For the past week, the PokerGO Tour’s festivities around the 2026 U.S. Poker Open have been active, and it has provided some potential moments of history. Today marks the start of the Main Event of the USPO, the $25,000 concluding tournament, and it is expected that there might be a larger field of combatants for this prize than in other PGT tournaments. The race for the overall champion of the 2026 USPO also promises to be an interesting one, with a unique twist highlighting the race.
Sterling History to Event
Since 2018, the U.S. Poker Open has been one of the tentpole tournaments on PokerGO, the streaming poker channel, and eventually the PGT. Created to provide live product for the then-fledgling streaming channel, the USPO gradually became more important on the tournament scene simply because of the quality of players that stepped up. The overall champions of the USPO read like a “Who’s Who” of the “high roller” world, and many of these players are still competing today.
The inaugural event in 2018 was a coronation for the United Kingdom’s Stephen Chidwick. He would win two of the tournaments during the eight-event schedule, earning over $1.2 million across his five cashes and two wins to take the overall title. Since then, Chidwick has become the second-largest money earner in poker (behind Bryn Kenney), with lifetime earnings exceeding $77 million.
There is some controversy over David Peters’ history at the USPO. In 2019, Peters earned the overall title in the USPO, defeating Sean Winter to take the crown and $1.5 million in prize money. 2020 was supposed to be when Peters defended his title, but the COVID pandemic put the kibosh on that. Peters would just come back in 2021, two years later, to win the overall title again; technically, it was not “back-to-back,” but he is the only two-time winner of the overall USPO title.
Winter, Martin Zamani, Aram Zobian, and defending champion Shannon Shorr complete the roster of players who have seized the overall championship…but the battle to join that list in 2026 has been as exciting as the tournaments have been themselves.
Zobian Looks for Second Title, Ladies Showing Out
In the race for the overall title in the 2026 USPO, several stories are looking to make history. For much of the run of the schedule, two female players – Cherish Andrews and Kristen Foxen – have been in the Top Ten and viable contenders for the overall championship. It has been Zobian’s moves, however, that have seized control of the tale.
Andrews, perhaps realizing that she will never catch Foxen in the Women’s POY race without playing some higher-dollar buy-in tournaments like those offered on the PGT, came out of the gate on fire. Andrews won Event #3 on the schedule, a $5,000 tournament, and sat atop the standings until Brock Wilson won two tournaments later on the schedule. For Andrews, she still has a chance of winning the overall title, but she will have to win the Main Event to make it to the top of the mountain.
Foxen, seeing that Andrews was making a run, decided to stake her own claim to the overall title early in the USPO schedule. The Canadian pro won Event #4, the first $10,000 tournament on the 2025 PGT USPO roster, putting her in contention alongside Andrews for the overall title. Foxen has now drifted down the standings to tenth place and probably doesn’t have a realistic shot at getting back to the top slot on the leaderboard.
Zobian is poised to make the biggest impact, but he is going to have to fight for it. He is leading the penultimate event of the 2026 USPO, the $15,000 NLHE tournament, but he must vie with other contenders for the crown in current leader Wilson, Jeremy Ausmus, and Clemen Deng. Even if Zobian wins Event #9, there is still the Main Event to contend with after the end of the $15K tournament.
Zobian is looking to equal Peters as the only two-time winners of the USPO, but the road won’t be easy. He’s got to complete the deal with Event #9, then immediately jump into the $25,000 Main Event without hesitation. Wilson and Deng will probably do the same thing, but all three must contend with Jeremy Ausmus (currently second in the race) and Joao Simao (fifth), who can still lay claim to the title if those ahead of them falter. It should be an exciting two days of poker as the 2026 PGT U.S. Poker Open concludes.
