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Danchev Wins WSOP $25k Heads-Up For 2nd Bracelet

Dimitar Danchev won one of the biggest live heads-up poker tournaments of all time, taking down the 2026 World Series of Poker $25,000 heads-up championship for $800,000 for his second career gold bracelet. Danchev navigated through an expanded 128-player field, defeating Nikita Kuznetsov in the finals to seal his victory. The Bulgarian's first bracelet win came in a WSOP Online $10,000 heads-up event on GGPoker in August 2022, in which he won a $327,668 first-place prize. Along the way, Danchev won seven heads-up matches over three days. This $800,000 result is the fourth-largest of Danchev's career, behind his second-place finish in the European Poker Tour San Remo in October 2011, a career-best $1,859,000 for his 2013 victory in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure main event, and a 2024 Triton title in Jeju, South Korea. His total recorded earnings now sit at nearly $13.1 million. Danchev's latest win also came with 924 Card Player Player of the Year points, in the yearlong race presented by CoinPoker. That puts Danchev just outside the top 100 to this point in 2026. As one of 31 qualified events on the 2026 WSOP schedule, Danchev also earns 480 PokerGO Tour points, in his best-ever PGT result. He sits in 16th place on the season-long PGT leaderboard. For his run into the semifinals, Alex Foxen earned 180 PGT points, which puts him one spot behind Danchev on that leaderboard, in 17th.