The $2,200 Mega Sat Is Down to 51 — and Nobody at the Top Has a Résumé

Fifty-one players are grinding for Landmark seats past midnight, and the biggest stacks in the room have essentially no WSOP history.

The $2,200 NLH Landmark Mega Satellite — Event #389 at the 2026 WSOP — is deep into its final phase at Horseshoe/Paris. Five players sit atop the counts. Combined bracelets: zero. Combined rings: zero. Combined lifetime WSOP earnings that show up in the database: $7,619, all belonging to one person.

This is a $2,200 buy-in. These aren't freeroll survivors.

The Stacks

Thomas Laviano leads with 76,000 chips. No recorded WSOP cashes. Behind him, Yui Tsutsumi (Japan) holds 61,500, followed by Guang Chen at 55,000 — the only player among the leaders with any tracked earnings at all, at $7,619 lifetime. Ihab Monaim sits on 29,000. Issey Maeda, also from Japan, rounds out the named leaders.

Not one of them has a bracelet. Not one has a ring. Not one has a recorded final table.

Combined bracelets among the five chip leaders: zero. Combined rings: zero. Combined lifetime WSOP earnings in the database: $7,619.

Why This Matters at 1 AM

Mega satellites are where unknown players buy their way into the biggest fields of the summer. The Landmark is a premium event — and these seats aren't cheap consolation prizes. Whoever survives this grind gets a direct shot at a bracelet.

The fact that the chip leaders are ghosts in the WSOP database makes the final stretch more volatile and harder to read. No one at the top of the counts has been in this spot before — at least not at this level.

Forty-five minutes ago the field was at 54. Three have fallen since. Every bust from here reshapes the math for the survivors.

Stream runs until seats are awarded.