The 2026 WSOP Circuit Bratislava €1,500 Main Event has shattered records at Card Casino Bratislava. After the final two of the five opening flights concluded on Sunday, the Main Event attracted 1,160 entries to generate a €1,472,120 prize pool, blowing past the €1,000,000 guarantee and setting a new venue record. Last year’s edition drew 882 entries for a €1,039,216 prize pool. This year’s field is bigger by 278 players and €432,904 in prize money.
Italy’s Riccardo Trevisani leads the 175 players advancing to Day 2 with 1,600,000 chips. He is closely followed by Austria’s Shihong Chen with 1,300,000 and Romania’s Paul-Vlad Craciunas with 1,200,000. Day 2 gets underway at 2 p.m. local time. The winner takes home €235,000 and a WSOP Circuit Ring.
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A Record-Breaking Field
The record was already in sight after Day 1d on Saturday, when 337 players registered to push the running total past 900 entries. Day 1e on Sunday added another 203, bringing the final count to 1,160. Romania’s Paul-Vlad Craciunas led the Day 1d survivors with 1,171,000, while Poland’s Mateusz Szymanski topped Day 1e with 1,114,000. Both are in contention heading into Day 2, sitting third and fourth overall in chips.
The previous record at Card Casino Bratislava for any tournament was set by last year’s WSOP Circuit Main Event with 882 entries. This year’s field surpassed that by a wide margin and pushed the prize pool from a projected seven figures into genuinely life-changing territory for the winner. The top prize of €235,000 is the largest first-place prize in Card Casino Bratislava history.
For context: last year’s champion, Slovakia’s Robert Obrtlík, won €180,200 for taking down the event. Whoever wins on Monday will collect €54,800 more than that.
Day 1d: 337 Entries, Craciunas Leads
Saturday’s Day 1d was the biggest single flight of the series, drawing 337 entries and providing the moment it became clear that the €1,000,000 guarantee was going to be smashed. Romania’s Paul-Vlad Craciunas bagged the flight chip lead with 1,171,000, followed closely by Serbia’s Srdan Milicevic with 1,049,000. Slovakia showed up well in its home series, with Martin Bartos, Peter Kusnirik, and Jozef Cibicek all among the survivors. Czech Republic’s Michal Schuh, the runner-up at last year’s WSOP Circuit Bratislava Main Event who went on to finish third and collect €84,800, is back and bagged 413,000 heading into Day 2.
| Position | Player | Country | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Paul-Vlad Craciunas | Romania | 1,171,000 |
| 2 |  Srdan Milicevic | Serbia | 1,049,000 |
| 3 |  Rostyslav Sabishchenko | Ukraine | 821,000 |
| 4 |  Martin Bartos | Slovakia | 732,000 |
| 5 | Peter Kusnirik | Slovakia | 641,000 |
| 6 |  David Kozma | Hungary | 594,000 |
| 7 |  Myumyun Izet | Bulgaria | 588,000 |
| 8 | Alexandru Popa | Romania | 536,000 |
| 9 |  Sebastian Kos | Czechia | 519,000 |
| 10 |  Zonglei Zhao | China | 507,000 |
| 11 |  Jayson Midey | France | 494,000 |
| 12 |  Matte Karjalainen | Finland | 479,000 |
| 13 |  Tambet Nugin | Estonia | 447,000 |
| 14 | Jozef Cibicek | Slovakia | 445,000 |
| 15 | Dmitri Dudakov | Estonia | 415,000 |
| 16 |  Markus Bonus | Switzerland | 414,000 |
| 17 | Michal Schuh | Czechia | 413,000 |
| 18 | Martin Korman | Slovakia | 335,000 |
| 19 |  Sebastian Szychulski | Poland | 315,000 |
| 20 | Lukas Zaskodny | Czechia | 296,000 |
| 21 | Jakub Skurzynski | Poland | 295,000 |
| 22 | Alexandar Skobelev | Bulgaria | 293,000 |
| 23 |  Samuel Klocker | Austria | 289,000 |
| 24 | Zsolt Vasvenszki | Hungary | 271,000 |
| 25 | Gemanariu Traian Niko | Romania | 266,000 |
| 26 | Julian Primisser | Austria | 255,000 |
| 27 |  Roberto Agus | Italy | 234,000 |
| 28 | Paolo Erriques | Italy | 230,000 |
