €21,558 |
This victory once again proves that De Visscher is still as sharp as ever. The former full-time professional player took a break from the competitive scene in 2012 for at least a decade to focus on his family and other interests, at which point he felt somewhat weary of the demanding competitive schedule. Since 2022, he has gradually returned to his original passion.
Post-championship remarks
De Visscher has won several six-figure prizes during his full-time career, but he confirmed this is his biggest ever, and winning it as the champion makes it even sweeter. "I'm very happy, today was really tough. I played incredibly well between 2008 and 2012, then took a ten-year break. I only slowly came back from 2022 to 2023, mainly playing in France. This is actually the first time I've played in Belgium in ten years."
"It was really tough. For me, I was extremely tired—I actually woke up at 3 a.m. and couldn't fall back asleep. The good thing was, I knew we were going to go deep, and I immediately realized it would go on until late at night, so I was mentally prepared. I knew it would be very difficult, facing different styles and types of players, and in the end, there were some very strong players. Especially Andrew, who I thought was the toughest to deal with, and David probably was too. I thought Stan would have been in danger, but I cooled him down early with an AK against his AQ. I heard he was really strong, and it seems to be true, so I'm glad he was eliminated early."
Speaking about Hulme, the champion said, "Andrew and I played very intensely, not always in big pots, but always stealing blinds, bluffing, and raising. We both know the ICM pressure when Henrik goes short. We played a lot of hands, but didn't want to go all-in easily, so sometimes you have to play pretty strange things in those situations. I think I handled it well, but I don't deny I had a lot of luck. To win a tournament of this size, you need luck—it's true in any tournament."
"Today was the same. I hit a lot of things on the flop, a ton of hands. I never really got into a tough spot—nobody raised me with a medium hand—everything went smoothly. I chose my timing wisely, and it turned out great."
"Obviously, nobody makes big mistakes. Henrik had some bad luck at times, and everything was on my side. Winning the coin flip against Andrew was key. If I had lost, we might have played until 5 a.m.! I think it was a standard call, but I really needed to think about it because it was the first time he had ever back-pushed all-in against me. But his stack got shorter, and the hand was too good to fold, and then the flop came up with an Ace."
"My career was just a very tight five years. It was really fun, and I achieved a lot, but I always felt that doing this full-time for a lifetime would be a tough life. So I traveled around, did other things, and had two children."
"My mindset is different now. I'm older—maybe because I don't have the same financial pressure as before. I can play when I want to, and if I don't want to play for two months, I won't. I occasionally study strategies, I've always been studying them, but I don't practice them like crazy anymore. But I know I can hold my own in tournaments of this level. What I'm trying to say is that for a €1,000 buy-in tournament, the structure is fantastic—basically the structure of the EPT Main Event, you have a lot of time. I was down to only 10 big blinds at one point, and I thought: no need to panic."
"I'm building a house, and this prize money should help me buy some furniture and take the kids on vacation. Fifteen years ago, I might have used this money to go to Las Vegas, but not now!"
Final Day Recap
Veldhoen entered the final table of the €1,491,828 tournament with a lead, not far behind Stan van Dijk and Nicolas Burtin, and had a relatively stable start.
Short-stacked player Lulei Hu was eliminated after losing to the champion with a smaller Ace, marking the only elimination of the first stage. In the first hand after the break, Sebastien Guinand was eliminated after losing to Dario Quattrucci in a coin flip.
Veldhoen won a coin toss to eliminate Burtin and maintained his lead. But De Visscher took the lead after Quattrucci folded following a cold 4-bet (the Belgian had KK at the time), and soon after he got AA.
Docherty doubled down with KK to pass van Dijk, who then conceded a poorly timed 4-bet all-in, resulting in his own loss. Shortly after, a brutal three-way Cooler erupted, with all three players going all-in pre-flop, eliminating van Dijk.
De Visscher, van Dijk, and Quattrucci all held strong Aces, but De Visscher had the strongest hand, while Quattrucci was the weakest. However, Quattrucci hit trips on the flop, winning triple, while De Visscher won a substantial side pot from van Dijk.
Hulme had been very quiet and almost never got any cards, but then things started to improve, and he climbed up the leaderboard by getting four of a kind.
Quattrucci's journey ended in fifth place, his 99 clashing with Docherty's AA. De Visscher then took a huge 3-bet pot from Docherty with two pairs, establishing a massive lead, and Veldhoen gradually widened the gap between himself and Docherty and Hulme.
Docherty had very few chips left and was eventually eliminated by Hulme, leaving De Visscher, Hulme, and Veldhoen with roughly equal chip counts.
This then led to a fierce three-way battle between the three top players, with no one looking like they were about to make a serious mistake. The lead changed hands several times, but Veldhoen started to fall behind after betting against De Visscher with the nuts.
Veldhoen suffered another blow when his hand ran into De Visscher's KK. However, the conditions for both players to take the risk never materialized. De Visscher eventually regained a significant lead after Hulme's failed heroic call, but Hulme quickly retaliated.
The crucial moment finally arrived: Hulme went all-in with a 3-bet on De Visscher's opening pot, only to lose in the coin toss.
After heads-up play, De Visscher won the first few pots, reducing Veldhoen to just a few chips, and ultimately won the championship with K-high against Q-high.
Veldhoen was equally delighted with his career-best result. After embracing the champion, he jumped down the stairs and into the arms of his GRND On Tour teammates, who had been cheering him on throughout the race.
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