WSOP remove shot clock for Main Event finale in Las Vegas
With just three days until the World Series of Poker Main Event final table kicks off, the WSOP have announced that the shot clock introduced for Days 7 and 8 of the World Championship will be removed for the remainder of the tournament.
In just 72 hours, the nine finalists will return to Las Vegas and the Paris Ballroom. Once there, they’ll take their seats and battle to become the 2026 world champion at the WSOP felt. It has just been announced that when they do so, it will be without the shot clocks that so dominated the preceding two days play in the WSOP Main Event.
It was after a controversial period of play on Day 6 of the fourth-largest World Championship in poker history that the WSOP tournament officials decided that a shot clock was necessary, as a player, Loren Klein, went into the tank for fully 15 minutes, leading to accusations of stalling. For the first time in 56 years of action in the Main Event - no play at all being present in the ‘voting’ year of 1970 - a shot clock was introduced.
Many players opposed the introduction of a shot clock, with the professionals remaining in the field perceived to have a big advantage. Their experience in marginal moments during high stakes poker tournaments would make it easier for them to make the right call in key spots, observers argued. As it turned out, the clock element didn’t help Brock Wilson, Shaun Deeb or the 2019 world champion Hossain Ensan, all of whom busted during those final two days of action when the final table of nine was formed.
Here's how the decision was announced by the WSOP.
Main Event Final Table Rules Update
After discussions with players and tournament staff, we’ve made the collective decision not to use a shot clock at next week’s WSOP Main Event Final Table.
As outlined in the Official Tournament Rules, players may call the clock if they… pic.twitter.com/TcFhOXNgm4
— WSOP - World Series of Poker (@WSOP) July 30, 2026
Right call or a ‘flip-flop’?
This year’s WSOP Main Event final table will kick off in Vegas on August 3rd, when nine players will battle to reach the latter stages and edge themselves closer to the $10,000,000 top prize and poker immortality.
“Congratulations on a very good decision,” the two-time WSOP bracelet winner Barny Boatman said on X.
Opinion is divided as to whether the late removal of the shot clock is the right decision or smacks of ‘flip-flopping’ between stances in order to please fans.
More likely and equally if not more important, with the final three days being screened on ESPN, will be to make the World Championship as dramatic as possible for the biggest Main Event audience in years and possibly to date on television. Viewers want to see moments that shot clocks can sometimes inhibit. Scotty Nguyen could hardly have told Kevin McBride ‘If you call, it’s gonna be all over, baby!’ if he’d had 30 seconds to act after the river card fell.
It is not clear yet as to whether the finalists were only just notified, or whether they have been studying for the final table with the knowledge that the shot clock element has been removed from play. Certainly, the spectacle changes without it. Players can now take as long as they like to make each decision and it will be on the final nine to ‘call the clock’ if they want to hurry an opponent to a decision at the felt.
This year’s Main Event has already been unique in that there has been a three-week hiatus between reaching the final table and playing down to a winner. Not the November Nine, but also not the relentless Main Event marathons of recent years. Now the shot clock has been removed, there’s nothing stopping this year’s Vegas finale being the most dramatic in many years.
