Hossein Ensan is still in the hunt for a second Main Event title. The 2019 WSOP champion finished Day 6 of the 2026 WSOP Main Event with 17.7 million chips and returned for Day 7 as one of the players still capable of making a late run at the $10 million top prize.
Only 62 players were set to come back on Sunday, a number that turns every pot into a pay-jump decision and every stack into a survival plan. Ensan’s position mattered because he had already done this once before, and the field around him still included former winners, veteran pros and big-name holdovers trying to keep their title hopes intact.
Ralph Perry was briefly the story of the day after climbing above 23 million chips, but he closed with 13.7 million after the field tightened late. Shaun Deeb was still alive too, returning with 8.7 million chips even as his best path to WSOP Player of the Year likely runs through other events. That is the kind of pressure that now shapes the tournament: not just who can accumulate, but who can afford to keep playing deep in the Main Event while chasing something else.
The field had already thinned sharply by the time Day 6 began. Michael Mizrachi had joined Ryan Riess and Greg Raymer on the rail on Day 5, and Ensan was the last former winner left standing when play ended that day. The remaining table now included Todd Brunson among the top stacks, Will Givens still in the tournament after the attention on his drunken run of chips on Day 5, and Patrick Leonard, who finished with 6.1 million chips.
Ralph Perry’s presence added another layer to the race. He finished third in 2002, the year he came closest to the bracelet, and his old-school staying power still made him dangerous once the stacks got shorter. On Your Bike, the phrase tied to that 2002 run, now sits in the background of another late-stage Main Event push, with Perry and Ensan both trying to turn experience into one more deep finish.
What comes next is simple enough to say and hard enough to pull off: seven figures at the top, a shrinking field, and no easy chips left on the table. Ensan enters Day 7 with one of the cleanest stories in the room — a former champion still alive, still well stacked, and still close enough to make the final days of the WSOP Main Event 2026 his again.
