Michael Gagliano reached the WSOP Main Event final table and will return Monday in fifth place among the last nine players left in poker’s biggest tournament. The final table of the $10,000 buy-in No-limit Hold’em World Championship is set to resume at Horseshoe Las Vegas after a three-week break, with $10 million going to the winner and at least $1 million guaranteed to each player still alive.
Lucas Jumalon holds the chip lead, but Gagliano has put himself in position to matter when play restarts. He is 41, lives in Rockaway, New Jersey, and graduated from Rutgers with a degree in geology before working in an elementary school as a staff assistant and turning professional in 2009. More than $8 million in live and online tournament earnings, four career WSOP bracelets and a 2025 first-place finish in the WSOP Online Fall Bracelet Series underline how far he has come.
That run stands out even more because Gagliano did not arrive at this point with much of a Main Event history behind him. He had just two cashes in the tournament before this year, and his best previous finish was 148th place last year. In other words, he has moved from the outside of the event’s biggest stage to one of its central seats in a matter of days.
He also got there the hard way. On Day 8, with 15 players remaining, Gagliano doubled through Shaun Deeb with pocket 10s. Later, with 11 players left, he lost a big pot with ace-king against Greg Mueller’s pocket queens. The swings did not knock him out. They left him fifth in chips and still in the hunt as the field narrowed to the final nine.
Gagliano has spent years around the game in different roles. He said he had watched the tournament on growing up and called it the biggest and most prestigious event in poker, a dream stage for any player. He also worked as a poker coach beginning in 2010, including with Joe McKeehen, who won the Main Event in 2015. Gagliano said he remains friends with McKeehen to this day.
The return on Monday will decide how the money gets divided among the final nine and whether Gagliano can turn a deep run into the sport’s biggest title. ESPN2 is scheduled to show the Main Event beginning at 6 p.m. on a one-hour delay after the 5 p.m. start, giving viewers a front-row seat to the hands that will shape the endgame. For Gagliano, who has already outlasted years of uneven Main Event results, the next session is the one that matters most.