| 29 | Wissam Ouertani | Italy | 225,000 |
| 30 | Darius-Valentin Neagoe | Romania | 220,000 |
| 31 | Angel Dimitrov | Bulgaria | 207,000 |
| 32 |  Alexander Neumann | Germany | 204,000 |
| 33 |  Goran Mitrovski | North Macedonia | 203,000 |
| 34 |  Vitali Saviuk | Belarus | 201,000 |
| 35 | Sergii Karpov | Ukraine | 186,000 |
| 36 |  Daniel Craig | United States | 184,000 |
| 37 | Filip Filipovic | Austria | 180,000 |
| 38 | Cristian-Alexandru Veres | Romania | 178,000 |
| 39 | Marco Bognanni | Italy | 170,000 |
| 40 | Darko Svesko | Serbia | 169,000 |
| 41 | Alessandro Siena | Italy | 155,000 |
| 42 | Nicolae Suciu | Romania | 153,000 |
| 43 | Christian Zeindlhofer | Austria | 153,000 |
| 44 | Radoslaw Kopec | Poland | 152,000 |
| 45 |  Tor Sandstroem | Sweden | 140,000 |
| 46 | Robert Marcu | Romania | 120,000 |
| 47 | Michal Gadawski | Poland | 100,000 |
| 48 | Anh Do | Czechia | 87,000 |
| 49 |  Quentin Destoky | Belgium | 83,000 |
| 50 |  Georgios Dallas | Greece | 63,000 |
| 51 | Borislav Yosifov | Bulgaria | 57,000 |
Day 1e: 203 Entries, Szymanski Leads
Sunday’s final opening flight drew 203 entries to push the total field past 1,100 and set the new Card Casino record. Poland’s Mateusz Szymanski ran up a dominant 1,114,000 chip count to lead all Day 1e survivors, almost double the second-placed Hungary’s Bence Paris with 683,000. The flight had strong international representation, with players from 22 countries making it through. Three US players survived, Daniel Cabrera, Peter Fox, and Guy Taylor, continuing a trend of American players making the trip to central European circuit stops. Lithuania’s Jonas Lapinskas, familiar to Baltic poker regulars, bagged 54,000 as the shortest stack through the flight.
| Position | Player | Country | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mateusz Szymanski | Poland | 1,114,000 |
| 2 | Bence Paris | Hungary | 683,000 |
| 3 | Lukasz Gorzkiewicz | Poland | 593,000 |
| 4 | Patrik Jaros | Czechia | 531,000 |
| 5 | Janos Virag | Hungary | 490,000 |
| 6 | Alin Micula | Romania | 471,000 |
| 7 | Asko Muratovic | Austria | 455,000 |
| 8 | Bernard Larabi | Hungary | 450,000 |
| 9 |  Gabi Livshitz | Israel | 420,000 |
| 10 | Martin Sladek | Czechia | 417,000 |
| 11 | Peter Svoboda | Slovakia | 357,000 |
| 12 | Mark Gonzales | United States | 338,000 |
| 13 | Andreas Lundin | Sweden | 337,000 |
| 14 | Norbert Kerepesi | Hungary | 326,000 |
| 15 | Petr Lepka | Czechia | 312,000 |
| 16 | Daniel Cabrera | United States | 300,000 |
| 17 | Peter Fox | United States | 279,000 |
| 18 | Ferenc Vardai | Romania | 273,000 |
| 19 | Jakub Janosovsky | Slovakia | 212,000 |
| 20 | Beniamin Sumandan | Romania | 205,000 |
| 21 | Vasyl Kozlov | Ukraine | 203,000 |
| 22 | Dimitar Syarov | Bulgaria | 202,000 |
| 23 |  Jose Carrasco | Spain | 190,000 |
| 24 | Andrej Cintula | Slovakia | 182,000 |
| 25 | Guy Taylor | United States | 166,000 |
| 26 | Jakub Koleckar | Czechia | 130,000 |
| 27 |  Mark Adams | United Kingdom | 123,000 |
| 28 | Stephane Tortorella | Switzerland | 111,000 |
| 29 | Martin Muller | Austria | 64,000 |
| 30 | Gil Arenstein | Israel | 62,000 |
| 31 |  Jonas Lapinskas | Lithuania | 54,000 |
Top 10 Day 2 Chip Counts
| Position | Player | Country | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Riccardo Trevisani | Italy | 1,600,000 |
| 2 | Shihong Chen | Austria | 1,300,000 |
| 3 | Paul-Vlad Craciunas | Romania | 1,200,000 |
| 4 | Mateusz Szymanski | Poland | 1,100,000 |
| 5 | Srdan Milicevic | Serbia | 1,000,000 |
| 6 | Maksym Ronshyn | Ukraine | 1,000,000 |
| 7 | Lorenzo Arduini | Italy | 975,000 |
| 8 | Laszlo Janoszki | Hungary | 899,000 |
| 9 | Tomas Kubaliak | Slovakia | 837,000 |
| 10 | Rostyslav Sabishchenko | Ukraine | 821,000 |
Full chip counts for all 175 surviving players are available at the WSOP LIVE app.
