Photo Credits: WSOP
Jeff Madsen has another WSOP bracelet nearly 20 years after his breakout summer in Las Vegas. The 40-year-old won Event #20: $1,500 Dealer’s Choice at the 2026 WSOP for $161,057, beating a 656-entry mixed game field.
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Madsen first hit the WSOP stage in 2006 as a young University of California Santa Barbara student. He won two bracelets that year, made four final tables, and also ran deep in Omaha eight-or-better and stud eight-or-better events.
Two decades later, the Las Vegas based pro added a very different kind of win. Event #20 tested players across multiple poker formats, and Madsen started the final day near the bottom of the chip counts before turning the table around.
The bracelet also ended his longest WSOP title gap. His first two wins came in no-limit hold’em in 2006. He then won the 2013 $3,000 pot-limit Omaha event and the 2015 $3,000 pot-limit Omaha eight-or-better event before this Dealer’s Choice victory.
“Obviously, the first ones were just sort of like the dream, I was a kid with a dream. I had a little gap of seven years, but this is the longest gap. I felt like this is the best I have played in the last ten years,” Madsen told PokerNews live reporters after coming out on top. “It’s sort of a big weight off my shoulders again, because I have been putting a lot of work in. I’m just very excited and happy… on my 20th anniversary. It’s wild that it’s been 20 years already.”
Madsen began the last day eighth in chips with 10 players left at Paris Las Vegas. Philip Wess held the lead, while John Bunch, Nathan Gamble and Daniel Geyser left early. Madsen stayed patient, then gained momentum before dinner and took the lead with five players left.
The final stretch ran through several mixed games rather than one simple no-limit hold’em finish. Madsen knocked out Clayton Mozdzen in stud eight-or-better and later eliminated Dario Sammartino in badeucy. Wess sent Luteng Li out in third during Big O, setting up heads-up play with Madsen holding about a 3.5-to-1 chip lead. Madsen stretched that gap before the final pot in pot-limit double draw high, where his queens improved to trips and Wess missed a flush draw.
Wess earned $107,341 for second place, the largest live tournament score of his career. Sammartino, one of the biggest names at the final table, took fourth for $49,383 and moved past $18.2M in career earnings.
Dealer’s Choice remains one of the more specialist formats at the WSOP because players must handle a long menu of games. That gave the event extra weight for Madsen, whose early WSOP résumé already showed mixed game strength.
| Place | Player | Payout |
| 1 | Jeff Madsen | $161,057 |
| 2 | Philip Wess | $107,341 |
| 3 | Luteng Li | $72,042 |
| 4 | Dario Sammartino | $49,383 |
| 5 | Clayton Mozdzen | $34,588 |
| 6 | Kelvin Zhao | $24,766 |
| 7 | Robert Klein | $18,137 |