Salem gets the lot to win GGMillion$ title and first seven-figure win of WSOP

Naseem ‘Nick’ Salem won his first WSOP bracelet last night in Las Vegas as he took home the first seven-figure score of the summer in WSOP events, outlasting a final table including Chris Brewer and John Racener.

A thrilling end to the GGMillion$ Live Event #11 saw the first million-dollar plus top prize awarded at this year’s World Series of Poker. The 57th annual WSOP welcomed players to the first live GGMillion$ event on the summer WSOP schedule and a huge field of 627 total entries created a $5,831,100 prize pool.

While the online GGMillion$ often rewards satellite qualifiers with spectacular wins, the live version of the GGMillion$ event saw several top names populate the eight that reached the final table. The action began with a spectacular elimination. Alex Cruz Martinez lost a chunk of chips with pocket tens but the former WSOP Main Event finalist Cliff Josephy saw his tournament chances extinguished entirely. His pocket eights flopped a set, but so too did Chad Lipton’s pocket kings. Another king came on the turn to end Josephy’s event for $105,178 in eighth place.

Exits for Joey Weissman (7th for $138,802), Czech pro Roman Hrabec (6th for $186,562) and the former Main Event runner-up John Racener, who busted in fifth for $255,306, followed. Of the final four, that left Chris Brewer as the most experienced player still in the hunt for gold, so his exit after losing a coinflip to Martinez was crucial. Brewer cashed for $355,610 but Martinez rode that win all the way to a lead heads-up.

Two hands changed all that, with a flopped straight for Salem switching the lead and Salem building a formidable lead with house over house a few hands later. Martinez thought he’d found the perfect moment to double back into contention with pocket jacks but while his hand held through the flop, Nick Salem hit the golden turn card to finally become a WSOP Champion, just as Sergio Aido did in 2024 when he won the GGMillion$ Online bracelet and $1.9m.

Here's the hand in full:

A life changing turn!

It was the final hand of the GGMillion$ $10,000 High Roller and it all came down to this classic flip.

Salem secured his first WSOP bracelet and a career-best $1,089,964 payday. pic.twitter.com/Orr8sUW2DF

— WSOP - World Series of Poker (@WSOP) June 5, 2026

Salem claims maiden bracelet in rare tournament cash

Back in 2024, Nick Salem was runner-up in the Poker Hall of Fame Bounty event for a career-high score of $208,919. Almost two years on from that result, the frequent PokerGO Tour event player more than quadrupled that amount and took home his first WSOP bracelet after many years of trying. GGPoker will be pleased too, with other live events such as the GGMillion$ set in Northern Cyprus followed by this busy event in Las Vegas.

Cashing twice in the WSOP Main Event, Salem is more of a mixed cash game player and this result represents his first ranking cash of any kind in just under a year. Earning just under half a million dollars in tournaments from 1999 to this point in his career, Salem’s first WSOP bracelet comes with a top prize that triples his total earnings in ranking events.

There will be plenty more events to come at this year’s WSOP that offer a top prize of seven, or even eight figures. Nick Salem is just glad at having made himself a bracelet winner in Las Vegas and achieving a lifelong dream.

Here’s how all the finalists finished in the $10,000-entry GGMillion$ Live event.