Main Event Payout Structure
All 175 returning players ended their opening flights securing at least a min-cash of €3,000. Day 2 will play deeper into the money as the stage is set for the final two days with Tuesday’s eventual champion to be crowned on the Card Casino live stream hosted by this author, Jason Glatzer and poker pro, coach, and commentator Bobby James.
The winner will not only be entered forever into the poker history books as a Main Event champ but also go home with a record-breaking top prize for a WSOP Circuit in Slovakia of €235,000. This is in addition to the coveted gold ring and a package to WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas in December valued at $5,000.
| Place | Prize |
|---|---|
| 1st | €235,000 |
| 2nd | €155,000 |
| 3rd | €109,000 |
| 4th | €77,300 |
| 5th | €56,000 |
| 6th | €41,100 |
| 7th | €30,400 |
| 8th | €23,000 |
| 9th | €17,390 |
| 10th-11th | €13,740 |
| 12th-15th | €11,100 |
| 16th-23rd | €9,000 |
| 24th-31st | €7,450 |
| 32nd-39th | €6,260 |
| 40th | €5,360 |
| 41st-47th | €5,370 |
| 48th-55th | €4,660 |
| 56th-63rd | €4,160 |
| 64th-71st | €3,770 |
| 72nd-79th | €3,500 |
| 80th-99th | €3,300 |
| 100th-117th | €3,150 |
| 118th-177th | €3,000 |
Albania’s Adhurim Llajaj Wins the €770 NLH KO Bounty
While the Main Event flights were running, Albania’s Adhurim Llajaj topped a 91-player field in the €770 NLH Knockout Bounty to claim €6,305 from a combined prize pool of €28,665 in standard prizes plus €31,850 in bounties. Israel’s Ben Hershkovich finished runner-up for €5,260, with Armenia’s Mikayel Balabekyan third for €5,060. A notable heads-up at the final table saw two Armenian players finish third and fourth, with Armenak Abgaryan collecting €2,430 in fourth.
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Adhurim Llajaj | Albania | €6,305 |
| 2 | Ben Hershkovich | Israel | €5,260 |
| 3 |  Mikayel Balabekyan | Armenia | €5,060 |
| 4 | Armenak Abgaryan | Armenia | €2,430 |
| 5 | Ovidiu-Dorin Barna | Romania | €1,780 |
| 6 | Darko Vracevic | Serbia | €1,360 |
| 7 | Daniel Farago | Hungary | €1,080 |
| 8 | Dmytro Smyrnov | Ukraine | €900 |
| 9 | Brigitte Hauenstein | Switzerland | €790 |
| 10 | Peter Dekany | Hungary | €740 |
| 11 |  Timur Sattarov | Russia | €740 |
| 12 |  Johnny Hofseth | Norway | €740 |
| 13 | Andrea Agus | Italy | €740 |
| 14 | Simeon Tsonev | Bulgaria | €740 |
