Sam Soverel Leads the $100K High Roller With 5.775M at 17 Left

At 3:35 AM in the Horseshoe, Sam Soverel had 5,775,000 chips in the $100,000 High Roller. More than anyone else at the final 17, and more than enough to make the rest of the field uncomfortable.

Soverel is chasing bracelet number five. He already owns four. He has $11.2M in lifetime tournament cashes and 23 career final tables. And right now, in the most expensive open event on the 2026 WSOP schedule, he's sitting on a stack that gives him room to play every pot on his terms while everyone else at two tables calculates survival.

He already owns four bracelets, $11.2M in lifetime cashes, and 23 career final tables.

The Field He's Beating

The names that didn't make it to 17 tell the story of how brutal this one has been.

Artur Martirosian, a four-bracelet, ten-ring winner with $10.8M in lifetime earnings and 81 career final tables, busted before the redraw. That's not a recreational player getting outrun. That's one of the most decorated tournament grinders on the planet hitting the rail while Soverel stacks his chips.

Andrew Lichtenberger, who owns a bracelet of his own along with $12.3M in lifetime earnings across 45 final tables, also fell short. So did Emilien Pitavy ($2.9M lifetime, five final tables) and Vladimir Minko ($2.3M lifetime). The $100K High Roller doesn't hand out soft exits. Every elimination represents six figures in equity changing hands.

What Makes This Different

Soverel has been here before. Twenty-three final tables across a career that spans the highest buy-ins on the circuit. But the $100K High Roller occupies a particular tier in the WSOP hierarchy. It's the event where the best players in the world pay a price that filters out everyone who isn't entirely serious. The field is small, the stacks are deep, and the edges are razor-thin.

Leading that field at 17 remaining isn't the same as leading a 4,000-entry freezeout. There are no weak spots to exploit, no recreational stacks to run over. Every player still alive paid $100,000 to sit down. Every one of them has a plan.

Soverel's plan, apparently, is to have more chips than all of them.

The Fantasy Angle

For the $25K Fantasy contest at 25kfantasy.com, Soverel's deep run is already paying off. The team "Torching w/ TJ" (TJ Reid) has Soverel rostered and has locked 15 points so far in Event #36, with a ceiling of 130 if Soverel runs it all the way. At 17 remaining, there's still a long path to the bracelet. But Soverel is positioned exactly where you'd want your roster pick: chip leader with leverage over the entire table.

The ODB projection delta on a chip leader in a 17-player field with this buy-in is significant. Every bust from here pushes Soverel's locked points higher, and every pot he wins widens the gap between his fantasy value and the rest of the board.

What Comes Next

Day 3 will play down to a winner. Soverel will return with the biggest stack and the most hardware of anyone left. Four bracelets. Twenty-three final tables. $11.2 million in earnings that say he knows exactly how to close.

The $100K High Roller doesn't care about résumés. But if it did, Soverel's would be the one keeping the rest of the field up at night.