Cash game expert Kostritsyn wins his first gold bracelet with $25k HORSE.

Alexander Kostritsyn defeated Ali Eslami in the WSOP $25,000 High Roller HORSE to win his first gold bracelet and $872,052 in prize money, marking his first live tournament winnings in eight years.。

With the 2026 World Series of Poker drawing to a close, 148 players have gathered in Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas for the final high-stakes event of the series: the #97:$25,000 High Roller HORSE. The tournament brings together the world's top poker players, all hoping to win one of the festival's most prestigious gold bracelets before the summer ends.

Ultimately, Alexander Kostritsyn of Russia emerged victorious, defeating Ali Eslami in a fierce heads-up match to win his first WSOP gold bracelet, his first recorded live tournament prize in eight years. This victory earned him $872,052 in winnings – the second-highest prize of his career.

Post-championship remarks

"I stopped playing tournaments full-time 14 years ago," Kostritsyn told PokerNews shortly after his victory. "It feels great. (The bracelet) is something I've always wanted. I'm so glad I got it."

Before shifting his focus almost entirely to cash games, Kostritsyn amassed over $3 million in live tournament winnings, including a victory at the 2008 Aussie Millions, where he defeated poker legend Erik Seidel heads-up to win $1,450,396.

Kostritsyn explained that he is now very selective about tournament selection, having played cash games until 4 a.m. the day before before registering for the event.

"I've only played four tournaments this year. But this win is a great buy-in for my cash games... I felt my chances were good from day two onwards. Well, I had a chance. I just tried to reduce my mistakes so I needed less luck."

Looking ahead, Kostritsyn said he has a “25% chance” to participate in the full WSOP next year – perhaps inspired by his first gold bracelet victory.

Event #97: $25,000 High Roller HORSE Final Table Results

Final Day Results

Among the 16 players returning to Horseshoe to compete against Paris Las Vegas for the title of this prestigious mixed event are Alex Foxen, Shaun Deeb, and Naoya Kihara—who are ranked first, second, and third respectively in the WSOP Player of the Year competition and are hoping to add valuable points to their leaderboard by the end of the Summer Series.

Within an hour, the final nine players were reached, with Qinghai Pan, Aaron Kupin, Maxx Coleman, Josh Arieh, Luke Schwartz, and William Kerkaert all failing to accumulate enough chips to reach the final table. Foxen was eliminated in the informal final table bubble after losing to Kostritsyn in a hand of Razz. This elimination prompted Deeb to personally thank Kostritsyn, as Foxen's exit significantly increased Deeb's chances of regaining the POY lead.

Deeb and Matthew Beinner entered the final table with the shortest stacks, and although they each tripled up early, Beinner was eliminated in ninth place and Deeb finished in eighth – which opened the door for Kihara to take the lead in the POY leaderboard if he could get on the podium.

After the shortest stacks were eliminated and a lot of big bets were on the table, there were no eliminations for several levels, during which Kostritsyn and Eslami pulled away from the others. Walter Chambers was eventually eliminated with a short stack—he put up a fight against Eslami in Texas Hold'em as the blinds rose, but was reversed on the turn and became the next player to be eliminated.

Julien Sitbon was short-stacked at one point, but he successfully doubled up multiple times, climbing past Ari Engel (6th place) and Yueqi Zhu (5th place), before ultimately losing to Kostritsyn in the all-in round and being eliminated in fourth place.

After taking the lead in POY, Kihara set his sights on winning his third gold bracelet this summer—making him only the third player in three years to achieve this feat, following Scott Seiver (2024) and Benny Glaser (2025). Unfortunately for Kihara, a bad board in Razz against Kostritsyn left him short of chips. Eslami then defeated Kihara with a flush in Stud, taking away his remaining chips and setting up a heads-up match.

Kostritsyn and Eslami started heads-up with nearly equal chip stacks, but after several rounds of all-in play in Kostritsyn's favor, he quickly gained a 2:1 chip lead. Kostritsyn continued to chip away at Eslami's chip lead, at one point leaving Eslami with only five big bets, but he managed to climb back up from the 2:1 deficit through a series of smaller pots.

After a short break, everything was going in Kostritsyn's favor. He first reduced Eslami's chip stack in the Razz round, then won almost all of Eslami's chips in a three-of-a-kind with Kings in a straight. Eslami successfully doubled up once, but in the next hand, he was forced all-in again and was eliminated after Kostritsyn made two pair—winning Kostritsyn his first WSOP bracelet and ending the tournament.

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