Jason Wheeler Wins PokerStars Open Barcelona Main Event

The 2026 PokerStars Open Barcelona €1,650 no-limit hold’em main event drew 4,333 total entries across eight starting flights. Jason Wheeler emerged victorious with the title and top prize of $847,960. This was the largest score yet for the American poker pro, topping the $671,591 he earned as the runner-up in the 2017 PokerStars Championship Prague main event.

The bracelet winner from Chicago, Illinois now has more than $6.7 million in earnings across 350 career cashes. In addition to the money and the hardware, Wheeler also scored 1,320 Card Player Player of the Year points as the last player standing. This was his first title and fifth final-table finish of the year. With 2,479 total points, he now sits inside the top 100 in the 2026 POY standings presented by CoinPoker.

The final day of the kickoff tournament for this year’s European Poker Tour Barcelona festival began with just eight players remaining from the sizable sea of entrants. Han Feng held the lead to start, while Wheeler sat in third chip position. The 27-year-old poker pro finished fifth in the World Series of Poker main event for $2,250,000 just a few weeks earlier. His dream of a world championship ended when the pocket nines of that event’s eventual runner-up, Lauri Saaskilahti, cracked his pocket aces in brutal fashion.